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🗓️ 19 September 2023
⏱️ 2 minutes
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 19, 2023 is:
pontificate • \pahn-TIF-uh-kayt\ • verb
To pontificate is to speak or express an opinion about something in a pompous or dogmatic way.
// Stan loves to hear himself talk and will often pontificate on even the most trivial issues.
Examples:
"Fact is, you can find good pizza from Memphis to Salt Lake City. But you have to look a lot harder than you do in Orlando. So, stop with this nonsense already. Similarly, let's abandon the absolutes. This place is THE BEST. That place is THE WORST. These things are entirely subjective and ranted about on the internet by a small but exhaustingly vocal contingent of zealots, many of whom I suspect enjoy pontificating far more than they enjoy pizza." — Amy Drew Thompson, The Orlando (Florida) Sentinel, 8 June 2023
Did you know?
We hate to drone on, so we’ll give you the TL;DR on pontificate. In ancient Rome, a pontifex (plural pontifices) was a member of an important council of priests. With the rise of Catholicism, the title pontifex was transferred to the Pope and to Catholic bishops. From pontifex, by way of Medieval Latin, comes the English verb pontificate, which in the early 1800s meant “to officiate as a pontiff”—that is, as a bishop or Pope. (Note that the noun pontificate), which refers to the state, office, or term of office of a pontiff had been borrowed directly from Latin in the 15th century.) By the late 1800s, pontificate was also being used derisively for lay individuals who spoke as if they had the authority of a member of the clergy. To this day the word connotes an air of spurious superiority—one might consider this sense of pontificate to be the spiritual forerunner of mansplain.
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0:00.0 | It's Merriam Webster's Word of the Day for September 19th. |
0:11.3 | Today's word is pontificate spelled P-O-N-T-I-F-I-C-A-T-E. Pontificate is a verb. |
0:20.3 | To pontificate is to speak or express an opinion about something in a pompous or dogmatic |
0:25.7 | way. |
0:26.7 | Here's the word used in a sentence from the Orlando Sentinel by Amy Drew Thompson. |
0:31.7 | Fact is, you can find good pizza from Memphis to Salt Lake City, but you have to look a lot |
0:37.5 | harder than you do in Orlando. |
0:40.0 | So stop with this nonsense already. |
0:42.5 | Similarly, let's abandon the absolutes. |
0:45.2 | This place is the best. |
0:46.5 | That place is the worst. |
0:48.5 | These things are entirely subjective and ranted about on the internet by a small but exhaustingly |
0:53.9 | vocal contingent of zealots. |
0:56.1 | Many of whom I suspect enjoy pontificating far more than they enjoy pizza. |
1:02.4 | We hate to drone on, so we'll give you the too long didn't read on pontificate. |
1:07.7 | In ancient Rome, a pontifex was a member of an important council of priests. |
1:14.1 | With the rise of Catholicism, the title pontifex was transferred to the Pope and to Catholic |
1:19.8 | bishops. |
1:21.2 | Some pontifex by way of medieval Latin comes the English verb pontificate, which in the |
1:27.4 | early 1800s meant to officiate as a pontiff, that is, as a bishop or Pope, note that the |
1:35.1 | noun pontificate, which refers to the state office or term of office of a pontiff, had |
1:41.0 | been borrowed directly from Latin in the 15th century. |
... |
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