Tuesday, October 30, 2012

quotidian



quotidian [kwoʊˈtɪdiən] a.

1.) Everyday; commonplace.
2.) Recurring daily. Used especially of attacks of malaria (The American Heritage Dictionary of English).

Etymology: Middle English cotidien, from Old French, from Latin quotidianus, from quotidia, each day: quot, how many, as many as + dia, ablative of dias, day.

"Tonight on The Report: death, sadness, despair, and disease; the myriad miseries of our quotidian existence; life as suffering; the world as sorrow; history as a nightmare from which no man can awake; and time as the dolorous thread doomed to perpetually circumnavigate—in ever wider circles—the pool of fate. Jon?" (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Steve Bodow (Head Writer), March 29 2007).

(L'Absinthe, Edgar Degas, 1876)

6 comments:

Meri said...

I should use this one on a quotidian basis...

Bibi said...

Oh I would write this as in French, "quotidien". Somehow it looks weird with the "a".

"Used especially of attacks of malaria" <-- so random. Why not the flu, or the common cold?

---
ryc: I never have bad ideas for a post.

Now, let's test that search bar.... Well what do you know! It does what you said it does! Well well well... I thought it was one of those "search the internet for blogs containing the word [insert whatever]"-thingies. Never even bothered testing it until today.

Debra She Who Seeks said...

Nothing quotidian about Hurricane Sandy.

D4 said...

I dig like this one. Super ultra fancy, but I've been needing that for these basic ideas. Thanks!

Poke The Rock said...

I think I can manage pronouncing that one without breaking my mouth

Dear Girl Wallflower said...

thanks for the new word, listed in my notebook!

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