This week’s theme
Words related to space

This week’s words
saturnalia
meteoric
venery
tellurian
constellate

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(VEN-uh-ree)

MEANING:

noun:
1. The practice or pursuit of sexual pleasure.
2. Hunting.

ETYMOLOGY:

For 1: From Latin veneria, from venus (desire, love). Venus was the goddess of love and beauty in Roman mythology who gave her name to the planet Venus. Earliest documented use: 1497.
For 2: From Old French venerie, from vener (to hunt). Earliest documented use: 1330. In olden times one was supposed to know the terms of venery.
Ultimately both senses are from the Indo-European root wen- (to desire or to strive for), which is also the source of wish, win, overweening, venerate, venison, banyan, wonted, venial, and ween. Earliest documented use: 1330.

USAGE:

“Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.”
Benjamin Franklin; The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin; J. Parsons; 1793.

“In those days true dedication to venery meant having your own hunting pack.”
Philip Bowern; Hunting the Hills of Devon; The Western Morning News (Plymouth, UK); Dec 17, 2012.

See more usage examples of venery in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: