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A.Word.A.Day--weltschmerz

Pronunciation Sound Clip RealAudio

This week's theme: words borrowed from German.

weltschmerz (VELT-shmerts) noun

World weariness; pessimism, apathy, or sadness felt at the difference between physical reality and the ideal state.

[From German Weltschmerz, from Welt (world) + Schmerz (pain).]

See more usage examples of weltschmerz in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

-Anu Garg (garg AT wordsmith.org)

"I hate being told to have a good time! I'll feel the weltschmerz if I want to." Mari Sasano; Things to Do Today; Edmonton Journal (Canada); Dec 3, 2005.

X-Bonus

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. -Herbert Alexander Simon, economist, Nobel laureate (1916-2001)

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