Hello. I'm new to AWAD and this is my first posting. I recently heard the word, hegemony, that I previously had only seen in print. It's a very strange word. My old standby dictionary didn't give me much info. Can any of you wordies offer details?
Hello Diane and welcome. I don't have a dictionary in front of me here, so my definition of "hegemony" may be imprecise. I understand the word to refer to a kind of absolute power or dominance, with perhaps a connotation for the psychological or cultural aspects of power, a sort of monopoly of ideas.
For example at http://slate.msn.com/Features/NaderMS/NaderMS.asp you can read an essay by Ralph Nader titled "The Microsoft Menace Why I'm leading a crusade to stop its drive for cyberspace hegemony."
I like Alex's definition better than that of my CD dictionary, which I can have running minimized all the time I'm in AWAD. It only cost ten bucks, and I find it a great help not to have to switch to a book.
Alex's definition is right on, although the word isn't limited to the psychological or cultural aspects of power or ideas. In international relations theory there exists one of my favorite nonsense-sounding terms: when talking about a global political structure where there is one superpower that keeps things from going completely to pieces (e.g. England in the 19th century, some might say the U.S. in the 20th century), the term used is "hegemonic stability." Always loved the sound of it, and the fact that it probably means nothing it all except to a small group of academics.
Although i've found it lacking for some of the more obscure words gleaned from this site, i have a m-w button right on my toolbar and use it *all* the time. you can download it at http://www.m-w.com/promos/button/button.htm.
it's a simple drag-and-drop installation, then all you have to do is highlight the word in question with your mouse and click on the 'dictionary' link that it places on your toolbar, and it will provide the definition in record time, with very little effort =)
About online dictionaries at your fingertips. Jackie told everyone about this eons ago and I've been using it ever since. Atomica (formerly Gurunet) is a great online program that functions as a dictionary (it uses American Heritage), thesaurus, encyclopedia, almanac, history book, search engine, translator, weather ticker, atlas, medical and science dictionary, and wondrous other reference materials. All you have to do is download it at http://www.atomica.com (it's completely free), install it and then you just alt+click on any word in any document on your computer. It will automatically pop up and give you info about the word, term, person, place etc as long as you have the internet on when you want to use it.
Excuse me for sounding like an advertisement, but I think this thing is great.
All you have to do is download it at http://www.atomica.com (it's completely free), install it and then you just alt+click on any word in any document on your computer
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