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May 8, 2025
This week’s themeWords with all the vowels This week’s words questionary cylindraceous autocephality ![]() ![]() Illustration: Anu Garg + AI
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with Anu Gargautocephality
PRONUNCIATION:
MEANING:
noun: Self-rule.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek auto- (self) + -cephal (head).
NOTES:
Autocephality is a fancy word for self-governance. It’s especially
used in the context of Eastern Orthodox Churches that independently govern
their spiritual affairs without a higher ecclesiastical authority. Think
of it as running their own spiritual show. No higher-ups pulling the incense
strings. Not to be confused with autocephalopods. Those would be self-governing squids. USAGE:
“Autocephality in Bulgaria and the rest of the Balkans made the churches
a tool for nationalist propaganda and war in the nineteenth century.” Alex Moldovan ; The Orthodox Church and a Very Balkan Affair; OpenDemocracy (London, UK); Nov 5, 2018. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of
opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of
increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to
all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear. -Harry
S. Truman, 33rd US president (8 May 1884-1972)
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