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Jan 28, 2025
This week’s theme
There’s a word for it

This week’s words
psychrolute
empleomania
rupestrian
abulia

empleomania
Illustration: Anu Garg + AI

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

empleomania

PRONUNCIATION:
(em-plee-uh/oh-MAY-nee-uh)

MEANING:
noun: Mania for holding public office.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Spanish empleomanía, from empleo (employment) + -manía (mania). Earliest documented use: 1841.

USAGE:
“Then it dawned on me that Mr. Yang’s desire to become a scholar-official might not have originated only from empleomania. Driven to despair, he too must have thought of officialdom as the only possible way to live a life different from a futile intellectual’s.”
Ha Jin; The Crazed; Vintage; 2007.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one. -Colette, author (28 Jan 1873-1954)

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