This week’s theme
Adjectives

This week’s words
acerbic
polemical
orectic
wrackful
homiletic

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(hom-uh-LET-ik)

MEANING:

adjective:
1. Relating to a homily.
2. Relating to homiletics (the art of preaching).
3. Preachy.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek homiletikos (affable), from homilein (to talk with), from homilos (crowd), from homou (together). Ultimately from the Indo-European root sem- (one), which also gave us simultaneous, assemble, simple, Sanskrit sandhi (union), Russian samovar (a metal urn, literally, self-boiler), and Greek hamadryad (a wood nymph, who lives in a tree and dies when the tree dies), dissimulate, and simulacrum. Earliest documented use: 1644.

USAGE:

“There is indeed, in the homiletic pacing of his prose, a discernibly churchy whiff.”
Houman Barekat; Tumbleweed Trajectories; Financial Times (London, UK); Sep 2, 2017.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: