This week’s theme
Words relating to religion

This week’s words
evangelical
epiphany
sacrificial lamb
parochial
judgment day


Next week
Autumn contributing membership drive

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(JUHJ-muhnt day)

MEANING:

noun:
1. A time when one is evaluated, especially for their actions.
2. In some religious traditions, the day when the world ends and God judges people, sending them to heaven or hell.

ETYMOLOGY:

From judgment, from Latin judicare (to judge) + day, from Old English dæg. Earliest documented use: 1544.

NOTES:

You might think it’s as simple as: Do good and you’ll go to heaven. Not so fast. In some belief systems what matters is not what you do, but what you believe. In others, God determines your destination, heaven or hell, before you’re even born. There’s predeterminism, predestination, double predestination, corporate election (yes, it’s a real theological term), and more.

• Predeterminism: The teacher wrote your final grade before you even enrolled.
• Predestination: The teacher decided who would pass before handing out the exam.
• Double predestination: The teacher pre-assigned both the A-list and the F-list on day one.
• Corporate election: The teacher grades the whole class as a block. You pass if you’re in the group, no matter how badly you flunked.

Yeah, people believe this stuff. To each his own. I’m with Albert Camus who said, “Don’t wait for the last judgment. It takes place every day.”

USAGE:

“But most of all, to a lot of kids, he is real, very real, which means that going to the mall to see Santa isn’t a photo opportunity. It’s judgment day.”
Emma Teitel; Santa Has a Dark Side -- as Kids Well Know; Maclean’s (Toronto, Canada); Dec 12, 2012.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: