=Hebetude:hebetude \HEB-uh-tood-; -tyood\, noun:
Mental dullness or sluggishness.
William Hazlitt considered Wordsworth's success an accident of history. "Had he lived in any other period ... he would never have been heard of. As it is, he has some difficulty to contend with the hebetude of his intellect."
-- Cristina Nehring, "The Gang: Coleridge, The Hutchinsons & The Wordsworths In 1802." (Review), American Scholar, June 22, 2001
Earlier on, when we merely democratized fame, we defended the right of any mouth-breather to rise from deserved obscurity on the strength of his God-given hebetude.
-- Florence King, "The misanthrope's corner", National Review, May 18, 1998
From that solitude, full of despair and terror, he was torn out brutally, with kicks and blows, passive, sunk in hebetude.
-- Joseph Conrad, Nostromo
Hebetude derives ultimately from Latin hebes, "blunt, dull, mentally dull, sluggish, stupid." The adjective form is hebetudinous.
(courtesy Dictionary.com)
hebetude
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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hebetude
-----please, draw me a sheep-----
- Slava
- Great Grand Panjandrum
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I must be mentally dull or sluggish. Can you believe I've always pronounced this as HE-be-tood? Perhaps by analogy with heebie-jeebies? Too bad the meanings don't line up much, eh?
Excellent word, though, despite my bad language.
Excellent word, though, despite my bad language.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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- Slava
- Great Grand Panjandrum
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I'm curious, how would you compare or match up the meanings of heebie-jeebies with hebetude?I have no problem with the meanings.
As in, how does "a condition of extreme nervousness caused by fear, worry, strain, etc.; the jitters; the willies," not differ wildly from mental dullness or sluggishness?
(Quote from dictionary.com)
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
- Posts: 4423
- Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 6:16 pm
- Location: Land of the Flat Water
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