• mendacious •
Pronunciation: men-day-shês • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Completely untrue or untruthful by nature, characteristically false or dishonest.
Notes: Mendacious refers to a general characteristic rather than a momentary state. A person can be dishonest about a single event without being characteristically dishonest. Mendacity is a persistent trait of a person or a fact. The adverb is mendaciously and the noun, mendacity [men-dæ-sê-tee]. If mendacious doesn't attract enough attention, try mendaciloquent instead. This word has the same meaning as mendacious but with the implication of an attractively elaborate lie.
In Play: Don't waste today's Good Word on friends who occasionally tell a fib; save it for those who live by fabrication: "The salesman from whom Carmen Ghia bought her car was as mendacious as a campaigning politician." This word may also be used to refer to the story fabricated: "I hope you don't believe all those mendacious tales Hillbourne tells about his romantic affair with the mother of the Blues Brothers, Bertha Dee."
Word History: Today's Good Word comes from Latin mendax (mendac-s) "mendacious", based on the noun mendum "blemish, error". Where the root of this word came from is something of a mystery. We do know that it is also found in Latin emendare "correct, amend" from ex "out of" + mendum. This word went on to become Old French amender, borrowed by English as amend. The same root also underlies Latin mendican(t)s "begging, beggar", the present participle of mendicare "to beg", from mendicus "needy, beggar". (We would have to be passively mendacious to hide our debt to Michael Oberndorf for suggesting today's Good Word.)
MENDACIOUS
- Dr. Goodword
- Site Admin
- Posts: 7442
- Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:28 am
- Location: Lewisburg, PA
- Contact:
MENDACIOUS
• The Good Dr. Goodword
Equal time
Balancing "good" words with "bad" ones, let's not forget veracious, the antonym of mendacious, and veriloquent, the antonym of mendaciloquent.
Feel better now?
Feel better now?
-
- Great Grand Panjandrum
- Posts: 4423
- Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 6:16 pm
- Location: Land of the Flat Water
-
- Great Grand Panjandrum
- Posts: 3333
- Joined: Wed Jan 03, 2007 12:41 pm
- Location: RUSTON, LA
- Contact:
-
- Great Grand Panjandrum
- Posts: 2784
- Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2006 4:41 am
- Location: Texas
-
- Great Grand Panjandrum
- Posts: 3333
- Joined: Wed Jan 03, 2007 12:41 pm
- Location: RUSTON, LA
- Contact:
Franciscans are heavily involved in Catholic churches around here. They only wear robes on official occasions. But I remember a time about 20 years ago when the KKK was out in their robes on the Jonesboro, LA courthouse for some kind of demonstration. My friend the local priest thought if they wanted robes, he would wrap himself in a more ancient and honorable one. He did so and showed up to engage them in dialogue for which they were totally unprepared.
pl
Return to “Good Word Discussion”
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: Baidu [Spider] and 26 guests