Alphadictionary.com

emanate

Printable Version
Pronunciation: em-ê-nayt Hear it!

Part of Speech: Verb

Meaning: 1. To issue (from), to spring forth (from). 2. To arise or originate (from), to come out of or from, to begin at. 3. (Transitively) To emit, to send or project outwardly.

Notes: Emanate offers several adjectives, but I would recommend only emanative, as someone with an emanative spirit of kindness. You may use emanant, but it sounds too much like eminent, imminent, and immanent, three other Often Confused Words.

In Play: Today's Good Word is quite flexible for it may be used intransitively: "As Ivan Odor knelt to ask Prudence Pender's hand in marriage, she noticed a smell remindful of salt herring emanating from his socks." It may also be used transitively: "By reading the paper regularly, Izzy Badenoff became aware that his old college had emanated many brighter lights than him into the world." Just remember that things emanate from some point of origin.

Word History: If an English word ends on -ate, it most probably started out as a past participle of a Latin verb. This time the verb was emanare "to flow out", based on the preposition ex "out of, from" + manare "to flow, run", referring to liquids. It is difficult to find relatives of this word elsewhere in the Indo-European languages. Middle Irish had a word, moin "moor, swamp", that is probably related. However, the root of manere does not seem to have survived in Germanic languages like English and German, nor the Slavic languages like Polish and Russian.

Dr. Goodword, alphaDictionary.com

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