• pedestrian •
Printable Version Pronunciation: pê-des-tree-ên • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: 1. Traveling on foot. 2. Commonplace, everyday, mundane, mediocre, boringly ordinary, so-so.
Notes: Although we list today's Good Word as an adjective, as we all well know, it is more often used as a countable noun, as in pedestrians. They generate pedestrianism, the preference to travel by foot rather than contribute to the drain on fossil fuels. We also have a verb, In Play: Today's extraordinary ordinary word does not have quite the sting of mundane, mediocre, or so-so, though it means the same: "Judy Side loves building her wardrobe but the clothes she chooses are so pedestrian!" You want to keep the pedestrian away from your palate: "Clay Potts must have slept in culinary school: I find his dinners no more than pedestrian." Word History: Today's Good Word was borrowed from Latin pedester, an adjective meaning "on foot, pedestrian", derived from pes, pedis "foot". The same root is visible in pedal. Few roots from the mother of Indo-European languages remained in so many descendent languages so long. It emerged as Sanskrit pad "foot", Russian pod "under", German Fuss "foot", and English foot. Of course, the Latin word survived in all its Romance language descendants, such as French pied and Spanish pie, Italian piede, and Portuguese pé. The Greek variant, pous, podis "leg, foot" was borrowed in the English words tripod, podiatrist, and podium. P.S. - Register for the Daily Good Word E-Mail! - You can get our daily Good Word sent directly to you via e-mail in either HTML or Text format. Go to our Registration Page to sign up today!
