Velleity

[Dr. Goodword]

• velleity •

Pronunciation: vê-lee-ê-tee • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: The slightest hint of a desire or wish, an inclination.

Notes: Today's Good Word is yet another lexical orphan, a word without any derivational family. We do find copies of it in all the Romance languages: Italian velleità, Spanish veleidad, and Portuguese veleidade.

In Play: Remember, a velleity is only the hint of a wish or desire: "I don't have the faintest velleity to go out with Clara Sill, let alone marry her." Velleities abound in higher places: "Congress doesn't seem to have the slightest velleity to get to work on the nation's problems."

Word History: Today's Good Word was borrowed from Latin velleitas, a derivation of velle "to wish, want". It comes from the Proto-Indo-European root, wel-/wol- "wish, will". Anyway, both developed in German as wollen "to want", but ich will "I want". Only the form with the E arrived in Old English and resulted in will in all its various senses. The PIE word came to Latin, too, in both forms. The O-form ended up in voluntarius "voluntary, freely desiring", voluptuosus "bringing pleasure, the desirous", and malevolen(t)s "malevolent, ill-wishing"—all of which were borrowed by English, either directly or via French. (We have much more than a velleity to thank Roger A. Meyer for thinking of alphaDictionary when he came across today's very Good Word.)

[George Kovac]

VELLEITY, PIETY AND THE LAST PAGAN

In the early fourth century CE, Emperor Constantine established Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire. Several decades later, Emperor Julian, during his brief reign (361-363 CE), tried to reverse the Christianization of the Empire and reestablish the pagan observance of the traditional Roman gods. Julian’s initiative found little traction and Christianity triumphed.

Who knows how long isolated pockets of pagan observance persisted beyond the fourth century? What went through the mind of the last person to subscribe to pagan religion? Was the last pagan pious and adamant in his or her faith, convinced that the rest of the human race had gone mad with sacrilege? Or was the last pagan riddled with doubt, self-consciously attached to the old religion with only the slightest velleity?

[David Myer]

Interesting rhetorical questions there, George.

But who says the last pagan has died? Seems to me that they abound today.


"Pagan: a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main or recognized religions." Says google, anyway.


Once atheism becomes more predominant than the next biggest religion in any particular area, then surely by definition those 'minor' religions all become pagan.

There must be many places where atheists outnumber their neighbours? Certainly where I live in Australia, atheists would be permitted to claim Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews and Buddhists are all pagans.

And if we broaden it beyond religions to say, cultural beliefs, then pagans abound - flat earth societies, conspiracy theorists, anti-Darwinians, anti-vaxxers... all belief groups that are in the minority, and so by definition, must be pagan.

I hope this doesn't ruffle feathers; there is nothing vindictive in this. I am merely playing semantics. Probably everyone has some beliefs that are not held by the majority.

In answer to George's last question, I would suggest that the whole point about a pagan is that he or she believes. There is no room for self doubt. Umm... is there?