Adiaphorous

[Dr. Goodword]

• adiaphorous •

Pronunciation: æd-i-æ-fê-rês • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: 1. Indifferent, neutral, immaterial. 2. (Medicine) Having no effect, doing neither harm nor good, as an adiaphorous medicine, a placebo.

Notes: The noun associated with today's adjective is adiaphory "indifference, neutrality". An object considered irrelevant to the Church or upon which the Church has made no decision as to its acceptance was once called an adiaphoron (plural adiaphora) but the word is rarely used these days. A palliative substance is one that relieves symptoms without curing or healing. An adiaphorous one has no effect at all, positive or negative.

In Play: Although we are more likely to meet this word in the world of medicine, many things in our lives are adiaphorous: "Kaye Syrah prepared adiaphorous meals for her family, meals that were not nourishing but caused no particular harm to partakers." So long as we don't live adiaphorous lives, though, we have nothing to fear of adiaphory: "Livingstone Gray spent all his father's money on an adiaphorous life that guaranteed he would be forgotten shortly after the reading of the will."

Word History: Today's Good Word is the English makeover of Greek adiaphoros "indifferent" made up of a(n)- "un-, not" + diaphoros "different" from the verb diapherein "to differ". Diapherein comprises dia "through" + pherein "to bear". Dia comes from the same root as words for "two" in most Indo-European languages, e.g. Latin duo and English two. That is it in Latin dis- "asunder", apparently meaning originally "in two". The Greek verb meaning "to bear, carry", pherein, comes from a Proto-Indo-European verb bher- with lexical progeny that can be found in every Indo-European language: English bear and burden, Russian brat' "take" and beremennaya "pregnant", and Latin ferre, whose root we see in such borrowings as infer, defer, and confer. (Lest our attitude toward Sue Gold of Westtown School be taken as adiaphorous, let's thank her now for suggesting today's very Good Word.)

[Slava]

I wonder if it's possible to live a truly adiaphorous life. Every little thing we do has some kind of effect on something or someone. On a historical level, sure, but at a personal interaction level?

[David Myer]

Interesting philosophical question there, Slava. It might be argued though, that in the long run, the most diaphorous life is ultimately rendered adiaphorous.

[Debbymoge]

David, how?
Expound, please?

[David Myer]

Well, in the long run, and I mean the very long run, humanity will cease to exist. So every human effort along the way is ultimately rendered ineffective and worth nothing. And of course, the way we are going at the moment, the very long run may not take as long as we used to think it would.

So whilst Slava's point about everything having an effect has some immediate veracity, in the larger scheme of things...

[Debbymoge]

Or, David, looking at it another way, with humanity gone, the effects of our presence will be forever irremediable, and so forever harmful.
Of course, no matter how you view it, it requires a judgement, and with no person left to judge, was it good or bad or just--- that which is?
Mother Earth will adapt and then, let us hope, the mistakes will not repeat.