Inveterate

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David Myer
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Inveterate

Postby David Myer » Fri Aug 26, 2022 8:37 am

I used this word today and then suddenly realised that I didn't really know what it meant. So I checked and of course it was precisely the word I needed. How do we do that? How can we know the appropriate time to use a word whose meaning we don't really understand?

Having a long standing habit - an inveterate liar, enthusiast or shoe collector.

And now one of those odd coincidences: Having finished with this suggestion I scrolled down the other recent suggestions and found Grok.

Barbara says that it means 'to innately understand something'. So if I had read the other suggestions before making my own, I could have said: "How do we grok what a word means?"

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Slava
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Re: Inveterate

Postby Slava » Fri Aug 26, 2022 1:23 pm

You may well have known this one because you read about it here, and just forgot the fact.

A bit before your time, but it was also done even earlier here.

As for using words correctly without being able to define them, I'd say it's force of habit, or just the way we learn. How many of the words we use every day could we actually define?
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

David Myer
Grand Panjandrum
Posts: 1140
Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2009 3:21 am
Location: Melbourne

Re: Inveterate

Postby David Myer » Sat Aug 27, 2022 7:34 am

Oh dear. I did check to see if it had come up before, but perhaps only in the Suggestions page. Must remember to double check - in Discussion as well. Thanks for the link. Most interesting.

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Slava
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Re: Inveterate

Postby Slava » Sat Aug 27, 2022 9:16 am

Checking in Discussion is good, of course, but on occasion the Good Word doesn't make it there. The ultimate arbiter of whether or not a word has been done is the Goodword Dictionary. I gather that gets them all by default.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.


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