Word of the DayWednesday, July 07, 1999
gnomic
\NOH-mik\ , adjective:1.
Uttering, containing, or characterized by maxims; wise and pithy.
Quotes:
A long pause, during which the group reflects on this gnomic pronouncement.
-- Ruth Shalit, "Send in the clowns", Salon, June 21, 2000
They consisted of strange, short, sometimes witty, sometimes gnomic, often semiautobiographical essays about architecture.
-- Geoff Nicholson, Female Ruins
But the young man's gnomic utterances -- that life is "a journey" and "a big circle" -- might reflect not Buddhist-tinged wisdom so much as the fact that he has been skating around in circles for years.
-- Gary Kamiya, "Flight of the wonder boy", Salon, February 14, 2002
Origin:
Gnomic derives from Greek gnomikos, from gnome, "intelligence, hence an expressed example of intelligence," from gignoskein, "to know."
