Word of the DaySunday, April 16, 2000
egregious
\ih-GREE-juhs\ , adjective:1.
Conspicuously and outrageously bad or reprehensible.
Quotes:
But by failing to understand the asymmetry of commitment between the United States and the Vietnamese communists, they paved the way for committing the most egregious error a country going to war can make: underestimating the adversary's capacity to prevail while overestimating one's own.
-- Jeffrey Record, The Wrong War
Mr. Gordon says he does not particularly like President Clinton, who also gets lavished with high job-approval ratings despite egregious personal acts.
-- Maureen Dowd, "Streetcar Named Betrayal.", New York Times, February 24, 1999
Origin:
Egregious derives from Latin egregius, separated or chosen from the herd, from e-, ex-, out of, from + grex, greg-, herd, flock. Egregious was formerly used with words importing a good quality (that which was distinguished "from the herd" because of excellence), but now it is joined with words having a bad sense. It is related to congregate (to "flock together," from con-, together, with + gregare, to assemble, from grex); segregate (from segregare, to separate from the herd, from se-, apart + gregare); and gregarious (from gregarius, belonging to a flock).
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