Word of the Day Archive
Monday May 7, 2001
apotheosis \uh-pah-thee-OH-sis; ap-uh-THEE-uh-sis\ , noun;
plural apotheoses \-seez\:
1. Elevation to divine rank or stature; deification.
2. An exalted or glorified example; a model of excellence or perfection of a kind.
Following martyrdom at the Alamo and apotheosis in song, tall tale, and celluloid myth, this bumpkin from west Tennessee [Davy Crockett] became better known and more revered than all but a handful of American presidents.
-- Mark Royden Winchell, Cleanth Brooks and the Rise of Modern Criticism
Plato's Athens, conventionally the apotheosis of civilized Western urbanity, endured Diogenes the Cynic, who (according to tradition) dwelt in contented filth under an overturned bathtub outside the city gates, heaping ribald scorn on philosophers and citizens alike.
-- Mark Caldwell, A Short History of Rudeness
Charles I's court represented the English apotheosis of this Renaissance ideal of kingship.
-- John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination
Apotheosis comes from Greek, from apotheoun, "to deify," from apo- + theos, "a god."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for apotheosis
