Word of the Day Archive
Saturday February 16, 2002
pronunciamento \pro-nun-see-uh-MEN-toe\ , noun:
1. A proclamation or manifesto; a formal announcement or declaration.
2. A pronouncement.
This was, then, not merely the official closing statement of a lost war, but the opening pronunciamento of an urgent campaign to maintain imperial control as well as social and political stability in a shattered nation.
-- John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II
The general secretary issued a pronunciamento, in which traditional clotted cliches somehow turned into a kind of poetry, both majestic and absurd.
-- Peter Simple, "Comment: Lost", Daily Telegraph, September 10, 1999
It was said of her, by a man given to such pronunciamentos, that " in conversation she had more wit than any other person, male or female."
-- Jonathan Yardley, "Ladies of the Grand Tour", Washington Post, December 16, 2001
Pronunciamento comes from Spanish pronunciamiento, from pronunciar, "to pronounce," from Latin pronuntiare, from pro-, "forth" + nuntiare, "to announce," from nuntius, "messenger."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for pronunciamento
