Word of the Day

Thursday, December 27, 2007

gnomic

\NOH-mik\ , adjective;

Uttering, containing, or characterized by maxims; wise and pithy.

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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."