Word of the Day Archive
Thursday May 3, 2012
numen \NOO-min\
, noun:
Divine power, especially one who inhabits a particular object.
This “liquid” flowing up his arm and out of the other was numen, the divine substance, the sacred spirit that lives in a certain place in the body and sustains us all.
-- Jonathan Carroll, White Apples
He was now fairly confident that a shrine, unlike a temple, would contain no resident numen.
-- Dave Duncan, Present Tense (Round Two of the Great Game)
Numen is derived from the Latin word nūmen meaning "a nod, command, or divine will or power."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for numen
