Word of the Day Archive
Wednesday May 23, 2012
chrestomathy \kres-TOM-uh-thee\
, noun:
A collection of selected literary passages.
I had learned to read Sanscrit and to translate easy passages in the chrestomathy, and devoted myself with special zeal to the study of the Latin grammar and prosody.
-- Georg Ebers, The Story of My Life from Childhood to Manhood
This little chrestomathy preserves almost the only words of Atticus to have survived from antiquity.
-- Peter White, Cicero in Letters
Chrestomathy literally means "useful to learn" in Greek, from the roots chres- meaning "to use" and math- meaning "to learn."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for chrestomathy
