Word of the Day!

atelier [at-l-yey, at-l-yey]

noun:
a workshop or studio, especially of an artist, artisan, or designer


Examples:

The building, significant for its cultural and historical value, faces an uncertain future, prompting initiatives for its conservation. Kotaro Takamura, a pivotal figure in Japanese art and poetry, used this atelier as his creative sanctuary until his death in 1956. (Sakchi Khandelwal, Preservation Push for Kotaro Takamura's Historic Atelier in Tokyo Amid Uncertain Future, bnn, February 2023)

"“My father is a very modest man, never seeking any glory or fame or accolades," Carole Chervin said during an interview at Carvin French, the fine jewelry atelier in New York co-founded by her father, André Chervin. (Amy Elliott, Jeweler's 'Creative Outlets' to Shape New Exhibition, The New York Times, July 2023)

Stone’s BAFTAs dress and her British Vogue Fashion and Film party look are the latest homages to come out of Nicolas Ghesquière’s imaginative atelier. (Alice Newbold, Emma Stone’s Custom Peach BAFTAs Gown Took 450 Hours to Perfect, Vogue, February 2024)

Above this floor was a large atelier, which had been increased in size by pulling down the partitions - a pandemonium, in which the artist and the dandy strove for preeminence. (Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo)

Joe and Delia met in an atelier where a number of art and music students had gathered to discuss chiaroscuro, Wagner, music, Rembrandt's works, pictures, Waldteufel, wall paper, Chopin and Oolong. (O Henry, 'A Service Of Love')

Origin:

'workshop,' especially the workroom or studio of a sculptor or painter, 1840, from French atelier 'workshop,' from Old French astelier '(carpenter's) workshop, woodpile' (14c.), from astele 'piece of wood, a shaving, splinter,' which is probably from Late Latin hastella 'a thin stick,' diminutive of hasta 'spear, shaft' (Online Etymology Dictionary)

adumbration [ad-uhm-brey-shuhn]

noun:
1 a shadow or faint image of something
2 a foreshadowing of or precursor to something
3 concealment or overshadowing

Examples:

Ultimately, this work represents an adumbration for the organization of the hero’s journey, the Quest, as a way to give meaning, purpose, and focus to organizational life. (Nick Morgan, Nancy Duarte And Patti Sanchez Show How To Ignite Change, Forbes, June 2016)

As breezily self-confident as its eponymous heroine, 'Catherine Called Birdy' crucially departs from the original text in the film's final act, a paean to female independence and an adumbration of the change about to take place with the rise of the Renaissance. (Ann Hornaday, 'Catherine Called Birdy' is a sprightly critique of the patriarchy, The Washington Post, September 2022)

He was stayed in a peace that drained his mind, for even a false adumbration of the world of the spirit is better than none at all. (Cormac McCarthy, Suttree)

It held a pulsing adumbration, a suggestion of muted, yet purposeful rhythm, and overshadowing all, an air of black, impinging revelation. The simultaneous effect upon my consciousness was one of those reactions misnamed intuitions. (Robert Bloch, The Secret in the Tomb)

For death is always in the shadow of the delight of love. In faint adumbration there is present the dread, haunting question, Will this new relationship destroy us? (Rollo May, Love and Will)

In modern times the belief that the ultimate explanation of all things was to be found in Newtonian mechanics was an adumbration of the truth that all science, as it grows towards perfection, becomes mathematical in its ideas. (Alfred North Whitehead, An Introduction to Mathematics)

The afternoon and evening that followed were tinged as by the tyrannous adumbration of an ill dream. I felt that I had stepped from the solid earth into a gulf of seething, menacing, madness-haunted shadow, and was lost henceforward to all rightful sense of location or direction. (Clark Ashton Smith, The Hunters from Beyond)

Origin:

1550s, 'faint sketch, imperfect representation,' from Latin adumbrationem (nominative adumbratio) 'a sketch in shadow, sketch, outline,' noun of action from past-participle stem of adumbrare 'to cast a shadow, overshadow,' in painting, 'represent (a thing) in outline,' from ad- 'to' + umbrare 'to cast in shadow' (from PIE root andho- 'blind; dark'). (Online Etymology Dictionary)

apotheosis [uh-poth-ee-oh-sis, ap-uh-thee-uh-sis]

noun:
1 the elevation or exaltation of a person to the rank of a god
2 the ideal example; epitome; quintessence

Examples:

'Accidental Gods' is not so much a chronology as an atlas of deification, but Subin nonetheless begins by tracing a history of the idea of apotheosis. In ancient Greece, only gods made other gods, mostly through procreation, but sometimes mortals were deified, too, in a kind of social climbing that could be accomplished through luck (e g, Glaucus), feats of strength (e g, Herakles), or marriage (e g, Ariadne, Psyche, et al) (Casey Cep, Should We Believe the Stories of Men Mistaken for Gods?, The New Yorker, December 2021)

He reaches his spiritual apotheosis when he dies. (Alison Croggon, Cloudstreet review - play is big on spectacle but can't solve the problems of Tim Winton's novel, The Guardian, May 2019)

We might have reached the apotheosis of 'iconic' if a candy texture is 'iconic'. Have you had a Starburst lately? It's like chewing on a wet paper. I suppose that's iconic, as well. (James Lileks, Mustard in Skittles is the devil's work, StarTribune, July 2023)

Saintcrow combines Nat's katabasis into the underworld of American divinity with her journey towards apotheosis, bringing them both together in three days and nights in the salt-black tree of the title, from which Nat will emerge either fully a divinity or - sacrificed to fuel her mother's survival - not at all. (Liz Bourke, The Salt-Black Tree by Lilith Saintcrow: Apotheosis in America, The Guardian, August 2023)

In the maidenly beauty of her eighteenth spring, the young girl's glance wanders dreamily over the apotheosis of the setting sun. (Camille Flammarion, Urania)

She disappeared in a kind of sulphurous apotheosis, and when a few years later Medora again came back to New York, subdued, impoverished, mourning a third husband, and in quest of a still smaller house, people wondered that her rich niece had not been able to do something for her. (Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence)

Origin:

'deification,' 1600s, from Late Latin apotheosis 'deification,' especially of an emperor or royal person, from Greek apothéōsis, from apotheoûn 'deify, make (someone) a god,' from apo, meaning, here, 'change' + theos 'god' (from PIE root dhes-, forming words for religious concepts) (Online Etymology Dictionary)

Among the ancient Greeks, it was sometimes thought fitting to grant someone 'god' status. Hence the word apothéōsis, from the verb apotheóō or apotheoûn, meaning 'to deify.' (All are rooted in Greek theós, meaning 'god,' which we can also thank for such religion-related terms as theology and atheism.). There's not a lot of literal apotheosizing to be had in modern English, but apotheosis is thriving in the 21st century. It can refer to the highest or best part of something, as in 'the celebration reaches its apotheosis in an elaborate feast,' or to a perfect example or ultimate form, as in 'a movie that is the apotheosis of the sci-fi genre.' (Merriam-Webster)

acidulous [uh-sij-uh-luhs]

adjective:
1 slightly sour
2 sharp; caustic

Examples:

From time to time papa tried his hand at making risotto, preferring those with acidulous fruit - strawberries, peaches, grapes - and even made some with champagne. (Francesco Bianchini, Of Risotto and Soufflé, Classic Chicago Magazine, June 2022)

If Cope lacks the acidulous wit that seasons Byron’s best, his narrative is marked by an absence of the condescension that occasionally colours the latter’s work. (Shoumojit Banerjee, Rapture on the Eurasian steppe, The Hindu, May 2016)

They saluted a journalist, a constant scribbler, an acidulous wordsmith who specialised in counterintuitive destruction. Yet, it turned out, even his victims seemed to love him: for his turn of phrase and twist of mind.(Peter Preston, Fond farewell to the acidulous Mr Gill, The Guardian, December 2016)

Tom Ford's newest intoxicating fragrance pushes lavender to a new extreme. Sourced from Provence, the purple plant is balanced out by acidulous Italian bergamot and spicy-sweet tonka bean. (Lauren Valenti, The 7 New Fragrances to Know This Summer, Vogue, June 2019)

He had to be careful, for he was very sensitive to ridicule; and the acidulous humour with which the American treated the Church of England disconcerted him. (W Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage)

Origin:

'sub-acidic, slightly sour' (of cream of tartar, oranges, etc.), 1766, also used figuratively for 'sour-tempered;' from Latin acidulus 'slightly sour,' a diminutive of acidus (Online Etymology Dictionary)

anomie [an-uh-mee]

noun:
social instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values

Examples:

Emile Durkheim, whom I’ve studied since I was an undergraduate trying to understand the social changes of the 1960s, would call this new normal anomie - a destabilized and destabilizing state when rules and rule givers lose legitimacy. (Sherry Turkle, Empathy Rules, Harvard Business Review, February 2022)

You may have heard the term lately because it’s all over the place. Typically, it’s associated with worker anomie, or ennui, or burnout. (Michael Hiltzik, 'Quiet quitting' is just a new name for an old reality, Los Angeles Times, August 2022)

The filmmakers, largely forgoing a soundtrack, skillfully manipulate stillness, silence and anomie to unsettling effect - at times evoking the ambient dread and decay of, say, Roman Polanski's 'Repulsion.' (Andy Webster, Review: In 'Hard Labor', a Brazilian Couple's Unsettling Struggle, The New York Times, October 2015)

Durkheim talked of two phenomena: of alienation, where one distances oneself from society, and anomie, which is a state of normlessness. Rules exist but don’t matter because somehow values become impotent. (Shiv Visvanathan, Death by passivity: India's response to pollution reflects the anomie of our time, The Atlantic, November 2019)

Even the most brilliant diagnostic assessment of the postcolonial Nigerian predicaments must factor the high level of cultural and value anomie that we need to transcend to restore Nigeria to greatness. (Tunji Olaopa, Olugbenga Ogunmoyela: An Omolúwàbí in the Midst of Cultural Anomie, This Day, September 2022)

Origin:

'absence of accepted social values,' 1915, in reference to Durkheim, who gave the word its modern meaning in social theory in French; a reborrowing with French spelling of anomy (Online Etymology Dictionary)