The Word of the Day for June 10 is:
nimiety \nih-MYE-uh-tee\ noun
: excess, redundancy
Example sentence:
"To avoid receiving a nimiety of kitchenware," advised the bridal guide, "be sure to register for a wide range of gifts for your guests to choose from."
Did you know?
There's no scarcity of English words used for too much of a good thing -- words like overkill, plethora, superfluity, surfeit, surplus, and preponderance, to name a few. In fact, you might just feel that "nimiety" itself is a bit superfluous. And it's true -- we've never used the word excessively, though it has been part of our language for nearly 450 years. (We borrowed it from Late Latin "nimietas," a noun taken, in turn, from the Latin adjective "nimius," meaning "excessive.") Superfluous or not, "nimiety" still turns up occasionally. For example, in his 1991 book Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction, about "the habitual longing to purchase, read, store, admire and consume books in excess," author Tom Raabe blames one bookstore's "nimiety of overstuffed chairs" for exacerbating this condition.
nimiety \nih-MYE-uh-tee\ noun
: excess, redundancy
Example sentence:
"To avoid receiving a nimiety of kitchenware," advised the bridal guide, "be sure to register for a wide range of gifts for your guests to choose from."
Did you know?
There's no scarcity of English words used for too much of a good thing -- words like overkill, plethora, superfluity, surfeit, surplus, and preponderance, to name a few. In fact, you might just feel that "nimiety" itself is a bit superfluous. And it's true -- we've never used the word excessively, though it has been part of our language for nearly 450 years. (We borrowed it from Late Latin "nimietas," a noun taken, in turn, from the Latin adjective "nimius," meaning "excessive.") Superfluous or not, "nimiety" still turns up occasionally. For example, in his 1991 book Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction, about "the habitual longing to purchase, read, store, admire and consume books in excess," author Tom Raabe blames one bookstore's "nimiety of overstuffed chairs" for exacerbating this condition.
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