Merriam-Webster's Most Notorious "Word of the Day" Ever!

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Adscititious - plus, Words We're Watching: 'Editorial'

Updated, 9:48 p.m., Thursday, September 5, 2019

By Nicholas Stix

A couple of months ago, I switched from looking up English words on Google’s virtual dictionary, to a real one, Merriam-Webster. When I visited M-W for the first time, a prompt asked if I’d like to get on their mailing list for … whatever. Being a fella who can’t say no, I of course entered my eddress.

Well, that decision paid off in spades today.

In the age of minitrue and memoryholing, various media outlets frequently “disappear” items they’ve published, because whether five minutes or five years after initial publication, they got the memo with the new talking points, and recalled that we have always been at war with Eastasia.

Today, M-W’s Word of the Day feature, featured "adscititious," a new one on me, with examples from 1832 (Charles Caleb Colton) and 2002 (my VDARE colleague, John Derbyshire).

When John saw the example earlier today, he was careful to take a screen shot, and he has since been unpersoned. That’s right. A dutiful member of the thought police must have contacted M-W, to order it to disappear John’s example. But I have the original email!

“Lexicographical Fame: Derb Makes Merriam-Webster's ‘Word of the Day’–Until Deleted!

adscititious

adjective | ad-suh-TISH-us

derived or acquired from something extrinsic
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Did You Know?

Adscititious comes from a very "knowledgeable" family—it ultimately derives from scīscere, the Latin verb meaning "to get to know, ascertain, vote for, approve." The related scīre means "to know" and is fundamental to science, conscience, prescience ("foreknowledge"), nescience ("lack of knowledge"), as well as adscititious. Admittedly, adscititious is more akin to adscīscere, which means "to admit" or "to adopt." This explains why adscititious describes something adopted from an outside source.

Examples of ADSCITITIOUS

"I left the warm embrace of government work for adscititious reasons, driven not by boredom or indignation, but mainly by itchy feet."

— John Derbyshire, The National Review, 17 July 2002

 

"We should choose our books as we would our companions, for their sterling and intrinsic merit, not for their adscititious or accidental advantages."

— Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon, 1832

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Fill in the blanks to complete an adverb that means "that is to say" or "namely" and that is derived from Latin scīre, meaning "to know": s_ i _ i _ e _.

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