A.Word.A.Day--charisma

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Jun 7, 2019

This week’s theme
Weird plurals

This week’s words
stigma
ala
stratum
gutta
charisma

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

charisma

PRONUNCIATION:

(kuh-RIZ-muh)
plural charismata (kuh-RIZ-muh-tuh)

MEANING:

noun: A personal charm or appeal that inspires devotion, loyalty, enthusiasm, etc.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin, from Greek kharisma, from kharis (favor, grace). Ultimately from the Indo-European root gher- (to like or want), which also gave us chrestomathy, hortatory, hortative, yearn, greedy, and exhort. Earliest documented use: 1641.

USAGE:

“The stigmata associated with dying unexpectedly at the age of forty-two after making the difficult journey through the Alps from Paris, from complications giving birth to her eighth child, only seems to have enhanced her charismata, since the city of Lyon rallied around to give her the unprecedented honour of a state funeral.”
Rosalind Kerr; The Rise of the Diva on the Sixteenth-Century Commedia dell’Arte Stage; University of Toronto Press; 2015.

See more usage examples of charisma in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Truth-tellers are not always palatable. There is a preference for candy bars. -Gwendolyn Brooks, poet (7 Jun 1917-2000)

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