Word of the Day - Friday 8/16

Bronwen
on 8/15/08 10:01 am - Wilmington, DE
Here it is, and it's completely harmless

innocuous   \ih-NAH-kyuh-wus\   Audio Pronunciation
adjective Play Podcast   Meaning
     1 : producing no injury : harmless     *2 : not likely to give offense or to arouse strong feelings or hostility : inoffensive, insipid   Example Sentence
     Bella was surprised when her seemingly innocuous remark enraged her classmates.  
     
       
     
  Did you know?
     "Innocuous" has harmful roots — it comes to us from the Latin adjective "innocuus," which was formed by combining the negative prefix "in-" with a form of the verb "nocēre," meaning "to harm” or “to hurt." In addition, "nocēre" is related to the truly "harmful" words "noxious," "nocent," and even "nocuous." "Innocent" is from "nocēre" as well, although like "innocuous" it has the "in-" prefix negating the hurtful possibilities. "Innocuous" first appeared in print in 1598 with the clearly Latin-derived meaning "harmless or causing no injury" (as in "an innocuous gas"). The second sense is a metaphorical extension of the idea of injury, used to indicate that someone or something does not cause hurt feelings, or even strong feelings ("an innocuous book" or "innocuous issues," for example)
sw:298/cw:152/no goal set
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"Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open."  --J.K. Rowling,  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

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