A.Word.A.Day--psychopomp

Wordsmith.org

The Magic of Words

Jul 28, 2010

This week's theme
Words that aren't what they appear to be

This week's words
artificer
noisome
psychopomp

In Greek mythology Charon carries souls across the river Styx

Art: Alexander Dmitrievich Litovchenko (1835-1890)

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

psychopomp

PRONUNCIATION:

(SY-ko-pomp)

MEANING:

noun: A guide of souls, one who escorts soul of a newly-deceased to the afterlife.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek psychopompos (conductor of souls), from psycho-, from psyche (breath, spirit, soul) + pompos (conductor, guide).

USAGE:

"Harold Bloom here presents himself as a mystagogue and a soothsayer, a psychopomp of our times, conducting souls into unknown territories."
Marina Warner; Where Angels Tread; The Washington Post; Sep 15, 1996.

Explore "psychopomp" in the Visual Thesaurus.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Some men of a secluded and studious life have sent forth from their closet or their cloister, rays of intellectual light that have agitated courts and revolutionized kingdoms; like the moon which, though far removed from the ocean, and shining upon it with a serene and sober light, is the chief cause of all those ebbings and flowings which incessantly disturb that restless world of waters. -Charles Caleb Colton, author and clergyman (1780-1832)

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