A.Word.A.Day--aesthete

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The Magic of Words

Nov 2, 2010

This week's theme
Back-formations

This week's words
comminate
aesthete

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

aesthete or esthete

PRONUNCIATION:

(ES-theet)

MEANING:

noun: Someone who has or affects high sensitivity to beauty, especially in art.

ETYMOLOGY:

Back-formation from aesthetic. Via Latin from Greek aisthesis (sensation or perception). Ultimately from the Indo-European root au- (to perceive) which is the source of other words such as audio, audience, audit, obey, oyez, auditorium, anesthesia, aesthetic, and synesthesia. Earliest recorded use 1881.

USAGE:

"Alex is a secret aesthete, a slum-dwelling intellectual who finds redemption through Beethoven rather than the pumping dance beats down at the Korova milk bar."
Neil Cooper; A Clockwork Orange, Citizens Theatre, Glasgow; The Herald (Glasgow, Scotland); Oct 18, 2010.

Explore "aesthete" in the Visual Thesaurus.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual. -Arthur Koestler, novelist and journalist (1905-1983)

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