Wednesday, November 23, 2005

The Word of the Day for November 23 is:

obsequious • \ub-SEE-kwee-uss\
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?obsequ01.wav=obsequious

• adjective :
marked by or exhibiting a fawning attentiveness

Example sentence:The movie star traveled with an entourage of obsequious attendants who indulged her every whim and waited on her hand and foot.

Did you know?An obsequious person is more likely to be a follower than a leader. Use that fact to help you remember the meaning of "obsequious." All you need to do is bear in mind that the word comes from the Latin root "sequi," meaning "to follow." ("Sequi" is a linguistic great-grandparent here; we adopted "obsequious" from a form of the Latin verb "obsequi"—"to comply"—which comes from "sequi" plus the prefix "ob-," meaning "toward.") "Sequi" is the source of a number of other English words, too, including "consequence" (a result that follows from an action), "sequel" (a novel, film, or TV show that follows an original version), and "non sequitur" (a conclusion that doesn't follow from what was said before).

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> posted by Trevor Hammack @ 7:34 AM   0 comments

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