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Today's Word "Sanctimonious"

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sanctimonious \saengk-teh-MO-ni-ehs\ (adjective) - Making a show of piety, sanctity; pretending to be pious or religious.

"My boss is a sanctimonious pirate who quotes the Bible as justification for forcing us to work longer and harder."

 

From Latin sanctimonia "sanctity, virtuousness," based on sanct-us "holy" + monia "-ness." "Sanctus" comes from PIE sak- "sacred" which emerges in "sacred," "sexton," and "consecrate." Nasalized (with the [n] in it), we find it in "saint," "sanctum," and today's word. "Sanctus" underlies all the Romance words for "saint," i.e. French "saint," Spanish "san," as in "San Francisco," Portuguese "sao." The rather odd "Santa Claus," the nickname of Saint Nicholas with the ostensibly feminine form of the word for "saint," probably originated in Dutch "Sinterklaas." The suffix -monia shares its origin with the suffix -ment, originally referring to the mind (Latin "mens, mentis," as in "mental").


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