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Thursday, October 12th, 2006
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5:17p - I LIKE This Word
I was attracted to this word right from the first, especially definition #1, and example #1. As far as I know, I've never bumped into it before.
Word of the Day for Thursday, October 12, 2006
concinnity \kuhn-SIN-uh-tee\, noun:
1. Internal harmony or fitness in the adaptation of parts to a whole or to each other.
2. Studied elegance of design or arrangement -- said chiefly of literary style.
3. An instance of concinnity.
He has what one character calls "the gifts of concinnity and concision," that deft swipe with a phrase that can be so devastating in children.
Denis Donoghue is a primary critic of our time, catholic in scope, unique in literary apprehension, crucially gratifying in the clear concinnity of his prose.
Even so, rules are not merely there to be ignored; in fact, they constitute a democratic aristocracy based not on Debrett's Peerage or the Almanach de Gotha but on the user's respect for comprehensibility, consistency, concision and concinnity -- or, simply, elegance.
-- John Simon, "House Rules", New York Times, October 31, 1999 <http://www.nytimes.com/>
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Concinnity comes from Latin concinnitas, "elegance; harmony of
style," from concinnus, "well put together; pleasing, on account of
harmony and proportion."
(comment on this)
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