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roseate: msg#00020culture.language.word-of-the-day
***************************************************************** Looking online for all those new words you've been hearing about? Try a 14-day free trial to Merriam-Webster Collegiate.com today! http://www.merriam-webster.com/premium/ ***************************************************************** The Word of the Day for June 21 is: roseate \ROH-zee-ut\ adjective 1 : resembling a rose especially in color *2 : overly optimistic : viewed favorably Example sentence: Alicia was making some fairly roseate predictions about the outcome of the contest, but Ben was trying not to get his hopes up. Did you know? "Everything's coming up roses." "He views the world through rose-tinted glasses." "She has a rosy outlook on life." In English, we tend to associate roses and rose color with optimism, and "roseate" is no exception. "Roseate" comes from the Latin adjective "roseus," and ultimately from the noun "rosa," meaning "rose." Figurative use of "roseate" began in the 19th century, and the literal sense of the term has been in the language since the 16th century. Literal uses of "roseate" are often found in descriptions of sunrises and sunsets. "Through yon peaks of cloud-like snow / The roseate sunlight quivers," wrote Shelley in _Prometheus Unbound_. And in an early short story, Edith Wharton wrote, "The sunset was perfect and a roseate light, transfiguring the distant spire, lingered late in the west." *Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence. |
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