pristine

****************************************************************
Are you getting a glimpse of spring or taking a glance? Settle
disputes with Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of Usage.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/book.pl?conusg.htm&6/
****************************************************************

The Word of the Day for April 25 is:

pristine   \PRISS-teen\   adjective 
    *1 : belonging to the earliest period or state : original  
     2 a : not spoiled, corrupted, or polluted (as by civilization) : pure  b : 
fresh and clean as or as if new

Example sentence:
     "Our friend... had lost a great deal of his pristine timidity, and was 
now, especially when fortified with liquor, as talkative as might be." (William 
Makepeace Thackeray, _Vanity Fair_)

Did you know?
     When "pristine" was anglicized in the 16th century, people borrowed the 
meanings of "early" and "original" from the Latin "pristinus" and applied them 
to what is desirable as well as to what is not. But it has long been a tendency 
of civilized people to admire a simpler and unsullied past. The supposition is 
that when things were in their oldest or original state, they were better. 
Thus, "pristine" was extended to describe the notion of an unspoiled, 
uncorrupted, or unpolluted state. And what is unspoiled or uncontaminated may 
connote the freshness and cleanness of something that has just been made, which 
explains how "pristine" has also come to mean "fresh and clean."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.