quintessence

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The Word of the Day for March 1 is:

quintessence   \kwin-TESS-unss\   noun 
     1 : the fifth and highest element in ancient and medieval philosophy that 
permeates all nature and is the substance composing the celestial bodies
    *2 : the essence of a thing in its purest and most concentrated form
     3 : the most typical example or representative

Example sentence: 
     "Do not shorten the morning by getting up late; look upon it as the 
quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred." (Arthur Schopenhauer, 
_Counsels and Maxims_) 

Did you know? 
     Long ago, when people believed that the earth was made up of four elements 
-- earth, air, fire, and water -- they thought the stars and planets were made 
up of yet another element. In the Middle Ages, people called this element by 
its Medieval Latin name, "quinta essentia," literally, "fifth essence." Our 
forebears believed the quinta essentia was essential to all kinds of matter, 
and if they could somehow isolate it, it would cure all disease. We have since 
given up on that idea, but we kept "quintessence," the offspring of "quinta 
essentia," as a word for the purest essence of a thing. Modern physicists have 
given "quintessence" a new twist -- they use it for a form of so-called "dark 
energy," which is believed to make up 70 percent of the universe.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.





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