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festinate: msg#00027

culture.language.word-of-the-day

Subject: festinate

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The Word of the Day for June 28 is:

festinate \FESS-tuh-nut\ adjective
: hasty

Example sentence:
"Even [the company's] successes . . . are vestiges of 1990s thinking. They
may halt a festinate death, but you don't build a company around them." (Fritz
Nelson, _Network Computing_, August 21, 2000)

Did you know?
"Festinate" is one among many in the category of words whose first
recorded use is in the works of Shakespeare ("Advise the Duke where you are
going, to a most festinate preparation." -- _King Lear_, III.vii.10). Perhaps
the Bard knew about "festinatus," the Latin predecessor of "festinate," or was
familiar with the Latin proverb "festina lente" -- "make haste slowly."
Shakespeare also gets credit for the adverb "festinately" (first seen in
_Love's Labour's Lost_, III.i.6: "Bring him festinately hither."), but another
writer beat him to the verb "festinate" (pronounced \FESS-tuh-nayt\), meaning
"to hasten."





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