afflatus

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The Word of the Day for December 27 is: 

afflatus   \uh-FLAY-tus\   noun
          : a divine imparting of knowledge or power : inspiration

Example sentence:
          Gus insists that his musical compositions are the result of hard 
work, not afflatus. 

Did you know?
          Inspiration might be described as a breath of fresh air, and so it is 
appropriate that "inspire" derives in part from a word meaning "to breathe" 
(the Latin "spirare"). "Afflatus" is a lesser-known word for inspiration that 
followed a parallel route. "Afflatus," which in Latin means "the act of blowing 
or breathing on," was formed from the prefix "ad-" ("to, toward") and the Latin 
verb "flare" ("to blow"). That same Latin verb gave us such words as "inflate" 
and (via French) "souffle." The orator Cicero used "afflatus" in his Latin 
writings to compare the appearance of a new idea to a breath of fresh air. 
Nowadays, one often finds the word preceded by the adjective "divine," but 
poets and artists can find inspiration in the material world as well.





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