- Today's Word
Multifarious
mul-tuh-FAIR-ee-uhs
Definition
- (adjective) Having great variety or diversity; numerous and varied.
Example
The multifarious talents of the artist ranged from painting to composing music and designing sculptures.
Fun Fact
“Multifarious” stems from the Latin multifarius, meaning “having many parts.” It has been used in English since the 17th century to emphasize variety and richness. The term is often employed to highlight the complexity of ideas, cultures, or individual abilities.
(noun/adjective) A word or expression that implies disapproval or conveys a negative or degrading attitude.
The critic’s review was laced with pejoratives — words that seemed neutral on the surface but carried a sting that every reader in the industry immediately recognized.
Pejorative derives from the Late Latin pejorare, meaning “to make worse,” rooted in pejor — “worse” — the comparative form of malus, meaning “bad.” The same root gives us impair, which also carries the sense of something being made worse or diminished. It entered English in the 19th century, used primarily by linguists to describe the process by which words acquire negative connotations over time — a phenomenon so common in language that linguists gave it its own term: pejoration.