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September 5, 2019

Word of the Day: Adscititious

1 CQ

Word of the Day : September 5, 2019

adscititious \ad-suh-TISH-us\ adjective

Definition

: derived or acquired from something extrinsic

Did You Know?

Adscititious comes from a very "knowledgeable" family—it ultimately derives from scīscere, the Latin verb meaning "to get to know, ascertain, vote for, approve." The related scīre means "to know" and is fundamental to science, conscience, prescience ("foreknowledge"), nescience ("lack of knowledge"), as well as adscititious. Admittedly, adscititious is more akin to adscīscere, which means "to admit" or "to adopt." This explains why adscititious describes something adopted from an outside source.

Aired September 5, 2019

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