DISCREET: private, quiet, not publicly known. As in: Let's keep this little matter discreet, shall we?
DISCRETE: separate, individual, unrelated. As in: 'Discreet' and 'discrete' are two discrete words.
Labels:
vocabulary
Today's word, courtesy of the New York Review of Books: chiliastic.
It's nothing to do with superb Texas spicy beef dishes, and it's not pronounced that way (it's "kill-ee-as-tik"). It actually means "millenarian," or pertaining to the belief Christ will return to rule for a thousand years.
Etymologically, it's Greek, which you can see if you spell it more phonetically--it comes from khilioi ("a thousand")--the same root we use for "kilometer."
I don't know when you'd use this word, but I liked it and wanted to share.
Labels:
etymology,
vocabulary
