Word of The Day for Friday, April 8, 2011

resipiscent

re•si•pis•cent (re-si-PIS-uhnt)  adj

Definition:
returning to one's senses, or to wiser course; reforming
resipicency, resipicence noun

Origin:
from Latin resipiscere "to recover one's senses", from re- "again" + sapere "to taste, to know", ultimately from PIE root sep- "to taste or perceive"

Related:
Related Words: sage, savant, savvy, savor, sapid, sapient, and insipid

Sentence Examples:
• His endless variety of kabobs and pilaus is worthy of all commendation; and his sherbets, which refresh without a sting or a resipiscent headache next morning, are no doubt the style of phlegm-cutters and gum-ticklers which one had better patronize pretty exclusively while between the tropics.  -Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, 1875

• I think that any person, of whom it could have been believed that he was genuinely resipiscent, would have been received with open arms by the Ecclesiastical Government, and this from motives of policy. I do not think that Pius the Ninth is a tender-hearted man in such sort that sufferings inflicted on his enemies out of his sight would be heavy at his heart. The story of the life of Pius the Ninth, Thomas Adolphus Trollope

• So then scientism, troubled but not resipiscent, consents to organize experiments to expose in this Unknowable a few of its secrets. -Unruly Spirits, M. Brady Brower


Sources: Dictionary of Difficult Words, Wordsmith

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

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