Word of the Day

Friday August 21, 2009

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multifarious [muhl-tuh-FAIR-ee-uhs]

adjective

1. Having great diversity or variety; of various kinds; manifold; diversified.

• "Homes for Americans" succeeds because it plays many chords at once, poking gentle fun at the multifarious ways of selling suburbia's sameness while also retaining a sympathy for the promise of social mobility.
  Ariella Budick, "Sabotage from the suburbs", Financial Times, Jul 8, 2009
• The taped opening segment involved a suspiciously flexible DeGeneres doing a faux-Conan travelogue, tumbling and back-flipping around Chicago icons from Cloud Gate to Buckingham Fountain. Such are the civic benefits of such shows, which end up as a nationwide commercial for Chicago's multifarious charms.
  Chris Jones, "Ellen mixes it up with Kanye, Blaine and the crowd", Chicago Tribune, Jun 18, 2009
• Life was one ceaseless round of multifarious duties; with six hours of blessed unconsciousness, if sleep were punctual.
  Israel Zangwill (1864 - 1926) An English humorist and writer. Merely Mary Ann (1904)

Origin of the Word

Multifarious, approximately 1593, derives from Latin multifarius "manifold," from multifariam "in many places or parts."