Word of the Day

Thursday November 26, 2009

recrudescent [ree-kroo-DES-uhnt]

adjective

Breaking out again after temporary abatement or suppression; as, a recrudescent epidemic.
Growing raw, sore, or painful again.

Nationalism - whose absurdities so often threaten, and too often deliver, horrors - has much to answer for in recent history, and it has been sad to see it recrudescent in Scotland's latest quarter- century (although it has to be acknowledged that, as a response to the many unattractive fruits of late 20th-century Toryism, it is somewhat understandable).

AC Grayling, "Books: What made Scotland great? Union with England!", The Independent, Jan 6, 2002
Old School 2003. This comedy of recrudescent adolescence hit the mark with oppressed married males in 2003. In a lightish spin on Fight Club, it featured four miserably whipped men who move back to campus to relive their college-party days sans the education; instead of beating each other senseless, this covert group gets wasted and chase teenage girls.

Sean Macaulay, "Idiot's guide to the outer child", The Times, Aug 3, 2006
Then the owner died, bankrupt, and for years it remained untenanted, the recrudescent bush slowly enveloping its once highly cultivated lands, and the deadly black snake, iguana, and 'possum harbouring among the deserted outbuildings.

George Lewis Becke (1855 - 1913) An Australian short-story writer and novelist. The Colonial Mortuary Bard; "'Reo," The Fisherman; and The Black Bream Of Australia (1901)

Origin of the Word

Recrudescent, approximately 1721, derives from Latin recrudescere "become raw again," from re- "again" + crudescere, from crudus "raw."