Word of the Day

Friday October 29, 2010

gnomic [NOH-mik]

adjective

Uttering or characterized by wise and pithy saying.
Of or pertaining to gnomes.

[Jake Gyllenhaal]-- a well-respected, Oscar-nominated actor who is destined, CW suspects, to be remembered as "the gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain who WASN'T The Joker" -- has given a somewhat gnomic interview to OK! magazine. Asked, after his break-up with Oscar-winning actress Reese Witherspoon, if he "believed in happy endings in relationships", he replied: "Happy is a funny word."

Caitlin Moran, "Celebrity Watch", The Times, May 21, 2010
It is here that one can find Nateliya Frolova, self-described as "The Human X-Ray." Born in Ukraine, Ms. Frolova is one of an untold number of Russian paranormal practitioners in Toronto. Like all other mystics who ply their gnomic trade in the city, Ms. Frolova holds no licence, and, like the others, she also deals in fates and fortunes.

David Bezmozgis, "Paranormal sighting in Downsview", The Globe and Mail, Nov 28, 2009
The floor alone is a marvel of intricate inlaying, including the signs of the zodiac and a gnomic sentence which reads the same backwards and forwards--"En gire torte sol ciclos et roterigne"

Edward Verrall Lucas (1868 - 1938) An English writer. A Wanderer in Florence (1912)

Origin of the Word

Gnomic, approximately 1815, derives from French gnomique, from Late Latin gnomicus "concerned with maxims, didactic," from Greek gnomikos, from gnome "thought, opinion, maxim, intelligence," from gignoskein "to come to know."