Friday, April 8, 2016

Word of the Day

Word of the Day

mammonism \MAM-uh-niz-uhm\, noun:

The greedy pursuit of riches.

We will bring to mind a young man or young woman bitterly awakened from a fancy dream of accomplishment, action or glory, forced instead to come to terms with a considerably reduced status, a betrayed love, and a hideously bourgeois world of crass mammonism and philistine taste. -- Rudyard Kipling, "Kim"

Claiming mutual “affection and confidence” with his collaborating reader whom he expects to agree, Dickens also indicts the false religion of Mammonism. -- Linda M. Lewis, "Dickens, His Parables, and His Readers" 

Mammonism is an odd combination of Aramaic and Greek. The word mammon meant wealth in Aramaic, and the suffix -ism forms a noun from a verb, as in criticism and plagiarism.

Dictionary.com Word of the Day
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