Word of the Day for Thursday, December 15, 2011
veriest \VER-ee-ist\, adjective:
1. Utmost; most complete.
2. Superlative of very.
Abagail had held her tongue when Molly said that—Molly and Jim and the others were young and didn't understand anything but the veriest good and the veriest bad.
-- Stephen King, The Stand
Though in the course of his continual voyagings Ahab must often before have noticed a similar sight, yet, to any monomaniac man, the veriest trifles capriciously carry meanings.
-- Herman Melville, Moby-Dick: Or the Whale
Veriest is obviously related to the word very, which derives from the Old French word verai meaning “true, real or genuine.” The suffix -est makes a word a superlative, like fastest.
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