Word of the Day for Saturday, January 7, 2012
Cimmerian \si-MEER-ee-uhn\, adjective:
1. Very dark; gloomy; deep.
2. Classical Mythology. Of, pertaining to, or suggestive of a western people believed to dwell in perpetual darkness.
I was ripe for death, and along a road full of dangers, weakness led me to the boundaries of the world and the Cimmerian land of darkness and whirlwinds.
-- Arthur Rimbaud, "A Season in Hell"
Once beneath the over-arching trees all was again Cimmerian darkness, nor was the gloom relieved until the sun finally arose beyond the eastern cliffs, when she saw that they were following what appeared to be a broad and well-beaten game trail through a forest of great trees. -- Edgar Rice Burroughs, "Tarzan the Untamed"
Like gasconade, cimmerian was originally a toponym. It referred to the Cimmerii, an ancient nomadic people who live in Crimea, according to Herodotus.
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