Word of the Day for Thursday, March 8, 2012
pococurante \poh-koh-koo-RAN-tee\,
noun:
1. Caring little; indifferent; nonchalant.
adjective:
1. A careless or indifferent person.
“She is a charming lady who happened to be born in Vitebsk, and no more than that,” he kept thinking, trying to convince himself that he would be a pococurante person when it came to Nina.
-- Johnny Wright, "The Lost Chagall"
Already he could see Alfred's blonde head making its way toward him, and he was smiling to himself at the thought of the contemptuous objurgations his friend would address to him at his absurd pococurante affectation, for so Alfred always called Guston's indifference, when his eyes fell upon a woman's profile seated within a few feet of him.
-- Ernest Roland, "Lèse-Amour,"" The Galaxy"
Pococurante came directly from Italian into English in the 1750s. It literally meant "caring little."
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