Word of the Day

adjective

The paintings, filled with fantastical imagery conjured by the artist's imagination, have a compellingly oneiric quality.

"Most of the actors here are double and triple cast, and if they barely differentiate among their roles, that just adds to the oneiric effect." — From a theater review by Jeffrey Gantz in The Boston Globe, March 12, 2012

The notion of using the Greek noun "oneiros" (meaning "dream") to form the English adjective "oneiric" wasn't dreamed up until the mid-19th century. But back in the early 1600s, linguistic dreamers came up with a few "oneiros" spin-offs, giving English "oneirocriticism," "oneirocritical," and "oneirocritic" (each referring to dream interpreters or interpretation). The surge in "oneiros" derivatives at that time may have been fueled by the interest then among English-speaking scholars in Oneirocritica, a book about dream interpretation by 2nd-century Greek soothsayer Artemidorus Daldianus.

Test Your Vocabulary: Which of the following refers to the Greek god of dreams: Helios, Morpheus, or Zephyrus? The answer is …

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