Trending: ‘magisterial’

Lookups spiked 21,000% on May 5, 2019

Why are people looking up magisterial?

Magisterial was among our top lookups on the evening of May 5th, 2019, after the word was used by a sports announcer in reference to Kawhi Leonard, a forward for the Toronto Raptors basketball team.

As the clock wound down on Game 4 in Philadelphia, ABC’s Mark Jones started to work his way through the superlatives over a Kawhi Leonard highlight reel. Starting with “magisterial” and ending somewhere related to “unstoppable”, he managed to sum up the general mood around Leonard as it relates to Raptors fans.
— John Gaudes, www.raptorshq.com, 5 May 2019

What does magisterial mean?

We offer a number of definitions for magisterial. beginning with “of, relating to, or having the characteristics of a master or teacher.” The word may also be defined as “marked by an overbearingly dignified or assured manner or aspect,” “of, relating to, or required for a master's degree,” or “of or relating to a magistrate or a magistrate's office or duties,” none of which were applicable to Leonard’s performance in last night’s playoff game against the Philadelphia 76ers.

Where does magisterial come from?

Magisterial comes from the Late Latin magisterialis (“of authority”), which is from magisterium (“office of a master”), which in turn is from magister (“master, teacher”).

Citations

As for that note of the conference with those of Wisbitch, which by your magisteriall authoritie you call a vaine pamphlet, charging that reverende man, who hath taken such notable paines in the Church of god, against your heresies.
— William Charke, An answeare for the time, 1583

Trend Watch is a data-driven report on words people are looking up at much higher search rates than normal. While most trends can be traced back to the news or popular culture, our focus is on the lookup data rather than the events themselves.