Word of the Day
: September 5, 2019adscititious
playWhat It Means
: derived or acquired from something extrinsic
adscititious in Context
"We should choose our books as we would our companions, for their sterling and intrinsic merit, not for their adscititious or accidental advantages." — Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon, 1832
Did You Know?
Adscititious comes from a very "knowledgeable" family—it ultimately derives from scīscere, the Latin verb meaning "to get to know, ascertain, vote for, approve." The related scīre means "to know" and is fundamental to science, conscience, prescience ("foreknowledge"), nescience ("lack of knowledge"), as well as adscititious. Admittedly, adscititious is more akin to adscīscere, which means "to admit" or "to adopt." This explains why adscititious describes something adopted from an outside source.
Test Your Vocabulary with M-W Quizzes
Word Family Quiz
Fill in the blanks to complete an adverb that means "that is to say" or "namely" and that is derived from Latin scīre, meaning "to know": s_ i _ i _ e _.
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