Word of the Day:

September 5, 2019

adscititious

adjective ad-suh-TISH-us

What 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

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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.

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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