Word of the Day

: December 27, 2007

afflatus

noun uh-FLAY-tus

What It Means

: a divine imparting of knowledge or power : inspiration

afflatus in Context

Gus insists that his musical compositions are the result of hard work, not afflatus.

Did You Know?

Inspiration might be described as a breath of fresh air, and so it is appropriate that "inspire" derives in part from a word meaning "to breathe" (the Latin "spirare"). "Afflatus" is a lesser-known word for inspiration that followed a parallel route. "Afflatus," which in Latin means "the act of blowing or breathing on," was formed from the prefix "ad-" ("to, toward") and the Latin verb "flare" ("to blow"). That same Latin verb gave us such words as "inflate" and (via French) "soufflé." The orator Cicero used "afflatus" in his Latin writings to compare the appearance of a new idea to a breath of fresh air. Nowadays, one often finds the word preceded by the adjective "divine," but poets and artists can find inspiration in the material world as well.