Word of the Day

: August 23, 2015

august

adjective aw-GUST

What It Means

: marked by majestic dignity or grandeur

august in Context

"But a great deal of life goes on without strong passion: myriads of cravats are carefully tied, dinners attended, even speeches made proposing the health of august personages without the zest arising from a strong desire." - George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, 1876

"When the Académie Française, the most august literary institution in France, inducted Dany Laferrière last month, it insisted that that Haitian-Québécois novelist was the first non-French citizen to enter its ranks." - Rachel Donadio, The New York Times, June 17, 2015

Did You Know?

August comes from the Latin word augustus, meaning "consecrated" or "venerable," which in turn is related to the Latin augur, meaning "consecrated by augury" or "auspicious." In 8 B.C. the Roman Senate honored Augustus Caesar, the first Roman emperor, by changing the name of their month Sextilis to Augustus. Old English speakers inherited the name of the month of August, but it wasn't until the late 1500s that august came to be used generically in English, more or less as augustus was in Latin, to refer to someone with imperial qualities.