Word of the Day

: August 31, 2020

longanimity

noun long-guh-NIM-uh-tee

What It Means

: a disposition to bear injuries patiently : forbearance

longanimity in Context

The fans continue to show their longanimity by coming back year after year to cheer on the perpetually losing team.

"Most of the conspirators were gentlemen in their early thirties and the majority had wild pasts. They were frustrated men of action, 'swordsmen' the priests called them, and 'they had not the patience and longanimity to expect the Providence of God.'" — Jessie Childs, God's Traitors: Terror & Faith in Elizabethan England, 2014

Did You Know?

Longanimity is a word with a long history. It came to English in the 15th century from the Late Latin adjective longanimis, meaning "patient" or "long-suffering." Longanimis, in turn, derives from the Latin combination of longus ("long") and animus ("soul"). Longus is related to English's long and is itself an ancestor to several other English words, including longevity ("long life"), elongate ("to make longer"), and prolong ("to lengthen in time"). Now used somewhat infrequently in English, longanimity stresses the character of one who, like the figure of Job in the Bible, endures prolonged suffering with extreme patience.