Tuesday, April 02, 2013

Word of the Day -- Numen

Numen... not to be confused with Jerry's neighbor and nemesis on Seinfeld:  Newman! 

No, numen means: a spiritual force or influence often identified with a natural object, phenomenon, or place and has an interesting derivation.  Originally a Latin term meaning "nod of the head," it came to be associated with spiritual power. The ancient Romans saw divine force and power operating in the inanimate objects and nonhuman phenomena around them. They believed that the gods had the power to command events and to consent to actions, and the idea of a god nodding suggested his or her awesome abilities—divine power. Eventually, Latin speakers began using "numen" to describe the special divine force of any object, place, or phenomenon that inspired awe (a mystical-seeming wooded grove, for example, or the movement of the sun), and "numen" made the semantic leap from "nod" to "divine will or power." English speakers adopted the word during the 1600s.

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