Wednesday 28 July 2010

there seems to be a word for everything

psychopomp


PRONUNCIATION:
(SY-ko-pomp)
MEANING:
noun: A guide of souls, one who escorts soul of a newly-deceased to the afterlife.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek psychopompos (conductor of souls), from psycho-, from psyche (breath, spirit, soul) + pompos (conductor, guide).

USAGE:
"Harold Bloom here presents himself as a mystagogue and a soothsayer, a psychopomp of our times, conducting souls into unknown territories."
Marina Warner; Where Angels Tread; The Washington Post; Sep 15, 1996.

Explore "psychopomp" in the Visual Thesaurus.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Some men of a secluded and studious life have sent forth from their closet or their cloister, rays of intellectual light that have agitated courts and revolutionized kingdoms; like the moon which, though far removed from the ocean, and shining upon it with a serene and sober light, is the chief cause of all those ebbings and flowings which incessantly disturb that restless world of waters. -Charles Caleb Colton, author and clergyman (1780-1832)

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