Cacoethes

[girlyswot]

You know that thing where you get a tune stuck in your head? Well, I quite often get that with words. For the last few days, in quiet moments, the word that has kept popping into my head has been 'cacoethes'. It's a rather pleasant sounding word, clearly from a Greek root. I'm guessing 'kakos' = bad, and 'ethos' = mindset. But I don't think I've ever quite known what it meant.

So I just looked it up. It's an 'irresistible mania' or an 'irresistible motivation for a belief or course of action'. So there you go. Why not use it in a sentence tomorrow and impress all your friends and neighbours?

Comments

[rhetoretician.livejournal.com]

Right, because my friends and neighbors don't already think I'm polysyllabic and linguistically obscure enough...

[(Anonymous)]

I know lawyers love big words, but I am going to have difficulty fitting it into comments on various legal stuff I have on my desk for tomorrow! But perhaps I can develop an irresistible mania to go shopping?