Community Chat

[DreamWeaver]

February 22, 2011

Word of the Day

• congenial
• 
• kun-JEEN-yul

• DEFINITION

adjective

1

: having the same nature, disposition, or tastes : kindred

2

a : existing together harmoniously b : suited to one's nature, tastes, or outlook c : sociable, genial

• EXAMPLES

Olga found the college's interdisciplinary curriculum congenial to the breadth of her academic interests.

"Visiting a neighbor's home and engaging in congenial conversation is fast becoming a lost art. Polite verbal exchanges once familiar and customary in centuries past have gone the way of electronic surrogates: texting, e-mail and smart phones." -- From an article by Ty Pelfrey in The Union (Grass Valley, California), January 2, 2011

• DID YOU KNOW?

According to ancient Roman and Greek mythology, each person at birth was assigned a guardian spirit. The Latin name for this attendant spirit was "genius." Two people who get along well together can be thought of as sharing a similar spirit; they might even be described by a word combining the Latin prefix "com-" (meaning "with, together") and "genius." And, indeed, it was this "com-genius" combination that gave rise in the 17th century to the English word "congenial." (The Greek word for the guardian spirit, "daimon," gave us "eudaemonia," meaning "well-being" or "happiness," but that word is extremely rare.)