the word "perennial"
- Subject: the word "perennial"
- From: t* c* g*
- Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 11:35:09 -0800
The Word of the Day for January 6 is:
perennial \puh-REH-nee-ul\ (adjective)
1 : present at all seasons of the year
2 : continuing to live from year to year
3 a : persistent, enduring b : continuing without
interruption : constant, perpetual *c : regularly repeated or
renewed : recurrent
Example sentence:
The perennial problem of what to do with our pets while we
were on vacation was solved for this year when Aunt Ruth
volunteered to house-sit.
Did you know?
Nowadays when we talk about "perennial plants," or simply
"perennials" ("perennial" can be a noun, too), we mean plants
that die back seasonally but produce new growth in the spring.
But originally "perennial" was equivalent to "evergreen," used
for plants that remain with us all year. We took this
"throughout the year" sense straight from the Romans, whose
Latin "perennis" attached "per-" ("throughout") to a form of
"annus" ("year"). The poet Ovid, writing around the beginning
of the first millennium, used the Latin word to refer to a
"perennial spring" (water source), and the scholar Pliny used it
of birds that don't migrate. Our "perennial" retains these same
uses, for streams and occasionally for birds, but it has long
had extended meanings too.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
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