Etymology Word of the Week – As some of you know, in addition to working in the Admissions Office, I also teach Latin at Saint Ignatius and am something of a "word nerd." Thus, each week, I’ll sneak a vocabulary word (sometimes derived from Latin, sometimes not) into the e-blast. Here, then, is this week’s edition of the Etymology Word of the Week.
Opulent - “richly supplied; abundant or plentiful; wealthy, rich, or affluent.” From the Latin adjective opulentus meaning “wealthy” which is related to the Latin noun ops, opis meaning “strength, power, assistance, property (and in the plural, wealth)” as well as the Latin noun opus, operis meaning “work, labor, exertion.” The suffix -ulent means “full of.” (all information is from www.wikipedia.org, www.etymonline.com and/or www.dictionary.com).
RELATED WORDS/PHRASES – fraudulent, turbulent, corpulent, succulent; optimism, optimum, opus, opera
SAMPLE SENTENCE - “William Randolph Hearst’s sprawling San Simeon “ranch” (the model for Citizen Kane’s Xanadu) is an opulent palatial estate - many treasures from all around the world are contained within its confines.”
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE: “I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.” Henry David Thoreau, American poet, essayist, and naturalist