Hermetic

[Dave Monroe]

A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

hermetic

PRONUNCIATION:
(huhr-MET-ik)

MEANING:
adjective:
1. Airtight.
2. Not affected by outside influence.
3. Relating to the occult sciences, especially alchemy; magical.
4. Obscure or hard to understand.


ETYMOLOGY:
>From the belief that Hermes Trismegistus invented a seal to keep a
vessel airtight in alchemy. Who was Hermes Trismegistus? It was the
name of a legendary figure that Greek neo-Platonists thought was a
blend of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. Trismegistos
is Greek for thrice-greatest, from tris (thrice) + megistos
(greatest), ultimately from the Indo-European root meg- (great) that's
also the source of words such as magnificent, maharajah, mahatma,
master, mayor, maestro, magnate, magistrate, maximum, and magnify.

Another word coined after Hermes is hermeneutic meaning interpretive
or explanatory.


USAGE:
"So far, however, the net increase in accessibility and therefore
accountability is welcome and popular compared to the hermetic secrecy
and executive authoritarianism of the Bush administration."

Obama Makes An Early Impression; The Irish Times (Dublin); Mar 27, 2009.


A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Ah! what a divine religion might be found out if charity were really
made the principle of it instead of faith. -Percy Bysshe Shelley, poet
(1792-1822)

http://wordsmith.org/words/hermetic.html