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gnomic

adjective

gno·​mic ˈnō-mik How to pronounce gnomic (audio)
1
: characterized by aphorism
gnomic utterances
2
: given to the composition of gnomic writing
a gnomic poet

Did you know?

A gnome is an aphorism—that is, an observation or sentiment reduced to the form of a saying. Gnomes are sometimes couched in metaphorical or figurative language, they are often quite clever, and they are always concise. We borrowed the word gnome in the 16th century from the Greeks, who based their gnome on the verb gignōskein, meaning "to know." (The other gnome—referring to the dwarf of folklore—comes from New Latin and is unrelated to the aphoristic gnome.) We began using gnomic, the adjective form of gnome, in the late 18th century. It describes a style of writing, or sometimes speech, characterized by pithy phrases, which are often terse to the point of mysteriousness.

Example Sentences

He made gnomic utterances concerning death.
Recent Examples on the Web The process is painful, but its results are unique—the Frank stories are both utterly foreign and purely lucid, a set of gnomic parables that always end in a puff of irony or ambiguity. Sam Thielman, The New Yorker, 9 Aug. 2022 Like a somewhat mystical priest, the response came back in a gnomic but optimistic piece of evasion. Jemma Green, Forbes, 4 Aug. 2022 Yet her single-mindedness is offset by the lure of her fractured forms, her gnomic sentences, and her fairy-tale settings. Merve Emre, The New Yorker, 4 July 2022 Pop Smoke was a gnomic figure with a rich, booming voice; Fivio is less enigmatic but more entertaining, a charismatic and sometimes witty host who wants to keep everyone happy. Kelefa Sanneh, The New Yorker, 18 Apr. 2022 Samuel Greenberg, the doomed, gnomic poet-naif Crane describes, was already six years dead at the time of the letter’s writing, having succumbed to tuberculosis in 1917, at the age of twenty-three, in the Manhattan State Hospital on Wards Island. Dustin Illingworth, The New York Review of Books, 14 May 2020 Samuel Greenberg, the doomed, gnomic poet-naif Crane describes, was already six years dead at the time of the letter’s writing, having succumbed to tuberculosis in 1917, at the age of twenty-three, in the Manhattan State Hospital on Wards Island. Dustin Illingworth, The New York Review of Books, 14 May 2020 Like Fitzgerald, Levy has a gift for the pithy, annihilating moment of gnomic insight. Kirsten Denker, The New Republic, 31 Aug. 2021 The style is Delphic: cautious; obfuscatory; verbose (or the opposite, gnomic); vague; artfully ambiguous; subtle; fascinating. George Calhoun, Forbes, 10 May 2021 See More

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Greek gnōmikós "dealing in maxims, didactic," from gnṓmē "maxim" + -ikos -ic entry 1 — more at gnome entry 1

First Known Use

1784, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of gnomic was in 1784

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