Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A terse, witty, instructive saying; a maxim.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A short, pithy, instructive saying; a terse remark, conveying some important truth; a sententious precept or maxim. Also spelled
apophthegm . - noun Synonyms Aphorism, Axiom, Maxim, etc. See
aphorism .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A short, pithy, and instructive saying; a terse remark, conveying some important truth; a sententious precept or maxim.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A short,
witty ,instructive saying ; anaphorism ormaxim .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a short pithy instructive saying
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The whole “pass now, fix later” apothegm is naive.
Matthew Yglesias » How Many Divisions Has Jane Hamsher? 2010
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Wolpert says he's surprised to discover he's 82, and quotes Oscar Wilde's apothegm "The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young."
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We'll let Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl complete that apothegm in the time-honoured way.
Archive 2009-04-01 2009
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The Burkean apothegm mentioned earlier in the article is very fitting here.
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In practical terms, it becomes akin to the line about owing a bank a billion dollars, though recent events may have given the lie to that apothegm.
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But this isn't some random apothegm; it is a dramatic thought, provoked by the life situation of the main character and attributed to him; it certainly is not an Olympian idea delivered from on high.
Martin Amis's 'The Pregnant Widow' Is A 'Strange, Sparkling Novel' (New York Review) 2010
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Favorite apothegm by Perry Logan on Saturday, Mar 7, 2009 at 6: 09: 52 AM
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He concludes with an apothegm for the president -- "When you're cooking up a more perfect Union, sometimes you've got to break some eggs" -- apparently innocent of the provenance of this saying in apologetics for Stalin's mass killings of Russian peasants and political enemies: "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs."
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Bill Vallicella, the Maverick Philosopher, offers a witty apothegm from the book: “Persistently obscure writers will usually be found to be defective human beings.”
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Just remember the apothegm that a government that is big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.
Never Yet Melted 2009
rolig commented on the word apothegm
the British spelling is apophthegm.
August 17, 2008
Telofy commented on the word apothegm
"Gunnie had been loyal to me and to Urth, not to her comrades; and perhaps we are unable to advance some paragon of loyalty to an apothegm only because loyalty (in the final analysis) is choice." -- Gene Wolfe, The Urth of the New Sun
October 7, 2008
sionnach commented on the word apothegm
poth-y mouthed word.
December 13, 2008