Word of the Day

: September 24, 2017

legerity

noun luh-JAIR-uh-tee

What It Means

: alert facile quickness of mind or body

legerity in Context

The novel's less than compelling plot is counterbalanced by the narrator's wit and legerity.

"There are brand new vehicles, brand new tracks and brand new ways to get gamers to exercise the kind of hand-digit legerity that other games don't like to employ because it might make the casual audience actually have to work for a victory." — William Usher, CinemaBlend.com, 16 May 2014

Did You Know?

When legerity first appeared in English in the 1500s, it drew significantly upon the concept of being "light on one's feet," and appropriately so. It is derived from the Middle and Old French legereté ("lightness"), which was formed from the Old French adjective leger ("light in weight"). Leger comes from an assumed Vulgar Latin adjective, leviarius, a descendent of the older Latin levis ("having little weight"). These days, legerity can describe a nimbleness of mind as well as of the feet. A cousin of legerity in English is legerdemain, meaning "sleight of hand" or "a display of skill or adroitness." Legerdemain comes from the French phrase leger de main, meaning "light of hand."