Word of the Day

: April 17, 2010

omnium-gatherum

noun ahm-nee-um-GA-thuh-rum

What It Means

: a miscellaneous collection (as of things or persons)

omnium-gatherum in Context

The book, a collection of short stories, is an omnium-gatherum of works by various writers.

Did You Know?

English abounds in Latin phrases. They roll off the learned tongue like peas off a fork. "Tabula rasa"; "ab ovo"; "a posteriori"; "deus ex machina"; "ex cathedra"; "mea culpa"; "terra firma"; "vox populi"; "ad hominem"; "sub rosa." "Omnium-gatherum" belongs on that list too, right? Not exactly. "Omnium-gatherum" sounds like Latin, and indeed “omnium” (the genitive plural of Latin "omnis," meaning "all") is the real thing. But "gatherum" is simply English "gather" with "-um" tacked on to give it a classical ring. We're not suggesting, however, that the phrase is anything less than literate. After all, the first person known to have used it was John Croke, a lawyer educated at Eton and Cambridge in the 16th century.