Word of the Day

: August 13, 2018

orgulous

adjective OR-gyuh-lus

What It Means

: proud

orgulous in Context

The hotel manager tended to adopt an orgulous air with those guests who were not regular visitors and who might be unaware of the building's rich and storied history.

"He astutely recognized that intimate relations with the orgulous Kennedys could only heighten his influence. Indeed, apart from Robert Kennedy and Douglas Dillon, McNamara was the only member of Kennedy's Cabinet to enter the president's social life." — Jacob Heilbrunn, The New Republic, 22 Mar. 1993

Did You Know?

"In Troy, there lies the scene. From Isles of Greece / The princes orgulous, their high blood chaf'd, / Have to the port of Athens sent their ships." Thus William Shakespeare begins the Trojan War tale Troilus and Cressida, employing orgulous, a colorful word first adopted in the 13th century from Anglo-French orguillus. After the Bard's day, orgulous dropped from sight for 200 years; there is no record of its use until it was rejuvenated by the pens of Robert Southey and Sir Walter Scott in the early 1800s. 20th-century authors (including James Joyce and W. H. Auden) continued its renaissance, and it remains an elegant (if infrequent) choice for today's writers.