Word of the Day

: July 3, 2020

stentorian

adjective sten-TOR-ee-un

What It Means

: extremely loud

stentorian in Context

"'Let it Be' … was uncannily similar to 'Bridge Over Troubled Water,' not only in sentiment, but even to its churchy flavor. 'They're both very gospely songs,' [David] Wills says. 'I think 1968 was a very turbulent year … and in 1969 there was this life-affirming achievement of going to the moon. So I think that was in the zeitgeist, those stentorian, stately gospel piano-based songs.'" — Jim Beckerman, NorthJersey.com, 14 May 2020

"'Laughing together is as close as you can get without touching,' I wrote in my first book…. Laughter has always been the best medicine; I wasn't exactly making any boldly original statement almost three decades ago. I wasn't expecting a MacArthur grant. But what I expected even less … was that the not-touching part of my line would eventually be part of a stentorian, global prescription to combat COVID-19." — Gina Barreca, The Bedford (Pennsylvania) Gazette, 23 Mar 2020

Did You Know?

The Greek herald Stentor was known for having a voice that came through loud and clear. In fact, in the Iliad, Homer described Stentor as a man whose voice was as loud as that of fifty men together. Stentor's powerful voice made him a natural choice for delivering announcements and proclamations to the assembled Greek army during the Trojan War, and it also made his name a byword for any person with a loud, strong voice. Both the noun stentor and the related adjective stentorian pay homage to the big-voiced warrior, and both have been making noise in English since the early 17th century.