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?The world's toughest language game.
Apr 30, 2025
This week¡¯s theme
Words that aren¡¯t what they appear to be
This week¡¯s words
Elephants lustrating Queen Maya (Sanchi, India)
Photo:
Logo of the Ukrainian Lustration Committee
Image: Ukrainian Lustration Committee / Wikimedia
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg
lustration
PRONUNCIATION:
(luhs-TRAY-shuhn)
MEANING:
noun:
1. An act of purification by means of rituals.
2. The purging of those associated with crimes committed under an earlier regime.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin lustrare (to make bright). Earliest documented use: 1614.
NOTES:
If you¡¯ve ever tried to cleanse your browser history or remove
the lingering influence of a previous group project gone wrong,
congratulations -- you¡¯ve dabbled in lustration.
Originally used for religious or ceremonial purification, lustration was
what you did when your crops failed, your city got a plague, or someone
angered Jupiter by parking a chariot in a fire lane. Think of it as
spring cleaning for your soul.
In modern political use, lustration took on a sharper edge. After the
fall of totalitarian regimes (e.g., post-Communist Eastern Europe), it
came to mean the act of cleansing the government of people tied to past
abuses.
There¡¯s something poetic in the root lustrare, ¡°to make bright¡±. You¡¯re
not just wiping the slate clean, you¡¯re polishing it until it gleams.
Although some politicians subjected to lustration might prefer a dimmer
switch.
USAGE:
¡°No, he made his opinion evident by driving you out of his house at
once, and indeed conducting a lustration, they say, after your departure.¡±
Lucian (Translation: H.W. Fowler and F.G Fowler); The Works of Lucian of
Samosata; Oxford University Press; 1905.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I learn that ten percent of all the world's species are parasitic insects.
It is hard to believe. What if you were an inventor, and you made ten
percent of your inventions in such a way that they could only work by
harnessing, disfiguring, or totally destroying the other ninety percent?
-Annie Dillard, author (b. 30 Apr 1945)
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