the spirit of the time; the general moral, intellectual, and cultural climate of an era From the German for 'time' and 'spirit,' it is usually associated with the philosopher who popularized it, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
A witty remark thought of too late, on the way home From the French for 'staircase wit,' this phrase was coined by 18th century encyclopedist Denis Diderot.
enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others German for 'damage' and 'joy.' As the song from Avenue Q puts it: 'And when I see how sad you are / It sort of makes me... / Happy!'
the raising of an issue by claiming not to mention it 'We won't discuss my opponent's past crimes.'
the logical mistake that one thing caused another because it happened first This Latin phrase literally means 'after this, therefore because of it.' This error in logic is sometimes summed up as 'correlation doesn't equal causation.'
requiring continual and often ineffective effort Named for a king who was condemned to an eternity in Hades straining to roll a heavy stone up a hill only to watch it roll back down again each time.
something that ends or settles a matter; a decisive blow or answer It's unclear where this word comes from, but it may be an alteration of doxology ('a short, often final hymn chanted in praise of God')
using a word to modify two or more words usually in such a manner that it applies to each in a different sense or makes sense with only one 'She lost her ticket and her temper.' Comes from a Greek word meaning 'to join.' In ancient times, the eponymous city, which spanned the two sides of the Euphrates river in what is now part of southern Turkey, was a key trading link between the western Mediterranean and eastern Mesopotamia.
a critic or teacher of music characterized by timid and excessive reliance on rules; more broadly, a pedant The eponymous operatic character made his stage (and linguistic) debut in Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Wagner's character was a nervous and narrow-minded clerk whose devotion to the rules made him both a pedant and a musical philistine.
distress, depression, or confusion resembing that caused by a hangover; or, a discordant clamor From German for 'cats' and 'distress'; the early German sense referred to a hangover. The 'discordant clamor' sense of this word became popular thanks to a cartoon strip, which first appeared in 1897 and featured two mischievous boys and the victims of their antics.
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