Word of the Day: April 18, 2023

dolorous

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adjective | DOH-luh-rus

What It Means

Dolorous means "causing, marked by, or expressing misery or grief."

// The

Examples

"Having haunted arenas longer than some ghosts haunt cathedrals, the Cure have their live sound down to a towering tee. ... Featherlight guitar filigrees land like hammers, dolorous synth string drones rumble from the deep. [Robert] Smith’s agelessly yearning and yelping vocals, his lyrics steeped in suburban ennui and true love against the big, bad world, are the voice of the eternal moody teen." — Malcolm Jack, The Guardian (London), 5 Dec. 2022


Did You Know?

If you’ve ever studied a Romance language, you’ve likely run into words related to Latin dolor, meaning "pain" or "grief." Indeed, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian all refer to pain using descendants of dolor. English (which despite its many Latinate terms is categorized as a Germanic language) has dolor to thank for dolorous. When the word first appeared, it was linked to physical pain; as the British surgeon John Banister wrote in 1578, "No medicine may prevail … till the same dolorous tooth be … plucked up by the roots." The "causing pain" sense of dolorous coexisted with the "sorrowful" sense for centuries, but (to the dolor, perhaps, of some) its use is now rare.


Larger Vocabulary = More $$

Not enough people realize that it is our ability to use our language that will determine our place on the social pyramid–and that will also control, to a great extent, the amount of money we will earn during our lives. Research has shown over and over that a person’s vocabulary level is the best single predictor of occupational success (more info). Ready to reach the top? Subscribe and receive a new word daily via TXT!


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Facts & Statistics

"A person may dress in the latest fashion and present a very attractive appearance. So far, so good. But the minute he opens his mouth and begins to speak, he proclaims to the world his level on our social pyramid...Our use of our language is the one thing we can't hide."

Earl Nightingale (one of the greatest self-improvement authors of all time) conducted of a 20-year study of college graduates. "Without a single exception, those who had scored highest on the vocabulary test given in college, were in the top income group, while those who had scored the lowest were in the bottom income group."

Another study by scientist Johnson O'Connor, who gave vocabulary tests to executive and supervisory personnel in 39 large manufacturing companies:

Presidents and VPs

236 out of 272

Managers averaged

168 out of a 272

Superintendents averaged

140 out of 272

Foremen averaged

114 out of 272

Floor bosses averaged

86 out of 272

In virtually every case, vocabulary correlated with executive level and income.

In a "Reader's Digest" article titled "Words Can Work Wonders for You", author Blake Clark told a fascinating story of a salesman in his 50s who scored in the bottom 5% of a standardized vocabulary test. He worked himself into the top 45% and became a vice president of the company.

You can reach the top! We may not all be brilliant enough to be the top in our fields, but we can certainly be in the top 5%–including you.

"Let's face it, from the earliest times, the favored class of people has always been the educated class. They can make themselves recognized instantly, anywhere, by the simple expedient of speaking a few words. Our language, more than anything else, determines the extent of our knowledge.

Step out, and make something more of yourself!