Word of the Day

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Today's Word: propinquity

This week's theme: So close.

propinquity

(noun) [prah-PING-kwi-tee]

1. nearness or proximity: "James' propinquity allowed him to smell her delicate perfume."

2. kinship

3. similarity or affiliation: 'Russ wants to believe they are still assembled in some recognizable manner, the kindred unit at the radio, old lines and ties and propinquities.' (Don DeLillo, Underworld)

Origin

Approximately 1374; from Latin, 'propinquitatem': nearness, vicinity (nominative 'propinquitas'), from 'propinquus': near, neighboring ('prope': near + suffix '-inquus').

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In Action

"Americans living in England are remarkably consistent in their reactions to the English. Most of them are hurt and puzzled because they were brought up on American neighboring patterns and don't interpret the English ones correctly. In England propinquity means nothing. The fact that you live next door to a family does not entitle you to visit, borrow from, or socialize with them, or your children to play with theirs...To the best of my knowledge, those who have tried to relate to the English purely on the basis of propinquity seldom if ever succeed. They may get to know and even like their neighbors, but it won't be because they live next door, because English relationships are patterned not according to space but according to social status."

Edward T. Hall (b. 1914). U.S. anthropologist, educator. The Hidden Dimension (1966).

"A person's mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not...give rise to probable cause to search that person."

Potter Stewart. Associate Justice, US Supreme Court. [Majority opinion in 6-3 ruling that a warrant to search a particular place does not automatically authorize police to search anyone who happens to be there.] Court Ruling (November 29, 1979).

"Romance feeds on obstacles, short excitations, and partings; marriage, on the contrary, is made up of wont, daily propinquity, growing accustomed to one another. Romance calls for 'the faraway love' of the troubadours; marriage, for love of 'one's neighbour.' Where, then, a couple have married in obedience to a romance, it is natural that the first time a conflict of temperament or of taste becomes manifest the parties should ask themselves: 'Why did I marry?' And it is no less natural that, obsessed by the universal propaganda in favour of romance, each should seize the first occasion to fall in love with somebody else."

Denis De Rougemont (b. 1906). Swiss author. "The Significance of the Breakdown," Love in the Western World [trans. by M. Belgion] (1940).

"Loneliness is never more cruel than when it is felt in close propinquity with someone who has ceased to communicate."

Germaine Greer (b. 1939). Australian feminist writer. "Security," The Female Eunuch (1970).

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