1 November 2013

recidivism

[ri-sid-uh-viz-uhm]

noun

1. repeated or habitual relapse, as into crime. e.g. ‘Institutionalised criminals show a high rate of recidivism’.
2. Psychiatry. the chronic tendency toward repetition of criminal or antisocial behavior patterns.
Origin:
1885–90; < Latin recidīv ( us ) relapsing ( recid ( ere ) to fall back ( re- re- + -cidere, combining form of cadere to fall) + -īvus -ive) + -ism

Related forms
re·cid·i·vist, noun, adjective
re·cid·i·vis·tic, re·cid·i·vous, adjective

Today’s aphorism

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

– Jimi Hendrix

On this day

1 – 2 November – Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), celebrated around the world, but particularly in Mexico, where it is a public holiday. On this day people pray for loved ones who have died. Coincides with the Catholic holidays of All Saints’ Day (originally introduced in 609AD) and All Souls’ Day.

1 November 1952 – The U.S. detonates the world’s first thermonuclear weapon, the Hydrogen Bomb, at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

1 November 1993 – The European Union formally established as a result of the Maastricht Treaty, which had been ratified by 12 nations in February 1993. The nations were Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Denmark, Greece, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Irish Republic.