3 January 2013

privation

[prahy-vey-shuh n]

noun
1. lack of the usual comforts or necessaries of life: His life of privation began to affect his health.
2. an instance of this.
3. the act of depriving.
4. the state of being deprived.

Origin:

1350–1400; Middle English (< Middle French privacion ) < Latin prīvātiōn- (stem of prīvātiō ) a taking away. See private, -ion

Synonyms
1. deprivation, want, need, distress. See hardship.

Example Sentence:

‘The New World, with its chances, was beckoning to every able-bodied man who was not afraid of hard work and suffering privations, to achieve some kind of emancipation, whether the ownership of land or of business’.

– from Emilio Duran’s memoirs (1904 – 1976).

Today’s aphorism

‘I wish life was not so short, he thought. languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about’.

– J.R.R. Tolkien

On this day

3 January 1892 – birth of J.R.R. Tolkien, author of ‘The Hobbit‘ and ‘Lord of the Rings‘. Died 2 September 1973.