4 January 2018
bestial
[bes-chuh l, bees-]
adjective
1. of, relating to, or having the form of a beast :
the belief that a person could assume bestial form after death; the bestial signs of the zodiac.
2. without reason or intelligence; brutal; inhuman:
bestial treatment of prisoners.
3. beastlike in gratifying one’s sensual desires; carnal; debased.
Origin of bestial
Middle English Anglo-French Late Latin Latin
1350-1400; Middle English (< Anglo-French) < Late Latin bēstiālis (Latin bēsti(a) beast + -ālis -al1)
Related forms
bestially, adverb
Dictionary.com
Anagram
sit able
set bale
Today’s quote
The fewer our wants the more we resemble the Gods.
– Socrates
On this day
4 January – the eleventh day of the 12 days of Christmas (Western Christianity).
4 January 1903 – Thomas Edison electrocutes an elephant to prove the dangers of ‘alternating current’ electricity. He had previously electrocuted stray cats and dogs and even horses and cows. He snidely referred to it as ‘getting Westinghoused’. Topsy, the elephant, had squashed 4 trainers at the Luna Park Zoo on Coney Island, so the zoo had decided to hang her, before someone suggested she ‘ride the lightning’. More on this at http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/01/dayintech_0104
4 January 1961 – death of Erwin Schrödinger, Nobel prize-winning Austrian physicist who developed a number of fundamental results in the field of quantum theory, which formed the basis of wave mechanics. He was the author of many works in various fields of physics: statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, physics of dielectrics, colour theory, electrodynamics, general relativity, and cosmology, and he made several attempts to construct a unified field theory. He paid great attention to the philosophical aspects of science, ancient and oriental philosophical concepts, ethics, and religion.[4] He also wrote on philosophy and theoretical biology. He is also known for his “Schrödinger’s cat” thought-experiment. Born 12 August 1887.
4 January 1965 – death of Thomas Stearns Eliot (T.S. Eliot), poet, playwright, publisher, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, described as ‘arguably the most important English language poet of the 20th century’. Wrote ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock‘, ‘The Waste Land‘, ‘Ash Wednesday‘, ‘The Hollow Men‘. Born 26 September 1888.