Gracility

"Gracile" redirects here. Not to be confused with GRACILE syndrome.
Look up gracile or gracility in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Gracility is slenderness, the condition of being gracile, which means slender. It derives from the Latin adjective gracilis (masculine or feminine), or gracile (neuter),[1] which in either form means slender, and when transferred for example to discourse takes the sense of "without ornament", "simple" or various similar connotations.[2]

In Glossary of Botanic Terms, B. D. Jackson speaks dismissively[3] of an entry in earlier dictionary of A. A. Crozier[4] as follows: "Gracilis (Lat.), slender. Crozier has the needless word 'gracile'". However, his objection would be hard to sustain in current usage; apart from the fact that gracile is a natural and convenient term, it is hardly a neologism. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary[5] gives the source date for that usage as 1623 and indicates the word is misused (through association with grace) for "gracefully slender".[5] This misuse is unfortunate at least, because the terms gracile and grace are unrelated: the etymological root of grace is the Latin word gratia from gratus, meaning 'pleasing',[5] and has nothing to do with slenderness or thinness.[citation needed]

  1. ^ Gray, Mason D.; Jenkins, Thornton, eds. (1934). "gracile". Latin for Today, Book 2. Ginn and Co., Ltd.
  2. ^ Simpson, D. P., ed. (1977). "gracile". Cassell's Latin Dictionary: Latin-English, English-Latin. London: Cassell. ISBN 0-02-522580-4.
  3. ^ Jackson, Benjamin Daydon (1928). "gracile". A Glossary of Botanic Terms with their Derivation and Accent (4th ed.). London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. W.C.2
  4. ^ Crozier, Arthur Alger (1893). "gracile". A Dictionary of Botanical Terms. Henry Holt & Co.
  5. ^ a b c Little, William; Fowler, H.W.; Coulson, J.; Onions, C.T., eds. (1968). "gracile". Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principals. Oxford at the Clarendon Press.