Tuesday 3 May 2011

Venustate


To venustate something is to make it utterly beautiful. The minutes or hours that you spend each morning before the bathroom's looking glass is, I hope, an act of venustation.

Venustate pops up in a couple of seventeenth century dictionaries, but then faded away and perished. I fear that this is because in the intervening centuries few things have been made beautiful. Although, it is more likely that the adjective venust from which it derives has died too.

There is too little venusty in the world. We need venustation. Go forth and venustate.

1 comment:

  1. I like this word. Venusty ought to be quite useful in poems, since it rhymes so well with "be lusty," and we all lust after that which is most beautiful. Or at least, we should.

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