gnome
pronunciation
How to pronounce gnome in British English:
UK [nəʊm]
How to pronounce gnome in American English:
US [noʊm]
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- Noun:
- a legendary creature resembling a tiny old man; lives in the depths of the earth and guards buried treasure
- a short pithy saying expressing a general truth
Word Origin
- gnome
- gnome: [18] Gnome comes via French from Latin gnomus, a word coined by the 16thcentury Swiss physician Paracelsus for a type of being that lives in the earth, in the same way that fish live in water. It seems to have been a pure invention on his part, and is not based on or related to Greek gnómē ‘opinion, judgment’ (source of English gnomic [19] and connected with agnostic, diagnosis, and know). The term gnomes of Zürich for ‘Swiss financiers’ is first recorded in the early 1960s.
- gnome (n.1)
- "dwarf-like earth-dwelling spirit," 1712, from French gnome (16c.), from Medieval Latin gnomus, used 16c. in a treatise by Paracelsus, who gave the name pigmaei or gnomi to elemental earth beings, possibly from Greek *genomos "earth-dweller" (compare thalassonomos "inhabitant of the sea"). A less-likely suggestion is that Paracelsus based it on the homonym that means "intelligence" (see gnome (n.2)). Popularized in England in children's literature from early 19c. as a name for red-capped German and Swiss folklore dwarfs. Garden figurines of them were first imported to England late 1860s from Germany; garden-gnome attested from 1933. Gnomes of Zurich for "international financiers" is from 1964.
- gnome (n.2)
- "short, pithy statement of general truth," 1570s, from Greek gnome "judgment, opinion; maxim, the opinion of wise men" (see gnomic).
Example
- 1. He said some media outlets had refused to publish the strip because it refers to medvedev as a " gnome " .
- 2. A gnome , rumpelstiltskin , offers to do the job for her . But , once she marries , he says , she must give him her first child .
- 3. A nomadic gnome is travelling the world to highlight a little-known quirk of our planet : gravity changes depending on where you are .
- 4. That distance , plus some extra gravity-counterbalancing inertia from the earth 's spin , means that you - or a gnome - would weigh more at the south pole than in hawaii .
- 5. It certainly makes you wonder what all those processor cycles are doing in kde and gnome .