prettygoodword: text: words are sexy (words are sexy)
prettygoodword ([personal profile] prettygoodword) wrote2013-08-06 07:08 am

perfervid

perfervid (pur-FUR-vid) - adj., extremely fervent, excessively ardent, marked by overwrought or exaggerated emotion.


Feeling very strongly about something, with a definite connotation of being overly so. Not a 17th century adoption from Latin, as you might expect, but a mid-19th century one -- during the mid-1850s, from Latin perfervidus, which is fervid with the prefix per- in the sense of thoroughly/utterly.

---L.

[identity profile] thistleingrey.livejournal.com 2013-08-06 03:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Like permanganate. :P I have never seen "perfervid" used unironically in the wild.

[identity profile] prettygoodword.livejournal.com 2013-08-06 04:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Not recently, anyway.

---L.