In our 6 month Cut the Crap fast, we each grabbed two days a week for assigned tasks. One of us sends health tips to the others, one of us sends devotional or scripture passages to the other two and I was assigned words.
I've found some fun words, words that have been meaningful or dovetailed into what is going on in our lives. I've also found words that have convicted me or caused me to pause and wonder if I don't need to stop and rethink the way I'm doing things.
A word I recently found did just that.
VITIATE
PRONUNCIATION:
(VISH-ee-ayt)
MEANING:
verb tr.:
1. To impair or spoil the effectiveness of.
2. To corrupt.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin vitiare (to spoil, injure), from vitium (blemish). Earliest recorded use: 1534.
As I ran across this word, vitiate, meaning to corrupt and spoil, I couldn't help but notice the VITI beginning. I know vita is a Latin root word meaning something to do with life... so are the two connected? I looked up Latin roots and found this page full of fascinating parts and pieces of words. http://www.english-for-students.com/vita.html. This site didn't shed anymore light on Vitiate or even give me a connection, and I didn't dig any deeper.
But the impairing, the spoiling, the corruption and the possible connection to life just kept poking at me. And I wonder if we really aren't sometimes our worst enemies. The choices we make. Do we often chose to vitiate our own lives by choosing things that bring corruption and spoilage and death? Those hundreds of daily choices, what we will say, think, do, eat, drink? Are we making choices toward vitality or choices toward vitiatity?
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