One of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s favourite words?What does it mean?

I am listening to “The Brothers Karamazov” at the moment and there is a word that pops up in the novel with a great deal of frequency. It is a word that you will not hear much nowadays in normal, everyday conversation.

In fact, you may not come across it at all.

The word is “sententiously”. I had to look it up and see what it actually meant, and I love words and learning new ones.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary “sententious” means

a: given to or abounding in aphoristic expression

b: given to or abounding in excessive moralizing

It is usually uncomplimentary and involves excessive moralizing and oversimplification.

Examples include “a smug and sententious writer” or “a sententious crank who has written countless letters to the editor about the decline in family values”.

Every day is a school day.

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