carpe diem
/ˌkɑː.piː ˈdaɪ.ɛm/
carpe diem means enjoy the present, make the most of today, (common mistranslation) seize the day. It carries an Arena rating of 1817, earned across 127 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, carpe diem ranks #460 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words, #484 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #734 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #1,422 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words.
carpe diem is pronounced /ˌkɑː.piː ˈdaɪ.ɛm/.
Why “carpe diem” is a great word
CARPE DIEM — [Proverb] An exhortation to pluck and savor the present moment. Learned borrowing from Latin carpe diem, from carpere ("to pluck, harvest") + diem, accusative of dies ("day"). Unlike "seize the day," with its connotations of forceful acquisition, or "memento mori," the somber backdrop of mortality, carpe diem is an instruction for tender, deliberate gathering. It is the warmth of a sun-ripened peach in your palm, the conscious inhalation of petrichor rising from a summer sidewalk, the deliberate stillness to watch the last copper light leave a room—a quiet harvest of the ripe, fleeting now before it spoils on the branch.
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Latin carpe diem (“enjoy the day”, literally “pluck (or harvest) the day”).
proverb
- Enjoy the present, make the most of today, (common mistranslation) seize the day.e.g.“It is the carpe diem religion; but the carpe diem religion is not the religion of happy people, but of very unhappy people.” — 1905, G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, New York: John Lane, →OL:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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