moirologist means A professional mourner. It carries an Arena rating of 1638, earned across 17 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, moirologist ranks #7 of 14,438 for Most Storied Words, #60 of 14,297 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #141 of 14,423 for Most Sublime Words, #370 of 14,322 for Scariest Words.
Why “moirologist” is a great word
A professional mourner hired to lament ritually at a funeral or by the deathbed. The term descends from the Ancient Greek μοῖρα (moîra, 'fate, lot') + λόγος (lógos, 'speech, oration'), via the Greek μοιρολόγος (moirológos, 'one who sings of fate'), with the English suffix -ist. Unlike a 'mourner,' who grieves personally, or a 'eulogist,' who commemorates with praise, the moirologist performs a liturgy of sorrow as a formal service. It is the measured wail pacing the procession, the hired tremor in a voice that gives shape to a family's numb silence, the practiced hands that tear at garments in a precise and public rent—a solemn reminder that the most intimate of human emotions can also be a vocation, an artistry that makes a public spectacle of the most private currency.
Etymology
From Ancient Greek μοῖρα (moîra, “fate”) + λόγος (lógos, “speech, oration”).
noun
- A professional mourner.“The moirologists will sing of the loneliness of the living, of the horrors of death, of the black earth, and the cold dreary frozen Hades; and, in the strange language of hyperbole, in which they love to indulge, they will wonder how the sun could venture to shine on so lamentable a scene as the one before them.”
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