mollitude means softness; luxuriousness. It carries an Arena rating of 1630, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, mollitude ranks #1,034 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #3,963 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words, #4,372 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say, #4,373 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words.
mollitude is pronounced /ˈmɒlɪtjuːd/.
Why “mollitude” is a great word
A state of pronounced softness, whether of physical comfort, luxurious indolence, or a pliant weakness of character. From the Latin mollitūdō, from mollis ("soft"). First attested in English in 1599. Unlike "mollification" (the active soothing of another's distress) or "rigor" (an unyielding hardness), mollitude is a passive condition of being, a surrender to the yielding. It is the deep embrace of an armchair by a low fire, the languid stretch of a cat in a sunbeam, and the fatal complacency that accepts every compromise—the quiet tragedy of a spine that has forgotten how to be a spine.
Etymology
From Latin mollitūdō, from mollis (“soft”). By surface analysis, Latin moll- + -itude.
noun
- Softness; luxuriousness.e.g.“I have frequented bordels since my sixteenth year, but […] nothing about them pre-announced the luxury and mollitude of my first Villa Venus.” — 1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin, published 2001, page 274:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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