A Word A Day — pretermit

with Anu Garg

pretermit

(pree-tuhr-MIT)

verb tr.:
1. To let pass without mention.
2. To suspend or to leave undone.

From Latin praetermittere (to let pass), from praeter (beyond, past) + mittere (to let go, send).

“In fact, the old lady declined altogether to hear his [Rawdon Crawley’s] hour’s lecture of an evening; and when she came to Queen’s Crawley alone, he was obliged to pretermit his usual devotional exercises.”
William Makepeace Thackeray; Vanity Fair; 1847.

To fully understand a grand and beautiful thought requires, perhaps, as much time as to conceive it. -Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)