Thursday, June 11, 2009

Pp: Prestige


pres·tige (pr-stzh, -stj)
n.
1. The level of respect at which one is regarded by others; standing.
2. A person's high standing among others; honor or esteem.
3. Widely recognized prominence, distinction, or importance: a position of prestige in diplomatic circles.

[French, illusion, from Latin praestgiae, tricks, probably alteration of *praestrgiae, from praestringere, to touch, blunt, blind : prae-, pre- + stringere, to draw tight; see streig- in Indo-European roots.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.


Middlemarch by Eliot, George
The trash talked on such occasions was the more vexatious to Lydgate, because it gave precisely the sort of prestige which an incompetent and unscrupulous man would desire, and was sure to be imputed to him by the simmering dislike of the other medical men as an encouragement on his own part of ignorant puffing.


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