Saturday, December 13, 2008

beatific

beatific \bee-uh-TIF-ik\, adjective:

1. exaltedly happy; blissful
2. blessing or making exceedingly happy

Statues crumble, walls peel, in the vast accumulation of words and still more words even legends lose their way, and Leonardo wishes he'd said to the young anatomist, della Torre, on their last evening what he wishes four days ago he'd had presence of mind to tell Salai but didn't actually get around to telling anyone until yesterday when he told the aristocratic simpleton, Francesco Melzi, who stood there with that dewy-eyed, beatific look of his and, of course, understood not a word: Only a dullard gets to the end of something.
-- R.M. Berry, Leonardo's Horse, 1997
She's had season tickets forever, cheering from just behind the Hoyas bench. She can snap right out of her beatific smile into analysis: "We have struggled all year with zone defense . . . and to this day I don't understand . . . why [center Roy] Hibbert consistently takes himself out of the interior space . . . whether it's a tactic so he doesn't draw more fouls -- or -- it drives me crazy."
-- Susan Kinzie, The Washington Post, 3/31/2007
Behind the New Age grin of beatific self-righteousness with which so many Hollywood celebrities greet the world often lurks a tantrum ready to erupt. When the full, roiling boil is over, the slow simmer can last for weeks, if not months.
-- Catherine Seipp, National Review Online, 8/2/2005

by 1639, from Latin beatificus, from beatus "blessed" + ficus "making"

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