was wotd|2007|March|12
English
Etymology
From Latin #Latin|congeri�s �heap, mass, pile�, from congero|conger�re �carry together�.
Pronunciation
italbrac|RP IPA|/�k�nʤ�ri:z/ or /k�n�ʤɪ�ri:z/
italbrac|US IPA|/�k��nʤ�ri:z/
audio|en-us-congeries.ogg|Audio (US)
Noun
en-noun|congeries
- A collection or aggregation of disparate items.
Quotations
timeline|
1800s=1898|
1900s=1928 1932|
2000s=2003 2005
1898 � w:William McKinley?|William McKinley?, s:William McKinley?'s Second State of the Union Address|Second State of the Union Address
:The world has seen the postal system developed from a congeries of independent and exclusive services into a well-ordered union, of which all countries enjoy the manifold benefits.
1928 � w:Virginia Woolf|Virginia Woolf, w:Orlando:_A_Biography|Orlando
1932 � w:H. P. Lovecraft|H. P. Lovecraft, s:Dreams in the Witch-House|Dreams in the Witch-House
:Two of the less irrelevantly moving things - a rather large congeries of iridescent, prolately spheroidal bubbles and a very much smaller polyhedron of unknown colours and rapidly shifting surface angles - seemed to take notice of him and follow him about or float ahead as he changed position...
2003 � Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason (Penguin 2004, p. 243)
:That whole congeries of values was now in question.
2005 - John Banville, The Sea (Picador 2005, p216)
:It was not what I was that I disliked, I mean the singular, essential me - although I grant that even the notion of an essential, singular self is problematic - but the congeries of affects, inclinations, received ideas, class tics, that my birth and upbringing had bestowed on me in place of a personality.
te:congeries
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zh:congeries
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