Pronounced: KREP-ih-tate, verb
Notes: Not at all what I thought
Yesterday’s word
The word nephalism means “teetotalism; abstinence from alcohol”
First usage
Our word came into English in the mid-1800s
Background / Comments
One who practices nephalism is a ‘nephalist’. I am a nephalist; given all of the problems caused by drinking and drunkenness, I think America would be better off if nephalism was more popular. People tend to imagine that they have better self-control than they actually do; I don’t know of anyone who deliberately becomes a drunkard. Then there are those that cannot stop drinking once they start. I think nephalism is a safer practice. There is a very active anti-tobacco lobby, even though the dangers from ‘secondhand smoke’ has been highly exaggerated. I wish this group would turn their attention to alcoholism instead of tobacco. Well, enough of that… our word comes the from the Greek word nephalios (sober).
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 