Pronounced: bar-muh-SIGH-duhl, adj (the final syllable is the “d” and “l” with just a hint of the vowel)
Notes: I thought this was another Shakespeare character, but it isn’t
Yesterday’s word
The word Prospero is “someone who is capable of influencing others’ behavior or perceptions without their being aware of it”
First usage
Our word came into English in the late 1700s
Background / Comments
I knew that Prospero was a (another) Shakespeare character and was from The Tempest, but I did not know enough about the story to be able to generalize what kind of a person our word might indicate. In The Tempest, he is the deposed Duke of Milan and also a magician.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 