henotheism

Pronounced: HEN-uh-thee-iz-uhm, noun

Notes: I didn’t know this word, and I find the meaning strange

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Yesterday’s phrase

The phrase Potemkin village is “an impressive facade or show designed to hide an undesirable fact or condition”

First usage

Our phrase came into English in the 1930s

Background / Comments

Our word (as you may guess from the upper case “P”) came from a person – Prince Grigory Alevsandrovich Potemkin, who was commander in chief of the Russian army under Catherine the Great. After designing and carrying out the conquest of Crimea, he arranged for Catherine to take a grand tour of her new holdings. The story is that Potemkin had a series of imposing but fake villages erected along her route in order to impress her. The story is not considered to be true, but the idea is indeed clever.