2

Is "revelationary" a word in the English language?.

If it isn't a word in proper English, then which word, if any, can be used for something that leads to a revelation?

Matt E. Эллен
  • 29,137
harry_SJ
  • 51
  • Have you tried a dictionary. You'll quickly find out if "revelationary" exists. Could you tell us something about the context? – Mari-Lou A Aug 06 '13 at 18:32
  • 1
    I was looking for something that could expound on the feeling related to thespian arts and drama.... like catharsis and something that leads to revelation... in this case, as told by @bib 'revelatory'. – harry_SJ Aug 06 '13 at 18:49
  • 2
    I find it interesting that the top related question to this one is: If I invent a word, what language is it? . Who knows, perhaps that fact is even revelationary. ;-) – T.E.D. Aug 06 '13 at 20:04
  • 1
    @Mari-LouA: That is not necessarily true. Even the best dictionaries don't have every possible affixation possible; ther are just too many possibilities. 'nonneologistically' is definitely a word formed by grammatically allowed prefix and suffix processes. But it is not in any dictionary I could find online or off. – Mitch Aug 07 '13 at 00:53
  • @Mitch I just checked with google, instead of using an online dictionary and it appears "revelationary" does exist.http://www.wordnik.com/words/revelationary and http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/revelationary with the exact meaning the OP was looking for. On my spell checker there are red wriggly lines but... I would never have said so. – Mari-Lou A Aug 07 '13 at 07:09
  • @Mari-LouA: there are all sorts of things that sow up in a regular manner in nGrams, for example lots of misspellings. Do you claim that misspellings are words? Do you claim that letter sequences not mentioned in a dictionary but are legal combinations are not words? Also, wiktionary isn't a trustworthy source of consensus (yet?) to the extent that wikipedia is. Wordnik...well, I commend them and what they're doing but I'm not sure yet, they're kinda new. – Mitch Aug 07 '13 at 12:17
  • @Mari-LouA: which is to say, the high school English teacher in me says that 'revelationary' is a word that people commonly make up because they can't remember (or haven't the experience of) 'revelatory' and it would be marked in red. As wrong. – Mitch Aug 07 '13 at 12:19
  • Agreed but would you not castigate the teacher who instead of correcting, said. Close, enough. So many people make that mistake it's becoming acceptable and for some academics it is considered a dialect (if proven that a "misspelt" word had a high frequency rate in one particular region). There's a fine line, is all I can say. – Mari-Lou A Aug 07 '13 at 12:28

2 Answers2

7

You may be looking for revelatory

of or relating to a revelation

bib
  • 72,782
0

While revelatory may be the technically correct word in most circumstances, what struck me most strongly about revelationary was its homophonic resemblance to revolutionary. I can easily imagine an author choosing revelationary in certain circumstances in order to create this homophonic effect for the reader.

Pieter Geerkens
  • 2,669