Obscure Word of the Day ....

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Opusculum


In 2009, J C McKeown of the University of Wisconsin described his book Cabinet of Roman Curiosities as an opusculum, an assessment both appropriate and modest. An opusculum is a little work, usually a book.


Opusculum is the diminutive of Latin opus. For the Romans, opus was any sort of labour, but it has come to mean an artistic work, in particular one on a large scale. We meet it most frequently in music but it can be used of books, paintings and other media. It appears also in magnum opus, literally “great work”, the most important creation of an artist.


The plural of opusculum is opuscula, which widely appears in scholarly contexts but is otherwise rare.


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