Word of the Day: Thaumaturgy

The Word of the Day today is Thaumaturgy. I discovered this word today while reading Alice Munro’s Runaway (great book, by the way):

At college she had mentioned how her father had explained to her what thaumaturgy meant, when she ran across the word at the age of twelve or thirteen.

According to Merriam-Webster, thaumaturgy means “the performance of miracles.”

This is how H.G. Wells used the word in his short story The Man Who Could Work Miracles:

There were astonishing changes. The small hours found Mr. Maydig and Mr. Fotheringay careering across the chilly market square under the still moon, in a sort of ecstasy of thaumaturgy, Mr. Maydig all flap and gesture, Mr. Fotheringay short and bristling, and no longer abashed at his greatness.

And if I were forced to use the word in a sentence, I might conjure up something like:

On a bustling Friday afternoon, the wandering monk walked into the town square, and to everyone’s astonishment, miraculously transformed the water in the big fountain into Shasta Orange Soda, an unequivocal demonstration of thaumaturgy.

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