Make Your Point > Archived Issues > DE NOVO
Send Make Your Point issues straight to your inbox.
The phrase de novo, meaning "from the beginning," is closely related to lots of words for newness and new starts, like new itself; novel; novice; renovate; innovate, new____k ("oppressive language that obscures reality," can you recall that one?); and the rare and devilish word novercal, meaning both "relating to a stepmother (a new mother)" and "malicious."
"De novo" is Latin for "from the beginning" or "since the beginning."
Part of speech:
Although "de novo" is both formal and rare, it's also easy to understand. So feel free to throw it into your sentence as a serious, stylish alternative to phrases like "from scratch" or "all over again."
"Writing has evolved de novo only a few times in human history, in areas that had been the earliest sites of the rise of food production in their respective regions."
Explain the meaning of "de novo" without saying "from scratch" or "all over again."
In 2018, Lance Morrow wrote in the Wall Street Journal that "each day of [Donald Trump's] presidency seems to arrive de novo, disconnected historically from the day before."
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
1.
One opposite of DE NOVO could be
|