nudiustertian mistake
- noun
- Archaic
:
error anteayer
- Reflecting on his nudiustertian mistake, he realized where he had gone wrong two days ago.
Examples
-
I made a nudiustertian mistake in my report.
-
She pointed out my nudiustertian mistake during the meeting.
-
He tried to cover up his nudiustertian mistake during the department meeting.
-
Her nudiustertian mistake was only discovered after a thorough review of the records.
-
He tried to cover up his nudiustertian mistake during the department meeting.
-
Her nudiustertian mistake was only discovered after a thorough review of the records.
-
Reflecting on his nudiustertian mistake, he realized where he had gone wrong two days ago.
Surface Forms
Morphology
nudiustertian + mistake
The adjective+noun composition is fully compositional: if a learner knows that 'nudiustertian' means 'of the day before yesterday', then 'nudiustertian mistake' straightforwardly means 'a mistake made the day before yesterday'. This follows standard adjective + noun semantics and is therefore transparent in principle, although the adjective itself is highly rare/archaic and unknown to most learners in practice.
Etymology
The noun nudiustertian mistake comes from the old Latin words nudius tertius, which meant 'the day before yesterday'. So it was a way to name an error made two days earlier, and today it still means 'a mistake from two days ago'.
