After reading the following quote in my franklinplanner.com daily planning pages, I had to look up the word exigencies (which is the plural of exigency):
“If difficulties arise, we must put forth new exertion and proportion our efforts to the exigencies of the times” ~ George Washington
Wiktionary defines exigencies as “the demands or requirements of a situation”. According to Merriam-webster.com exigency is a noun that’s been around since 1581, meaning “that which is required in a particular situation”. Synonyms are:
- necessity
- urgency
Where does the word originate from?
According to Wiktionary exigency originates from:
- exigence – middle French
- exigentia meaning “urgency” – late Latin
- exigere meaning “to demand” – Latin
I feel ready to use this word in a sentence of my own now, so here goes:
Twice the amount of bread, milk and other exigencies were stocked in the supermarkets during the long period of snow.
I hope that’s true, as the snow is coming….
That’s all for today.
Until tomorrow…
Sandra Madeira
Freelance Writer
www.sandramadeira.com
My Writing Notebook 
That was interesting to me, Sandra. Actually I know the word, but I have never tried out the Wiktionary before. So now I have it as a reference. I do use Wikipedia all the time.
Thanks for the heads up on that.
Posted by Bill | February 4, 2012, 11:46 pmThanks Bill – yes, I came across Wiktionary whilst I was looking up something in Wikipedia one day. I now look out for the search box when I’m on the Wikipedia page. Hope you are having a good weekend.
Sandra
Posted by Sandra Madeira | February 5, 2012, 3:46 pm