Well, look, I'm not so dumb after all! I should have looked further, instead of just at dictionary.com's quick-definition. I was in a hurry to reheat the third night of Thanksgiving dinner, we both having forgotten to eat lunch today. (And I didn't even have to cook on Thursday, we were just lucky enough to have been sent home with supreme leftovers!)
It's interesting that the definitions you pasted are for
arch-
iow, arch with a hyphen indicating a compound word, makes it just about what I thought, ie, "extreme or most characteristic of its kind."
But even without the hyphen, my impression of the meaning of the word was still accurate enough, and I can't after all exactly dine out on what I thought was a widespread misunderstanding.
arch2 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ärch)
adj.
Chief; principal: their arch foe.
Thanks for the clarification, twf.
I'm mystified, though, having checked through some other definitions, as to the justification for Dictionary.com's choice for it's quick definition, "characteristic of those who treat others with condescension." |
