pervious (2009-04-02)

Part of Speech: adjective

Pronunciation: ['pê(r)-vi-ês]

Definition: (1) Permeable, penetrable, allowing passage through itself; (2) susceptible to reason, approachable, can be reasoned with.

Usage: A pervious object allows some element to pass through it, "The curtains were so pervious to light that it was impossible to sleep in the room during the day." Water is another substance that enjoys exploring pervious objects, "They discovered during the first rain that the roof of the new house was quite pervious." But we constantly bump into people who are pervious and impervious (to reason), "Janet is a pervious supervisor; approach her calmly and rationally and she’ll listen to you."

Suggested Usage: Many think that "impervious" is another orphan negative like "ineffable," "nonplussed," "inert." In point of fact, however, there are pervious and impervious jungles and pervious and impervious arguments. The adverb is "perviously" and the noun, "perviousness."

Etymology: From Latin "pervius" based on per- "through" + via "way; road." "Via," now used as a preposition in English (e.g. via air mail), comes from an interesting family referring to motion that includes "weigh," "away," "wagon," "wiggle," and "trivial." "Weigh" comes from Old English wegan "to carry, balance in a scale," which also gave us "wagon." English "way" and German Weg "way" are also descendants of the same ancestor. "Wiggle," "wag," and "waggle," too, refer to kinds of motion, and all descend from the same root. "Trivial" is the adjective of trivium (tri+vi[a]+um) "the three ways," originally referring to the lower division (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) of the seven arts in medieval universities, the higher division comprising arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music.