Word of the Day ·
clarissa
/kləˈɹɪsə/
proper noun
What it means
- A female given name from Latin or Italian.
My wife's maiden name—Unmarried name, I should rather say […] was Harlowe—Clarissa Harlowe—you heard me call her my Clarissa— I did—but I thought it to be a feigned or a love-name, said Miss Rawlins. […] No—it was her real name, I said.
1748, Samuel Richardson, Clarissa
In a sentence
[…] all these obscene references of a sexual nature punctuate the ritualistic prodigality of the Northeast and its winter cycle, and if in the main popular qualification of the character of the clarissa nun called Maria Ermelinda Correia, the composer of the sweet in the mouth of the people, as an expression of her overblown greediness.
2020, Richardo Ferreira de Almeida et al., “Popular Sweets in Douro Valley”, in Advances in Tourism, Technology, and Systems, page 188
Where it comes from
- Medieval LatinClarissa
- Italianclarissa
- Englishclarissa
Borrowed from Italian clarissa, from Medieval Latin Clarissa; see there for more. Doublet of Clarisse, Clare, and Clarist.
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