Definition Essay: The Power Of Words

Ever felt a feeling so strong that you couldn’t find the words to describe it? Or maybe, a scene that was so extraordinary that words were felt fleeting from the grasp of the tongue? Well, chances are that there actually was a word for all of those feelings. Words can be powerful and full of emotion, while, in some cases, not necessarily get the job done. Words can describe situations perfectly and, sometimes, it only takes a couple. The word Workaholic means a person who works compulsively at the expense of other pursuits. When we break it into parts, we see the highlighted words are work, compulsively, expense, and pursuits. Work means to exert force to accomplish a task. Compulsive is like the Latin phrase cacoethes carpendi, which means a compelling urge. Expense means to give up in exchange for; a cost. And finally pursuits means to go after something. We can break the actual word into two parts, work and -aholic. Work means to exert effort to produce or accomplish something. The suffix -aholic means obsessed or addicted to an activity. So workaholic basically means addicted to work.

It can be a noun when referring to someone as “the workaholic.” When it’s used as an adjective, it sounds like “The workaholic man.” The actual word workaholic can actually be traced back to a time between the years 1965-1970. Weather it was for the love of money or obsession with providing for their family, people would become addicted to working. The word is akin to alcoholic, which means, addicted to drinking alcohol. The folks addicted to work were “drunk” on their jobs so people ended up taking the ending off of alcoholic and putting it behind work. Studies have been done to determine if workaholic actually have disorders. Psychologists have concluded that it is a form of OCD, and is in the