Adiaphorous

Word of the Day for Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Adiaphorous \ad-ee-AF-er-uhs\, adjective:

Doing neither good nor harm, as a medicine.

Sun and Mr. Allworthy are united, but with a difference: the sun, in all his majesty and splendour is, in the words of Boyle, "adiaphorous" unthinking matter, whereas Mr. Allworthy is a moral agent . . .
-- Jina Politi, The Novel and Its Presuppositions

. . .which participates of neither extreme, as for example, all those things which, as being neither good nor evil in themselves, we call adiaphorous, or indifferent.
-- William Watson Goodwin, Plutarch's Morals

Adiaphorous is derived from the Greek, adiaphoros, meaning 'indifferent.'

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com