Pari Passu

Word of the Day for Monday, September 2, 2013

Pari Passu \PAH-ree PAHS-soo; Eng. PAIR-ahy PAS-oo, PAIR-ee\, adverb:

1. with equal pace or progress; side by side.
2. without partiality; equably; fairly.

But the ingenious machinery contrived by the Gods for reducing human possibilities of amelioration to a minimum—which arranges that wisdom to do shall come pari passu with the departure of zest for doing—stood in the way of all that.
-- Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge, 1886

Man who falls victim to transcendence as the spirit of abstraction, i.e., elevates self to posture over and against world which is pari passu demoted to immanence and seen as exemplar and specimen and coordinate, and who is not at same time compensated by beauty of motion of method of science, has no choice but to seek reentry into immanent world qua immanence.
-- Walker Percy, The Last Gentleman, 1966

Pari passu comes directly from the Latin phrase of the same spelling. It commonly meant "simultaneously" and literally meant "with equal step."

 

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