I stumbled across today’s word in Wikipedia. It is used in the entry for Madame Bovary, a scandalous 19th century novel by Gustave Flaubert. ( I was looking up Madame Bovary because the book was featured prominently in last night’s Desperate House Wives).

The word is exegesis. It is a noun that means an “extensive and critical interpretation of any text, or especially of a holy scripture. An exegete is a person skilled in the science of interpretation.”

In Wikipedia’s Madame Bovary entry exegesis is the title of section that examines the scandal the novel caused and and some of the techniques Flaubert employed. In my opinion the 171 word section isn’t extensive enough to be an exegesis. But that is the nice thing about Wikipedia this entry can grow and be improved.

Actually I first learned this word from Stephen Jay Gould- one of my favorite writers. I am sorry I can’t recall which book or article it was in. But if you read his work, you will come across exegesis frequently. And he most certainly uses it correctly.