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Vocabulary Builder Dictionary
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Thursday, August 1, 1996
Vocabulary Builder

cynic  n: A cynic sees selfish motives in almost everything. In ancient Greece, a Cynic was part of a school of philosophers founded by Antisthenes, a student of Socrates. The Cynics took their name from a gymnasium where they met, called Cynosarges, which means "white dog." Clever, those Cynics. They believed that moral rectitude and self-control were the be-all and end-all, and they smugly detested the worldly needs and desires of those who studied and frolicked in gymasiums other than the white dog. They pranced around sporting togas and superior grins.

Eventually, of course, they organized events, had T-shirts made to publicize them, and turned the White Dog Gym into one of the most successful and profitable health clubs in the whole Aegean peninsula. Those cynics were nothing but a bunch of sellouts.


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