Let the dog in!

noun:

1. Final discharge or acquittance, as from debt or obligation.
2. Removal from activity; rest; death.
3. Something that serves to suppress or quiet.

Consider a small police-blotter report from an 1875 issue of The Grant County Herald in Silver City, N[ew] M[exico]: “We learn that on Friday, Jose Garcia, who lives at the Chino copper mines, caught his wife in flagrante delicto — we leave the reader to guess the crime — Jose, then and there, gave her the quietus with an axe.”
— Thomas Kunkel, “The Pen Is Mightier Than the Six-Shooter”, New York Times, August 30, 1998

Quietus is from Medieval Latin quietus (est), “(it is) at rest” (said of an obligation that has been discharged), from Latin quietus, “at rest.”

First, note the pronunciation of this word. I assumed it was like “quiet-us.” Does anyone say it the “proper” way?? Reminds me of my arcane real property Queen’s Bench case law….

Anyway. With spring break here this week, I sense a quietus around. Not actually in my house, of course.

Spring break for 4 year olds means PLAYDATE and POOL and IMSOBOREDMOMMY.

Very relaxing.

Are you relaxing?

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