Practice Makes Perfect from a “Haft Paikar” of Nizamic. 1530

I’m surprised I haven’t thought to look up the history of this word before, given that I come from a family of perfectionists. 😉 I personally display such tendencies with some of my work, but not all…certainly not my housework, LOL.

But it’s a pretty interesting word!

Perfectionist has been around since the 1650s, but it had only a moral connotation. It was very much a theological stance, proclaiming that one believed that moral perfection is attainable in this life. So this isn’t something that anyone would use for anything other than this theological question. It was rather one that would be applied to certain preachers or theologians.

So this is really another one for the trivialization file. In the 1930s–so very recently!–it took on the meaning we know of one satisfied only by the highest standards. And that’s when perfectionism came around too.

And for anyone looking forward to Circle of Spies, you’re going to want to make sure you stop by on Wednesday–I’ll be posting the first chapter!!