parergon

[pa-rur-gon]

noun

plural

parerga 

1. something that is an accessory to a main work or subject; embellishment.

2. work undertaken in addition to one's principal work.

parergon

/ pəˈrɛəɡɒn /

noun

1. work that is not one's main employment

Word History and Origins

Origin of parergon¹

First recorded in 1595–1605; < Latin parergon “extra ornament,” from Greek párergon “secondary business, side job,” noun use of neuter of párergos “beside the main subject, subordinate,” equivalent to par- par- ¹ ( def. ) + érg(on) work + -os adj. suffix

Word History and Origins

Origin of parergon¹

C17: from Latin, from Greek, from _para- ¹ + ergon work

Example Sentences

Clinch has done something remarkable in “Marley,” not merely offering a parergon to Dickens’s little masterpiece, imagining the soil out of which the action of “A Christmas Carol” grows, but creating a free-standing dystopian universe, a hideous vision of nascent capitalism in which nothing is real and every transaction is a fraud issuing from the brain of a master forger, who by the end has reduced even his own life, quite literally, to a trompe l’oeil.

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“Parergon: Japanese Art of the 1980s and 1990s,” at Blum & Poe.

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This playful piece is a highlight of the large, two-part exhibition “Parergon: Japanese Art of the 1980s and 1990s,” which also takes place at the L.A. gallery Nonaka-Hill.

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The show is named for Gallery Parergon, a Tokyo space influential in the 1980s for supporting experimental art.

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The research has been published in the journal Parergon.

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