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Protean

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(pronounced proh-tee-un or proh-tee-un)  adjective

Definition

1. of or like Proteus, an ancient Greek sea god who could change his shape at will. 2. extremely changeable; easily assuming different shapes and forms. 3. exhibiting great variety or diversity; turning with ease from one to another of various tasks, fields, or skills; versatile.

Main Example

• From the lessons learned in Iraq, the U.S. military has spent billions of dollars in recent years developing and improving equipment, strategies, and tactics to withstand if not forestall IEDs, those roadside bombs that wreaked havoc on our troops in Iraq during 2004-2006. Yet, these past couple of months have seen a surge in the number of American soldiers killed or wounded in the war in Afghanistan, with IEDs accounting for over two-thirds of the casualties. To this author, this suggests that in the Taliban we are dealing with an enemy that is determined, adaptive, and protean.

Workplace Examples

• As you all know, Bill is not only an entrepreneur and a superior team builder and leader, he is also an excellent swimmer, jazz pianist, painter, and naturalist . . . among other things. Please join me in welcoming this extraordinarily talented and protean figure we call Bill Smith to our board.
• The fact that Thalia has such protean skills can sometimes pose a bit of a problem. Because she is so adept at almost everything under the sun, it's hard to keep her interested in any one assignment for long. She gets bored rather quickly, and wants to move on.

Other Examples

• a company's CEO saying: "The person we are looking for to head this division needs to be very protean--a visionary who can also manage and execute projects effectively, and who can just as easily hobnob with the city's political and business leaders."
• a protean subject or branch of knowledge; a protean problem or issue, such as how to outwit identity thieves who are constantly inventing new means of stealing people's personal information
• when referring to Picasso and the breathtaking originality and scope of his work, art historians invariably using such terms as a protean artist, protean genius, protean output, protean talent, the very definition of the word protean, and so on
• in the highly acclaimed 2001 movie "A Beautiful Mind," Russell Crowe establishing how protean an actor he is by convincingly portraying the different stages in the life of Nobel prize-winning Professor John Nash: first, as a brash young man in his 20s while studying at Princeton; later, coping with the responsibilities of his job and family as his schizophrenia threatened to consume him; and finally, as a retiring man in his late 60s who had begun to conquer his demons

© 2010 V.J. Singal
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