Today’s Words That Work: Hermetic

Hermetic  (hur-MET-ik) means isolated; not affected by outward influence or power. The word is derived from the name of Hermes Trismegistus, who, according to legend, invented a magic seal.

Example (as used by David Carr in a New York Times review of Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work! By Douglas Coupland): “For someone thought of as the first modern media savant, [McLuhan] was capable of incredibly archaic, hermetic thinking.”