Vocabulary and Analytical Reasoning IV

Mogul (MOH-gul)

1 : (capitalized Mogul) an Indian Muslim of or descended from one of several conquering groups of Mongol, Turkish, and Persian origin; especially : Great Mogul 2 : a person of rank, power, influence, or distinction often in a specified area Started by Babur, a descendant of Genghis Khan, the Muslim Mogul dynasty ruled much of India from the early 16th century to the mid-18th century. The Moguls (whose name is also spelled Moghul or Mughal) were known for their talented and powerful rulers (called "Great Moguls"), so it's no surprise that in English the word mogul came to denote a powerful person, as in today's familiar references to "media moguls." Skiers might wonder if such power moguls have anything to do with the name they use for a bump in a ski run, but that hilly homonym has nothing to do with Asian Mogul dynasties. We picked up the skier's mogul from German dialect, from a root that is probably related to the Viennese mugl, meaning "small hill."

Hidebound (HYDE-bound)

1 : (of a domestic animal) having a dry skin lacking in pliancy and adhering closely to the underlying flesh 2 : having an inflexible or ultraconservative character Hidebound has its origins in agriculture. The word, which appeared in English as hyde bounde in the 16th century, originally described cattle that, due to illness or poor feeding, had skin that clung to the skeleton and could not be pinched, loosened, or worked with the fingers. Hidebound has also been applied to humans—both literally, to describe people with tight skin, and figuratively. In its earliest figurative usage, hidebound meant "stingy" or "miserly." That sense has since fallen out of use, but a second figurative usage, describing people who are rigid or unyielding in their actions or beliefs, lives on in our language today.

Bromide (BROH-myde)

1 : a compound of bromine and another element or chemical group 2 a : a commonplace or tiresome person b : a commonplace or hackneyed statement or idea After bromine was discovered in 1827, chemists could not resist experimenting with the new element. It didn't take long before they found uses for its compounds, in particular potassium bromide. Potassium bromide was used as a sedative to treat everything from epilepsy to sleeplessness, and by the 20th century, bromide was being used figuratively to apply to anything or anyone that might put one to sleep because of commonness or just plain dullness. Today, bromides are no longer an ingredient in sedative preparations, but we can still feel the effects of figurative bromides as we encounter them in our daily routines.

Epigram (EP-ih-gram)

1 : a concise poem dealing pointedly and often satirically with a single thought or event and often ending with an ingenious turn of thought 2 : a terse, sage, or witty and often paradoxical saying 3 : expression marked by the use of epigrams Ancient Greeks and Romans used the word epigramma (from Greek epigraphein, meaning "to write on") to refer to a concise, witty, and often satirical verse. The Roman poet Martial (who published eleven books of these epigrammata, or epigrams, between the years 86 and 98 C.E.) was a master of the form: "You puff the poets of other days, / the living you deplore. / Spare me the accolade: your praise / Is not worth dying for." English speakers adopted the "verse" sense of the word when we first used epigram for a concise poem dealing pointedly and often satirically with a single thought or event in the 15th century. In the late 18th century, we began using epigram for concise, witty sayings, even if they didn't rhyme.

Slapstick (SLAP-stick)

1 : a device made of two flat pieces of wood fastened at one end so as to make a loud noise when used by an actor to strike a person 2 : comedy stressing farce and horseplay; also : activity resembling slapstick The idea that knocking people about made for good comedy dates as far back as the Greco-Roman theater, where clowns rambunctiously "attacked" one another onstage. The object from which the word slapstick derives, however, was invented in Italy in the 16th century. Renaissance comedy typically featured stock characters placed in ridiculous situations, and one such ubiquitous character was Harlequin, whose brilliant costuming made him easily recognizable. Harlequin was given to wielding a paddle which was designed to make a terrible noise when he hit someone, usually to the delight of the audience. This paddle was eventually known in English as a slapstick, and it became a symbol of that type of highly physical comedy. The word slapstick then came to refer to the comedy itself.

Paroxysm (PAIR-uk-sih-zum)

1 : a fit, attack, or sudden increase or recurrence of symptoms (as of a disease) : convulsion 2 : a sudden violent emotion or action : outburst Paroxysm didn't just burst onto the scene recently; its roots go back to ancient Greek. The word ultimately derives from the Greek paroxynein, which means "to stimulate." Oxynein, a parent of paroxynein, means "to provoke" or "to sharpen" and comes from oxys, a Greek word for "sharp." (That root also underlies the word oxygen.) In its earliest known English uses in the 15th century, paroxysm denoted agitation or intensification of a disease or its symptoms. (A still-used example of that sense is "a paroxysm of coughing.") Additionally, paroxysm soon took on a broader sense referring to an outburst, especially a dramatic physical or emotional one.

Libertine (LIB-er-teen)

1 : a freethinker especially in religious matters 2 : a person who is unrestrained by convention or morality; specifically : one leading a dissolute life "I only ask to be free" says Mr. Skimpole in Charles Dickens's Bleak House, and his words would undoubtedly have appealed to the world's first libertines. The word libertine was first used in early writings of Roman antiquity to identify a slave who had been set free (the Roman term for an emancipated slave was the Latin libertus). By the late 1500s, the "freedman" sense of libertine had been extended to refer to freethinkers (both religious and secular); Shakespeare used it to refer to anyone who follows his or her own inclinations. By 1600, though, the term had come to imply that an individual was a little too unrestrained, especially in moral situations. And yes, the Latin root of libertine is liber, the ultimate source of our word liberty.

Doppelgänger (DAH-pul-gang-er)

1 : a ghostly counterpart of a living person 2 a : a person who closely resembles another living person b : the opposite side of a personality : alter ego c : a person who has the same name as another According to age-old German folklore, all living creatures have a spirit double who is invisible but identical to the living individual. These second selves are perceived as being distinct from ghosts (which appear only after death), and sometimes they are described as the spiritual opposite or negative of their human counterparts. In 1796, German writer Johann Paul Richter, who wrote under the pseudonym Jean Paul, coined the word Doppelgänger (from doppel-, meaning "double," and -gänger, meaning "goer") to refer to such specters.

Anabasis (uh-NAB-uh-sis)

1 : a going or marching up : advance; especially : a military advance 2 : a difficult and dangerous military retreat The first sense of anabasis follows logically enough from its roots. In Greek, the word originally meant "inland march"; it is derived from anabainein, meaning "to go up or inland," which is formed by combining the prefix ana- ("up") and bainein ("to go"). The second and opposite sense, however, comes from an anabasis gone wrong. In 401 B.C., Greek mercenaries fighting for Cyrus the Younger marched into the Persian Empire only to find themselves cut off hundreds of miles from home. As a result, they were forced to undertake an arduous and embattled retreat across unknown territories. Xenophon, a Greek historian who accompanied the mercenaries on the march, wrote the epic narrative Anabasis about this experience, and consequently anabasis came to mean a dramatic retreat as well as an advance.

Ombudsman (AHM-boodz-mun)

1 : a government official who investigates complaints made by individuals against public officials 2 : one that investigates, reports on, and helps settle complaints Ombudsman was borrowed from Swedish, where it means "representative," and ultimately derives from the Old Norse words umboth ("commission") and mathr ("man"). In the early 1800s, Sweden became the first country to appoint an independent official known as an ombudsman to investigate complaints against government officials and agencies. Since then, other countries (such as Finland, Denmark, and New Zealand), as well as some U.S. states, have appointed similar officials. The word ombudsman was first used in English in the late 1950s; by the 1960s, it was also being used to refer to a person who reviews complaints against an organization (such as a school or hospital) or to someone who enforces standards of journalistic ethics at a newspaper.

Claque (KLAK)

1 : a group hired to applaud at a performance 2 : a group of sycophants The word claque might call to mind the sound of a clap, and that's no accident. Claque is a French borrowing that descends from the verb claquer, meaning "to clap," and the noun claque, meaning "a clap." Those French words in turn originated in imitation of the sound associated with them. English speakers borrowed claque in the 19th century. At that time, the practice of infiltrating audiences with hired members was very common to French theater culture. Claque members received money and free tickets to laugh, cry, shout-and of course clap-in just the right spots, hopefully influencing the rest of the audience to do the same.

Wormhole (WERM-hohl)

1 : a hole or passage burrowed by a worm 2 : a hypothetical structure of space-time envisioned as a long thin tunnel connecting points that are separated in space and time If you associate wormhole with quantum physics and sci-fi, you'll probably be surprised to learn that the word has been around since Shakespeare's day—although, admittedly, he used it more literally than most modern writers. To Shakespeare, a wormhole was simply a hole made by a worm, a more down-to-earth sense which is still used today. But even the Bard subtly linked wormholes to the passage of time; for example, in The Rape of Lucrece, he notes time's destructive power "to fill with worm-holes stately monuments." To modern astrophysicists, a wormhole isn't a tunnel wrought by a slimy invertebrate but a theoretical tunnel between two black holes or other points in space-time, providing a shortcut between its end points.

Jog trot (JAHG-TRAHT)

1 : a horse's slow measured trot 2 : a routine habit or course of action The jog trot is a type of gait that is sometimes required at horse shows. It appears to have been so named because the horse's often jolting movement is certainly "jogging," and the gait itself is actually a kind of careful, deliberate trot. The term first appeared in print in 1796 and rapidly came to be used in a figurative sense as well, referring to a steady and usually monotonous routine, similar to the slow, regular pace of a horse at a jog trot. There is a suggestion with the generalized sense that the action is uniform and unhurried, and perhaps even a little dull.

Portmanteau (port-MAN-toh)

1 : a large suitcase 2 : a word or morpheme whose form and meaning are derived from a blending of two or more distinct forms In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, Alice asks Humpty Dumpty to explain words from the nonsense poem "Jabberwocky" and is told that slithy is "like a portmanteau-there are two meanings packed up into one word." Although slithy hasn't caught on (it's made up of slimy and lithe, according to Humpty Dumpty), another portmanteau invented by Carroll has in fact found a place in the language: chortle (supposedly from chuckle and snort). English includes other portmanteaus, too, such as brunch (breakfast and lunch) and dramedy (drama and comedy). Following Carroll's lead, English speakers have come to call these fairly common words by the not-so-common name for a type of traveling bag with two compartments. The technical (and simpler) term for such words is blend.

Vaudeville (VAUD-vil)

1 : a light often comic theatrical piece frequently combining pantomime, dialogue, dancing, and song 2 : stage entertainment consisting of various acts (such as performing animals, comedians, or singers) In the 15th century, several amusing songs became popular across France. These songs were said to have been written by a man named Olivier Basselin who lived in the valley of the river Vire in northwest France. The songs eventually became known as chansons du vau-de-Vire, meaning "songs of the valley of Vire." Other people began writing and performing similar songs, and as this form of entertainment became more widespread, the link to vau-de-Vire was forgotten, and the nickname was shortened to one word: vaudevire. As the phenomenon spread beyond France, further changes in pronunciation and spelling shifted vaudevire into vaudeville. The meaning also broadened to include humorous performances and variety shows.

Kangaroo court (kang-uh-ROO-KORT)

1 : a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted 2 : a court marked by irresponsible, unauthorized, or irregular status or procedures 3 : judgment or punishment given outside of legal procedure A kangaroo court has never been a court by or for kangaroos, but beyond that, little is known for sure about the term's origins. Various theories abound: it has been suggested that kangaroo courts got their name because they were initially marked by rapid and unpredictable movement from one place to another, or that they were in some way associated with "jumping" (i.e., illegally occupying) mining claims. These hypotheses are all unsubstantiated, however. What is known is that the first kangaroo courts originated in the United States at approximately the time of the 1849 California Gold Rush, and the word saw its earliest use in the southwestern U.S. It first turned up in print in 1853 in a book about Texas.

Obeisance (oh-BEE-sunss)

1 : a movement of the body made in token of respect or submission : bow 2 : acknowledgment of another's superiority or importance : homage When it first appeared in English in the late 14th century, obeisance shared the same meaning as obedience. This makes sense given that obeisance can be traced back to the Anglo-French verb obeir, which means "to obey" and is also an ancestor of our word obey. The other senses of obeisance also date from the 14th century, but they have stood the test of time whereas the obedience sense is now obsolete.

Neophyte (NEE-uh-fyte)

1 : a new convert : proselyte 2 : novice 3 : tyro, beginner Neophyte is hardly a new addition to the English language (it's been part of the English vocabulary since the 1400s), but it wasn't in general use before the 19th century. When it was used in a 16th-century translation of the Bible, some folks derided it as pretentious and Latinate. One critic lumped it with other "ridiculous inkhorn terms" and another went as far as to write, "Neophyte, to a bare Englishman is nothing at all." The criticisms of neophyte weren't entirely justified, given the word's long history in English, but it is true that neophyte has classical roots. It traces back through Late Latin to the Greek word neophytos, meaning "newly planted" or "newly converted."

Luminary (LOO-muh-nair-ee)

1 : a person of prominence or brilliant achievement 2 : a body that gives light; especially : one of the celestial bodies Allow us to shed some light on luminary. It came to English by way of Anglo-French and Late Latin, and it traces back to the Latin word lumen, meaning "light." Other lumen descendants in English include illuminate ("to light up"), luminous ("emitting light") and phillumenist ("one who collects matchbooks or matchbox labels"). Luminary has been shining its light in English since the 15th century.

Firebrand (FYRE-brand)

1 : a piece of burning wood 2 : one that creates unrest or strife (as in aggressively promoting a cause) : agitator The original firebrands were incendiary indeed: they were pieces of wood set burning at the fire, perhaps for use as a light or a weapon. English speakers started brandishing those literal firebrands as long ago as the 13th century. (Robinson Crusoe held one high as he rushed into a cave on his deserted island and saw "by the light of the firebrand . . . lying on the ground a monstrous, frightful old he-goat.") But the burning embers of the wooden firebrand quickly sparked figurative uses for the term, too. By the early 14th century, firebrand was also being used for one doomed to burn in hell, and by 1382, English writers were using it for anyone who kindled mischief or inflamed passions.

Lotusland (LOH-tus-land)

1 : a place inducing contentment especially through offering an idyllic living situation 2 : a state or an ideal marked by contentment often achieved through self-indulgence In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus and his men discover a magical land of lotus-eaters. Some of the sailors eat the delicious "lotus" and forget about their homeland, pleading to stay forever in this "lotusland." (It is likely that the lotus in question was inspired by the fruit of a real plant of the buckthorn family, perhaps the jujube, whose sweet juice is used in candy making and which has given its name to a popular fruity candy.) The label lotusland is now applied to any place resembling such an ideal of perfection, but it also carries connotations of indolence and self-indulgence, possibly derived from the way the sailors refused to work once they reached the original lotusland. The dreamy unreality of a lotusland is a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.

Reprise (rih-PREEZ)

1 : a recurrence, renewal, or resumption of an action 2 a : a musical repetition b : a repeated performance : repetition When reprise was first adopted into English in the 15th century, it referred to a deduction or charge made yearly out of a manor or estate (and was usually used in the plural form reprises). It probably won't surprise you, then, to learn that reprise comes from an Anglo-French word meaning "seizure, repossession, or expense." Eventually, reprise came to refer to any action that was repeated or resumed. A later sense, borrowed from modern French, applies to specific types of repetition in musical compositions and was eventually generalized to describe any subsequent and identical performance. It's possible, for example, to have a reprise of a television program or a book.

Hinterland (HIN-ter-land)

1 : a region lying inland from a coast 2 a : a region remote from cities b : a region lying beyond major metropolitan or cultural centers When you're dealing with geography, it helps to know your hinterland from your umland. In the late 19th century, geographer George Chisholm took note of the German word Hinterland (literally, "land in back of") and applied it specifically to the region just inland from a port or coastal settlement. (Chisholm spelled the word hinderland, but English speakers eventually settled on hinterland.) Early in the 20th century, another geographer adopted the German Umland ("land around") to refer to the territory around an inland town. What hinterland and umland have in common is a reference to a region economically tied to a nearby city. But nowadays hinterland has a less technical use as well; it's used for land that's simply out in the sticks.

Crèche (KRESH)

1 : a representation of the Nativity scene 2 : a nursery or day care center 3 : a group of young animals (such as penguins or bats) gathered in one place for care and protection usually by one or more adults "She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a cratch." That may not sound like a familiar translation of Luke 2:7, but back in the 1300s, the substitution of cratch for manger probably wouldn't have raised any eyebrows. Back then spelling was imprecise, and several different words and spellings, including cratch, cracche, crache, and crecche, were used to describe a trough for holding feed for livestock or to identify the manger where Jesus was laid. By the late 18th century, crèche (which we borrowed from French and now sometimes spell without the accent mark) had displaced those older forms, and the word had lost its former "manger" meaning, coming to refer instead to a representation of the Nativity scene itself.

Aftermath (AF-ter-math)

1 : a second-growth crop 2 : consequence, result 3 : the period immediately following a usually ruinous event Aftermath dates to the late 1400s and was originally an agricultural term. Its two parts are transparent—but only if you're familiar with an ancient word math that is now used only in British dialectal English and that means "a mowing of a grass or hay crop" and also refers to the crop that is gathered. The original aftermath came, of course, after the math: it was historically the crop of (usually) grass cut, grazed, or plowed under after the first crop of the season from the same soil. It wasn't until the mid-late 1600s that aftermath developed its other meanings, both of which are now far more common than the first.

Umbra (UM-bruh)

1 : a shaded area 2 a : a conical shadow excluding all light from a given source; specifically : the conical part of the shadow of a celestial body excluding all light from the primary source b : the central dark part of a sunspot The Latin word umbra ("shade, shadow") has given English a range of words in addition to umbra itself. An umbrella can provide us with shade from the sun. So can an umbrageous tree-in this case, umbrageous means "affording shade." The connection to shade or shadow in other umbra words is less obvious. When we say someone takes umbrage, we mean they take offense, but in times past people used the word as a synonym of shade or shadow. Those two senses of umbrage influenced umbrageous, which can mean "inclined to take offense easily" as well as "affording shade."

Swan song (SWAHN-SAWNG)

1 : a song of great sweetness said to be sung by a dying swan 2 : a farewell appearance or final act or pronouncement Swans don't sing. They whistle or trumpet, or in the case of the swan most common in ponds, the mute swan, they only hiss and snort. But according to ancient legend, the swan does sing one beautiful song in its life-just before it dies. References in English to the dying swan's lovely singing go back as far as Chaucer, but the term swan song itself didn't appear in the language until the 1830s, when Thomas Carlyle used it in Sartor Resartus. Carlyle probably based his "swan song" on the German version of the term, which is Schwanengesang or Schwanenlied.

Folderol (FAHL-duh-rahl)

1 : a useless ornament or accessory : trifle 2 : nonsense Hogwash, claptrap, hooey, drivel, malarkey: English is rife with words that mean "nonsense," and folderol is one of the many. Though not the most common of the words for "nonsense," it's been around since 1820 and is still heard today. Folderol comes from fol-de-rol (or fal-de-ral), which used to be a nonsense refrain in songs, much like tra-la-la. The oldest recorded instance of someone "singing folderol" occurs in Irish dramatist George Farquhar's 1701 play Sir Harry Wildair, in which a character sings, "Fal, al, deral!"

Miasma (mye-AZ-muh)

1 : a vaporous exhalation formerly believed to cause disease; also : a heavy vaporous emanation or atmosphere 2 : an influence or atmosphere that tends to deplete or corrupt; also : an atmosphere that obscures : fog Miasma entered English from New Latin in the mid-1600s and comes ultimately from the Greek miainein, meaning "to pollute." In notes taken during a voyage to South America on the HMS Beagle in the 1830s, Charles Darwin described an illness that he believed was caused by "miasma" emanating from stagnant pools of water. For him, miasma meant an invisible emanation of "infecting substances floating in the air ... considered to be noxious to health," as defined in Noah Webster's 1828 An American Dictionary of the English Language. Nowadays, we know germs are the source of infection, so we aren't likely to use the unscientific miasma this way. But while Darwin was out to sea, broader applications of miasma were just starting to spread. Now the term is used for something destructive or demoralizing that surrounds or permeates.

Garderobe (GAR-drohb)

1 : a wardrobe or its contents 2 : a private room : bedroom 3 : privy, toilet Garderobe entered the English language in the 15th century and continues in use to this day, though its frequency has diminished significantly since the 19th century. Originally, its primary duty was to provide English speakers with a word for a room or closet in which to store clothing. Later, by extension, it was used for private bedrooms and bathrooms. Today you are most likely to encounter the word in a description of an old castle, such as in our example sentences. Garder, the French word for "guard" on which garderobe is based, has also served English well by directly contributing to the formation of such words as award, guard, regard, and, yes, wardrobe.

Categorical (kat-uh-GOR-ih-kul)

1 : absolute, unqualified 2 : of, relating to, or constituting a category The ancestor of categorical and category has been important in logic and philosophy since the days of Aristotle. Both English words derive from Greek katēgoria, which Aristotle used to name the 10 fundamental classes (also called "predications" or "assertions") of terms, things, or ideas into which he felt human knowledge could be organized. Ironically, although those categories and things categorical are supposed to be absolute and fundamental, philosophers have long argued about the number and type of categories that exist and their role in understanding the world. High-level philosophical disputes aside, the word categorical continues to refer to an absolute assertion, one that involves no conditions or hypotheses (for example, the statement "all humans are mortal").

Pellucid (puh-LOO-sid)

1 : admitting maximum passage of light without diffusion or distortion 2 : reflecting light evenly from all surfaces 3 : easy to understand Pellucid is formed from Latin per ("through") plus lucidus—a word meaning "lucid, clear" that ultimately derives from the verb lucēre, meaning "to shine." Lucēre has many shining relatives in English. Among them are translucent (essentially, "clear enough to allow light to pass through"), elucidate ("to make clear, explain"), lucent ("luminous" or "clear"), and of course lucid itself (which can mean "shining," "mentally sound," or "easily understood"). Another related word is Lucifer (a name for the devil that literally means "light-bearer"). Other relatives—such as lackluster ("lacking brightness"), illustrate (originally, "to make bright"), and lustrous ("shining" or "radiant")—trace from the related Latin verb lustrare ("to brighten"). Clearly, pellucid is just one of a family of brilliant terms.

Jaundiced (JAWN-dist)

1 : affected with or as if with a disease characterized by yellow pigmentation of the skin 2 : exhibiting or influenced by envy, distaste, or hostility The adjective jaundiced, which was introduced into English in the mid-17th century, is the direct result of the older noun jaundice. The physical condition called jaundice involves a yellowish coloring of the skin, tissues, and body fluids caused by the presence of coloring matter from bile. In ages past, people believed that a hostile, irritable temperament indicated an excess of bile in one's body. This belief not only led to the extended use of jaundiced, but it also resulted in a similar use of the adjective bilious, which can mean either "marked by or suffering from liver dysfunction and especially excessive secretion of bile" or "ill-tempered."

Predicate (PRED-uh-kayt)

1 : affirm, declare 2 a : to assert to be a quality, attribute, or property - used with of b : to make (a term) the predicate in a proposition 3 : found, base - usually used with on 4 : imply The verb predicate means, among other things, "to found or base." Despite being attested as early as 1754, that sense has endured attack as a misuse on the grounds that it is not true to its Latin root praedicare, meaning "to proclaim, assert." This criticism, however, has subsided. Predicate can also mean "imply," but be careful about using it to mean "predict"-that use does appear in published sources sometimes, but it's an easy target for usage commentators, who are bound to consider it an all-too-predictable error. The meaning of predicate directly tapped from its Latin root-that is, "to assert"-most often occurs in metaphysic contemplation. A simplistic example of such use is the statement "if y is said to be x (e.g., an apple is a fruit), everything that is predicated of y is predicated of x."

Virtuous (ver-choo-OH-soh)

1 : an experimenter or investigator especially in the arts and sciences 2 : one skilled in or having a taste for the fine arts 3 : one who excels in the technique of an art; especially : a highly skilled musical performer English speakers borrowed the Italian noun virtuoso in the 1600s. It comes in turn from the Italian adjective virtuoso, which means both "virtuous" and "skilled." In English, virtuoso can be pluralized as either virtuosos or virtuosi, and it is often used attributively ("a virtuoso performer"). The first virtuosos were individuals of substantial knowledge and learning ("great wits," to quote one 17th-century clergyman). The word was then transferred to those skilled in the fine arts, and by the 18th century it had acquired its specific sense applied to musicians. In the 20th century, English speakers broadened virtuoso again to apply to a person skilled in any pursuit.

Rationale (rash-uh-NAL)

1 : an explanation of controlling principles of opinion, belief, practice, or phenomena 2 : an underlying reason : basis The word rationale appeared in the second half of the 17th century, just in time for the Age of Reason. It is based on the Latin ratio, which means "reason," and rationalis, which means "endowed with reason." At first, rationale meant "an explanation of controlling principles" ("a rationale of religious practices," for example), but soon it began to refer to the underlying reason for something (as in "the rationale for her behavior"). The latter meaning is now the most common use of the term. The English word ratio can also mean "underlying reason" (in fact, it had this meaning before rationale did), but in current use, that word more often refers to the relationship (in number, quantity, or degree) between things.

Gordian knot (GOR-dee-un-NAHT)

1 : an intricate problem; especially : a problem insoluble in its own terms 2 : a knot tied by Gordius, king of Phrygia, held to be capable of being untied only by the future ruler of Asia, and cut by Alexander the Great with his sword According to Roman mythology, when the peasant Gordius became king of Gordium in Phrygia, he dedicated his wagon to Jupiter and fastened its yoke to a beam with a very complex knot. Centuries later, when Alexander the Great arrived on the scene, he was told that he couldn't conquer and rule Asia unless he proved himself worthy by untying the knot. Alexander quickly solved his problem—and gained a new kingdom—by slicing the knot in half with his sword. Since then, Gordian knot has become a term for a difficult problem, and the phrase "cut the Gordian knot" has become a popular way to describe a neat solution for an apparently insurmountable difficulty.

Talisman (TAL-iss-mun)

1 : an object held to act as a charm to avert evil and bring good fortune 2 : something producing apparently magical or miraculous effects Do you believe in lucky charms? Language reflects the fact that many people do. We might have borrowed talisman from French, Spanish, or Italian; all three include similar-looking words for a lucky charm. Those three terms derive from a single Arabic word for a charm, tilsam. Tilsam in turn can be traced to the ancient Greek verb telein, which means "to initiate into the mysteries." While the word talisman, in its strictest use, refers to an object, even a human being can be considered a talisman—such as a player on a team whose mere presence somehow causes magical things to happen.

Solecism (SAH-luh-sih-zum)

1 : an ungrammatical combination of words in a sentence; also : a minor blunder in speech 2 : something deviating from the proper, normal, or accepted order 3 : a breach of etiquette or decorum The city of Soloi had a reputation for bad grammar. Located in Cilicia, an ancient coastal nation in Asia Minor, it was populated by Athenian colonists called soloikos (literally "inhabitant of Soloi"). According to historians, the colonists of Soloi allowed their native Athenian Greek to be corrupted and they fell to using words incorrectly. As a result, soloikos gained a new meaning: "speaking incorrectly." The Greeks used that sense as the basis of soloikismos, meaning "an ungrammatical combination of words." That root in turn gave rise to the Latin soloecismus, the direct ancestor of the English word solecism. Nowadays, solecism can refer to social blunders as well as sloppy syntax.

Compunction (kum-PUNK-shun)

1 : anxiety arising from awareness of guilt 2 : distress of mind over an anticipated action or result 3 : a twinge of misgiving : scruple An old proverb says "a guilty conscience needs no accuser," and it's true that the sting of a guilty conscience-or a conscience that is provoked by the contemplation of doing something wrong-can prick very hard indeed. The sudden guilty "prickings" of compunction are reflected in the word's etymological history. Compunction comes (via the Anglo-French compunction and the Middle English compunccioun) from the Latin compungere, which means "to prick hard" or "to sting." Compungere, in turn, derives from pungere, meaning "to prick," which is the ancestor of some other prickly words in English, such as "puncture" and even "point."

Nebula (NEB-yuh-luh)

1 : any of numerous clouds of gas or dust in interstellar space 2 : any of the very large groups of stars and associated matter that are found throughout the universe; especially : a galaxy other than the Milky Way — not used technically The history of the word nebula is not lost in the mists of time, although its history does get misty at points. The word traces back to the Latin word (spelled the same way as our modern term) for "mist" or "cloud." In its earliest English uses in the 1600s, nebula referred to a cloudy speck or film on the eye that caused vision problems. It was first applied to great interstellar clouds of gas and dust in the early 1700s. The adjective nebulous comes from the same Latin root as nebula, but the first uses of nebulous in the astronomical sense don't appear in English until the late 1700s, well after the discovery of interstellar nebulae.

Overweening (oh-ver-WEE-ning)

1 : arrogant, presumptuous 2 : immoderate, exaggerated "The overweening conceit which the greater part of men have of their own abilities is an ancient evil remarked by the philosophers and moralists of all ages." So wrote Adam Smith in his The Wealth of Nations. But while overweening conceit might be an age-old evil, the word overweening has only been part of English since the 14th century. It developed from the Middle English *overwening, the present participle of the verb overwenen, which meant "to be arrogant." That term derived in turn from wenen, which meant "to think" or "to imagine." Today, the adjective overweening is the most widely used of the wenen descendants, but historical texts also occasionally include overween, a term for thinking too highly of your own opinion.*

Peremptory (puh-REMP-tuh-ree)

1 : barring a right of action, debate, or delay 2 : expressive of urgency or command 3 : marked by arrogant self-assurance : haughty Peremptory is ultimately from Latin perimere, which means "to take entirely" or "destroy" and comes from per- ("thoroughly") and emere ("to take"). Peremptory implies the removal of one's option to disagree or contest something. It sometimes suggests an abrupt dictatorial manner combined with an unwillingness to tolerate disobedience or dissent (as in "he was given a peremptory dismissal"). A related term is the adjective preemptive, which comes from Latin praeemere-from prae- ("before") plus emere. Preemptive means "marked by the seizing of the initiative" (as in "a preemptive attack").

Inimical (in-NIM-ih-kul)

1 : being adverse often by reason of hostility or malevolence 2 a : having the disposition of an enemy : hostile b : reflecting or indicating hostility : unfriendly In inimical, one finds both a friend and an enemy. The word descends from Latin inimicus, which combines amicus, meaning "friend," with the negative prefix in-, meaning "not." In current English, inimical rarely describes a person, however. Instead, it is generally used to describe forces, concepts, or situations that are in some way harmful or hostile. For example, high inflation may be called inimical to economic growth. Inimicus is also an ancestor of enemy, whereas amicus gave us the much more congenial amicable (meaning "friendly" or "peaceful") and amiable (meaning "agreeable" or "friendly").

Contiguous (kun-TIG-yuh-wus)

1 : being in actual contact : touching along a boundary or at a point 2 : adjacent 2 - used of angles 3 : next or near in time or sequence 4 : touching or connected throughout in an unbroken sequence You probably won't be surprised to learn that the word contact is a relative of contiguous, but would you believe that contagion and contingent are too? All of those words derive from the Latin contingere, meaning "to have contact with." The words contact and contiguous are fairly easy to connect with contingere, but what of the other two? In its early use, contingent was a synonym of "touching," and if you remember that touching something can pollute it (and that another meaning of contingere was "to pollute"), then contagion logically ties in, too.

Ebullient (ih-BULL-yunt)

1 : boiling, agitated 2 : having or showing liveliness and enthusiasm : exuberant Someone who is ebullient is bubbling over with enthusiasm, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise that the adjective ebullient derives from the Latin verb ebullire, which means "to bubble out." (The stem bullire is an ancestor of our word boil and derives from bulla, the Latin word for "bubble.") In its earliest known uses in English in the late 1500s, ebullient was used in the sense of "boiling" or "bubbling" that might have described a pot simmering on the stove. Only later did the word's meaning broaden to encompass emotional agitation (particularly of the exuberant kind) in addition to the tempestuous roiling of a boiling liquid.

Tremulous (TREM-yuh-luss)

1 : characterized by or affected with trembling or tremors 2 : affected with timidity : timorous 3 : such as is or might be caused by nervousness or shakiness 4 : exceedingly sensitive : easily shaken or disordered Do you suspect that tremulous must be closely related to tremble? If so, there's no need to be tremulous in voicing your suspicion: both of those words derive from the Latin verb tremere, which means "to tremble." Some other English offspring of tremere are tremor, tremendous, temblor (another word for an earthquake), and tremolo (a term that describes a vibrating and quavering musical effect that was particularly popular for electric guitars and organs in the 1970s).

Turbid (TER-bid)

1 : cloudy or discolored by suspended particles 2 : confused, muddled Turbid and turgid (which means "swollen or distended" or "overblown, pompous, or bombastic") are frequently mistaken for one another, and it's no wonder. Not only do the two words differ by only a letter, they are often used in contexts where either word could fit. For example, a flooded stream can be simultaneously cloudy and swollen, and badly written prose might be both unclear and grandiloquent. Nevertheless, the distinction between these two words, however fine, is an important one for conveying exact shades of meaning, so it's a good idea to keep them straight.

Sacrilegious (sak-ruh-LIJ-us)

1 : committing or characterized by a technical and not necessarily intrinsically outrageous violation (such as improper reception of a sacrament) of what is sacred because consecrated to God 2 : grossly irreverent toward a hallowed person, place, or thing It may seem that sacrilegious should be spelled as sacreligious, since the word sometimes describes an irreverent treatment of religious objects or places. However, sacrilegious comes to us from sacrilege, which is ultimately derived from a combination of the Latin words sacer ("sacred") and legere ("to gather" or "to steal"). Its antecedent in Latin, sacrilegus, meant "one who steals sacred things." There is no direct relation to religious (which is derived from the Latin word religiosus, itself from religio, meaning "supernatural constraint or religious practice"). The apparent resemblance between sacrilegious and religious is just a coincidence.

Rigmarole (RIG-uh-muh-rol)

1 : confused or meaningless talk 2 : a complex and sometimes ritualistic procedure Did You Know? In the Middle Ages, the term Rageman or Ragman referred to a game in which a player randomly selected a string attached to a roll of verses and read the selected verse. The roll was called a Ragman roll after a fictional king purported to be the author of the verses. By the 16th century, ragman and ragman roll were being used figuratively to mean "a list or catalog." Both terms fell out of written use, but ragman roll persisted in speech, and in the 18th century it resurfaced in writing as rigmarole, with the meaning "a succession of confused, meaningless, or foolish statements." In the mid-19th century rigmarole (also spelled rigamarole, reflecting its common pronunciation) acquired its most recent sense, "a complex and ritualistic procedure."

Binary (BYE-nuh-ree)

1 : consisting of two things or parts 2 : relating to, being, or belonging to a number system having 2 as its base 3 : involving a choice between or condition of two alternatives only (such as on-off or yes-no) As the old children's song goes, "The animals went in two by two, the elephant and the kangaroo...." It was a binary parade of sorts that went into Noah's ark "for to get out of the rain"—the critters were represented in pairs. If you recall those doubled up beasts, you'll remember the etymology of binary because it traces to the Latin bini, which translates as "two by two." Although binary can be used for anything with two parts, it is now used especially in relation to computers and information processing. Digital computers use the binary number system, which includes only the digits 0 and 1, to process even complex data. In binary form, for instance, the word HELLO looks like this: 01001000 01000101 01001100 01001100 01001111.

Belated (bih-LAY-tud)

1 : delayed beyond the usual time 2 : existing or appearing past the normal or proper time Long ago, there was a verb belate, which meant "to make late." From the beginning, belate tended to mostly turn up in the form of its past participle belated. Eventually, belate itself fell out of use, leaving behind belated as an adjective that preserved the original notion of delay. As you may have guessed, belate and its descendant belated derive from the adjective late; belate was formed by simply combining the prefix be- ("to cause to be") with late. Belated was also once used in the sense "overtaken by night," as in "belated travelers seeking lodging for the night." This sense was in fact the first meaning of the adjective but it too fell out of use.

Histrionic (his-tree-AH-nik)

1 : deliberately affected : theatrical 2 : of or relating to actors, acting, or the theater The term histrionic developed from histrio, Latin for "actor." Something that is histrionic tends to remind one of the high drama of stage and screen and is often stagy and over-the-top. It especially calls to mind the theatrical form known as melodrama, where plot and physical action, not characterization, are emphasized. But something that is histrionic isn't always overdone; the word can also describe actors, acting, or the theater, and in that sense it becomes a synonym of thespian. The related plural noun histrionics is similarly bifurcated. It can refer to either theatrical performances or to a deliberate display of emotion for effect.

Precarious (prih-KAIR-ee-us)

1 : dependent on uncertain premises : dubious 2 a : dependent on chance circumstances, unknown conditions, or uncertain developments b : dangerously lacking in security or steadiness "This little happiness is so very precarious, that it wholly depends on the will of others." Joseph Addison, in a 1711 issue of Spectator magazine, couldn't have described the oldest sense of precarious more precisely-the original meaning of the word was "depending on the will or pleasure of another." Prayers and entreaties directed at that "other" might or might not help, but what precariousness really hangs on, in the end, is prex, the Latin word for prayer. From prex came the Latin word precarius, meaning "obtained by entreaty," from whence came our own adjective precarious. Anglo-French priere, also from precarius, gave us prayer.

Livid (LIV-id)

1 : discolored by bruising : black-and-blue 2 : ashen, pallid 3 : reddish 4 : very angry : enraged Livid has a colorful history. The Latin adjective lividus means "dull grayish or leaden blue." From this came the French livide and eventually the English livid, which was used to describe flesh discolored by a bruise when it was first recorded in the early 17th century. A slight extension of meaning gave it the sense "ashen or pallid," as used in describing a corpse. Livid eventually came to be used in this sense to characterize the complexion of a person pale with anger ("livid with rage"). From this meaning came two new senses in the 20th century. One was "reddish," as one is as likely to become red with anger as pale; the other was simply "angry" or "furious," the most common sense of the word today.

Gratuitous (gruh-TOO-uh-tuss)

1 : done or provided without recompense : free 2 : not called for by the circumstances : unwarranted Like gratitude, grace, and congratulate, gratuitous is a descendant of the Latin word gratus, which means "pleasing" or "grateful." When gratuitous was first used in the middle of the 17th century, it meant "free" or "given without return benefit or compensation." The extended meaning "done without good reason" or "unwarranted" came about just a few decades later, perhaps from the belief held by some people that one should not give something without getting something in return. Today, that extended meaning is the more common sense, often used in such phrases as "a gratuitous insult" or to describe elements of a story that are not relevant to the plot.

Spontaneous(spahn-TAY-nee-us)

1 : done, said, or produced freely and naturally 2 : arising from a momentary impulse 3 : produced without being planted or without human labor : indigenous 4 : acting or taking place without apparent external cause or influence Spontaneous derives, via the Late Latin spontaneus, from the Latin sponte, meaning "of one's free will, voluntarily," and first appeared in English in the mid-17th century. Thomas Hobbes was an early adopter: he wrote that "all voluntary actions ... are called also spontaneous, and said to be done by man's own accord" in his famous 1656 The Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity, and Chance. Today the word is more often applied to things done or said in a natural and often sudden way, without a lot of thought or planning—or to people who do or say things in such a way.

Lissome (LISS-um)

1 : easily flexed 2 : lithe, nimble Lissome (sometimes spelled lissom) is a gently altered form of its synonym, lithesome. While lissome tends to be the more popular choice these days, the two words have similar pasts. They both appeared in the second half of the 18th century, and they both trace back to the much older lithe ("supple" or "graceful"), which first appeared in English during the 14th century and comes from an Old English word meaning "gentle." Lissome can also be an adverb meaning "in a supple or nimble manner," but this use is rare.

Equinox (EE-kwuh-nahks)

1 : either of the two points on the celestial sphere where the celestial equator intersects the ecliptic 2 : either of the two times each year (as about March 21 and September 23) when the sun crosses the equator and day and night are everywhere on earth of approximately equal length Equinox descends from aequus, the Latin word for "equal," and nox, the Latin word for "night"—a fitting history for a word that describes days of the year when the daytime and nighttime are equal in length. In the northern hemisphere, the vernal equinox marks the first day of spring and occurs when the sun moves north across the equator. (Vernal comes from the Latin word ver, meaning "spring.") The autumnal equinox marks the first day of autumn in the northern hemisphere and occurs when the sun crosses the equator going south. In contrast, a solstice is either of the two moments in the year when the sun's apparent path is farthest north or south from the equator.

Moxie (MAHK-see)

1 : energy, pep 2 : courage, determination 3 : know-how "Hot roasted peanuts! Fresh popcorn! Ice-cold Moxie!" You might have heard such a snack vendor's cry at a baseball game-if you attended it in 1924. That was the heyday of the soft drink named Moxie, which some claim outsold Coca-Cola at the height of its popularity. The beverage was a favorite of American writer E. B. White, who wrote, "Moxie contains gentian root, which is the path to the good life. This was known in the second century before Christ and is a boon to me today." By 1930, moxie had become a slang term for nerve and verve, perhaps because some people thought the drink was a tonic that could cure virtually any ill and bring vim back to even the most lethargic individual.

Perpetuity (per-puh-TOO-uh-tee)

1 : eternity 2 : the quality or state of continuing forever Continual existence—that elusive concept has made perpetuity a favorite term of philosophers and poets for centuries. The word derives ultimately from the Latin adjective perpetuus ("continual" or "uninterrupted"), which is also the source of our perpetual and perpetuate. It frequently occurs in the phrase "in perpetuity," which essentially means "forever" or "for an indefinitely long period of time." Perpetuity also has some specific uses in law. It can refer to an arrangement in a will rendering land forever inalienable (or at least, for a period longer than is set by rules against such arrangements) or to an annuity that is payable forever.

Equanimity (ee-kwuh-NIM-uh-tee)

1 : evenness of mind especially under stress 2 : right disposition : balance If you think equanimity looks like it has something to do with equal, you've guessed correctly. Both equanimity and equal are derived from aequus, a Latin adjective meaning "level" or "equal." Equanimity comes from the combination of aequus and animus ("soul" or "mind") in the Latin phrase aequo animo, which means "with even mind." English speakers began using equanimity early in the 17th century with the now obsolete sense "fairness or justness of judgment," which was in keeping with the meaning of the Latin phrase. Equanimity quickly came to suggest keeping a cool head under any sort of pressure, not merely when presented with a problem, and eventually it developed an extended sense for general balance and harmony.

Testimonial (tess-tuh-MOH-nee-ul)

1 : evidence, testimony 2 a : a statement testifying to benefits received b : a character reference : letter of recommendation 3 : an expression of appreciation : tribute In 1639, Scottish poet William Drummond responded to the political scene of his day by writing a facetious set of new laws, among them that "no man wear a . . . periwig, unless he have a testimonial from a town-clerk, that he is either bald, sickly, or asham'd of white hairs." Testimonials take different forms, but always, like in Drummond's recommended law, they provide affirmation or evidence. (Our word traces to Latin testimonium, meaning "evidence, witness.") In the 19th century, a gift presented to someone as a public expression of appreciation for service rendered became the newest version of a testimonial. Then, it was likely to be a statue or portrait. In the 20th century, we came up with testimonial dinners to show our appreciation or esteem. Testimonials (usually solicited) that endorse products or services are also a 20th-century phenomenon.

Superfluous (soo-PER-floo-us)

1 : exceeding what is sufficient or necessary : extra 2 : not needed : unnecessary If you think that superfluous must mean "extra 'fluous,'" along the pattern of such words as superabsorbent and superabundant, you're not far off. Superfluous comes from the Latin adjective superfluus, meaning literally "running over" or "overflowing." Superfluus, in turn, derives from the combination of the prefix super- (meaning "over" or "more") and fluere, "to flow." (Fluere also gave us fluid, fluent, and influence, among others.) Since its first appearance in English in the 15th century, superfluous has referred to an "overflowing" of some supply, as of time or words, which hearkens back to its Latin origins.

Jeopardy (JEP-er-dee)

1 : exposure to death, loss, or injury : danger 2 : the danger that an accused person is subjected to when on trial for a criminal offense Centuries ago, the Old French term jeuparti didn't mean "danger" but rather "an alternative" or, literally, "a divided game." That French expression was used for anything that represented an alternative viewpoint or gave two opposing viewpoints. Jeuparti passed into Anglo-French as juparti, and from there it was borrowed into Middle English and respelled jeopardie. At first, the English word was used to refer to the risks associated with alternative moves in the game of chess. Almost immediately, however, the term came to be used more generally in the "risk" or "danger" sense that it has today.

Truculent (TRUCK-yuh-lunt)

1 : feeling or displaying ferocity : cruel, savage 2 : deadly, destructive 3 : scathingly harsh : vitriolic 4 : aggressively self-assertive : belligerent Truculent derives from truculentus, a form of the Latin adjective trux, meaning "savage." It has been used in English since the 16th century to describe people or things that are cruel and ferocious, such as tyrannical leaders, and has also come to mean "deadly or destructive" (as in "a truculent disease"). In current use, however, it has lost much of its etymological fierceness. It now frequently serves to describe speech or writing that is notably harsh (as in "truculent criticism") or a person who is notably self-assertive and surly (such as "a truculent schoolboy"). Some usage commentators have criticized these extended uses because they do not match the savagery of the word's original sense, but they are well-established and perfectly standard.

Affluent (AF-loo-unt)

1 : flowing in abundance 2 : having a generously sufficient and typically increasing supply of material possessions Are your coffers overflowing? Is your cash flow more than adequate? Are your assets fluid? If so, you can consider yourself affluent. Today's word is all about flow—that is to say, it's based on the Latin word for "flow," which is fluere. (Some other fluere descendants are confluence, fluctuate, fluid, influence, mellifluous, and superfluous.) The older sense of affluent refers, both literally and figuratively, to an abundant flow, as in "an affluent fountain" or "affluent joy." The use of "affluent fortune" for an abundant flow of money is what likely led to the use of affluent as a synonym of wealthy.

Victual (VIT-ul)

1 : food usable by people 2 : (plural) supplies of food If you're hungry for the story behind victual, get ready to dig into a rich and fulfilling history. The word derives via Middle English and Anglo-French from the Latin noun victus, meaning "nourishment" or "way of living." Victus derives from the verb vivere, which means "to live" and which is the source of a whole smorgasbord of other English words like vital, vivid, and survive. It's also the root of viand, another English word referring to food. There's also vittles, a word that sounds like it might be an alteration of the plural victuals but which actually entered English a century before victual.

Replete (rih-PLEET)

1 : fully or abundantly provided or filled 2 a : abundantly fed b : fat, stout 3 : complete Given that one of the roots of replete is the Latin verb plēre, meaning "to fill," it isn't surprising that the word has synonyms such as full and complete. Replete, full, and complete all indicate that something contains all that is wanted or needed or possible, but there are also subtle differences between the words. Full implies the presence or inclusion of everything that can be held, contained, or attained ("a full schedule"), while complete applies when all that is needed is present ("a complete picture of the situation"). Replete is the synonym of choice when fullness is accompanied by a sense of satiety.

Ruddy (RUDD-ee)

1 : having a healthy reddish color 2 : red, reddish In Old English, there were two related words meaning "red": rēad and rudu. Rēad evolved into our present-day red. Rudu evolved into rud (a word now encountered only in dialect or archaic usage) and ruddy. Most often, ruddy is applied to the face when it has the red glow of good health or is red from a suffusion of blood from exercise or excitement. It is also used in the names of some birds, such as the American ruddy duck. In British English, ruddy is also used as a colorful euphemism for the sometimes vulgar intensive bloody, as English writer Sir Kingsley Amis illustrates in The Riverside Villas Murder: "Ruddy marvelous, the way these coppers' minds work.... I take a swing at Chris Inman in public means I probably done him in."

Null (NULL)

1 : having no legal or binding force : invalid 2 : amounting to nothing : nil 3 : having no value : insignificant 4 : having no elements English borrowed null from the Anglo-French nul, meaning "not any." That word, in turn, traces to the Latin word nullus, from ne-, meaning "not," and ullus, meaning "any." We sometimes use null with the meaning "lacking meaning or value," as in "By the time I heard it, the news was null." In math, null is sometimes used to mean "containing nothing"; for example, the set of all whole numbers that are divisible by zero is the null set (that is, there are no numbers that fit that description). The phrase null and void is a term in its own right, defined as "having no validity."

Immaculate (ih-MAK-yuh-lut)

1 : having no stain or blemish : pure 2 : containing no flaw or error 3 a : spotlessly clean b : having no colored spots or marks The opposite of immaculate is maculate, which means "marked with spots" or "impure." The Latin word maculatus, the past participle of a verb meaning "to stain," is the source of both words and can be traced back to macula, a word that scientists still use for spots on the skin, on the wings of insects, and on the surface of celestial objects. Maculate has not marked as many pages as immaculate, but it has appeared occasionally (one might say "spottily"), especially as an antithesis to immaculate. We find the pair, for example, in an article by Peter Schjeldahl in an April 2004 issue of The New Yorker: "Rob's apartment, with its immaculate ranks of album spines and its all too maculate strewing of everything else...."

Huckster (HUCK-ster)

1 : hawker, peddler 2 : one who produces promotional material for commercial clients especially for radio or television 3 : someone who sells or advertises something in an aggressive, dishonest, or annoying way Hawkers, peddlers, and hucksters have been selling things out of the back of wagons, in narrow alleys, and on the fringes of towns for years (though nowadays, they're more likely to plug their wares on television or the Internet). Of those three words-hawker, peddler, and huckster-the one that has been around the longest in English is huckster. It has been with us for over 800 years, and it derives from the Middle Dutch word hokester, which in turn comes from the verb hoeken, meaning "to peddle." Peddler (or pedlar) was first attested in the 14th century, and the pertinent sense of hawker has only been appearing in English texts since the early 1500s.

Emeritus (ih-MEH-ruh-tus)

1 : holding after retirement an honorary title corresponding to that held last during active service 2 : retired from an office or position — converted to emeriti after a plural The adjective emeritus is unusual in two ways: it's frequently used postpositively (that is, after the noun it modifies), and it has a plural form—emeriti—when it modifies a plural noun in its second sense. If you've surmised from these qualities that the word is Latin in origin, you are correct. Emeritus, which is the Latin past participle of the verb emereri, meaning "to serve out one's term," was originally used to describe soldiers who had completed their duty. (Emereri is from the prefix e-, meaning "out," and merēre, meaning "to earn, deserve, or serve"—also the source of our English word merit.) By the early 18th century, English speakers were using emeritus as an adjective to refer to professors who had retired from office. The word eventually came to be applied to other professions where a retired member may continue to hold a title in an honorary capacity.

Dyspepsia (dis-PEP-shuh)

1 : indigestion 2 : ill humor : disgruntlement When people get indigestion, they are often affected by nausea, heartburn, and gas-things that can cause the world's greatest gastronome to curse the world's most delectable dishes. So, it is no wonder that dyspepsia, a word for indigestion, has also come to mean "ill humor" or "disgruntlement." The word itself is ultimately derived from the Greek prefix dys- ("faulty" or "impaired") and the verb pessein ("to cook" or "to digest"). To please the wordmonger's appetite, we would like to end with this tasty morsel: Dyspepsia has an opposite, eupepsia-a rarely used word meaning "good digestion."

Petulant (PET-chuh-lunt)

1 : insolent or rude in speech or behavior 2 : characterized by temporary or capricious ill humor : peevish Petulant is one of many English words that are related to the Latin verb petere, which means "to go to," "to attack," "to seek," or "to request." Petere is a relative of the Latin adjective petulans ("impudent"), from which petulant was derived. Some other words with connections to petere are compete and appetite. Competere, the Late Latin precursor to compete, is a combination of the prefix com- and the verb petere. The joining of ad- and petere led to appetere ("to strive after"), and eventually to Latin appetitus, the source of our appetite. Additional descendants of petere are petition, perpetual, and impetus.

Juncture (JUNK-cher)

1 : joint, connection 2 : a point of time; especially : one made critical by a concurrence of circumstances Juncture has many relatives in English-and some of them are easy to spot, whereas others are not so obvious. Juncture derives from the Latin verb jungere ("to join"), which gave us not only join and junction but also conjugal ("relating to marriage") and junta ("a group of persons controlling a government"). Jungere also has distant etymological connections to joust, jugular, juxtapose, yoga, and yoke. The use of juncture in English dates back to the 14th century. Originally, the word meant "a place where two or more things are joined," but by the 17th century it could also be used of an important point in time or of a stage in a process or activity.

Fallible (FAL-uh-bul)

1 : liable to be erroneous 2 : capable of making a mistake Errare humanum est. That Latin expression translates into English as "To err is human." Of course, cynics might say that it is also human to deceive. The word fallible simultaneously recognizes both of these human character flaws. In modern usage, it refers to one's ability to err, but it descends from the Latin verb fallere, which means "to deceive." Fallible has been used to describe the potential for error since at least the 15th century. Other descendants of the deceptive fallere in English, all of which actually predate fallible, include fallacy (the earliest, now obsolete, meaning was "guile, trickery"), fault, false, and even fail and failure.

Adamantine (ad-uh-MAN-teen)

1 : made of or having the quality of adamant 2 : rigidly firm : unyielding 3 : resembling the diamond in hardness or luster The Greek and Latin word for the hardest imaginable substance, whether applied to a legendary stone or an actual substance, such as diamond, was adamas. Latin poets used the term figuratively for things lasting, firm, or unbending, and the adjective adamantinus was used in similar contexts. The English noun adamant (meaning "an unbreakable or extremely hard substance"), as well as the adjective adamant (meaning "inflexible" or "unyielding"), came from adamas. Adamantine, which also has such figurative uses as "rigid," "firm," and "unyielding," came from adamantinus. Adamas is actually the source of diamond as well. Diamas, the Latin term for diamond, was an alteration of adamas.

Wooden (WOOD-un)

1 : made or consisting of wood 2 : lacking ease or flexibility : awkwardly stiff Humans have been making objects out of wood since before there was an English language, but the adjectival use of wood didn't come into being until the 14th century, and wooden didn't appear until the 16th. (The word wood has ancient roots, but it originally existed only as a noun.) In Middle English, the adjective of choice was tree or treen, as in a "tree vessel" or "treen shoes." Treen in turn came from the Old English word trēowen, from the noun trēow ("tree") and the suffix -en, which was used to indicate that something was composed of a certain material. As far as we know, no one ever used treen figuratively to describe things that are stiff as a board, but wooden was put to broader use soon after it was first recorded.

Lodestone (LOHD-stohn)

1 : magnetite [a black isometric [of or having equal dimensions.] mineral of the spinel group [[The Spinel Group contains over twenty members, but only a few are considered common. They are a group of oxides that have very similar structures. Named after their sole gemstone representative, spinel, this is an important group of minerals.]] that is an oxide [a binary compound of oxygen with another element or group.] of iron and an important iron ore] possessing polarity 2 : something that strongly attracts Lodestone is made up of distinctly English components, ones that have been part of our language since before the 12th century. Lode comes from the Old English lād, which means "way, journey, course." The word stone derives from the Old English stān, which had the same meaning as the modern term stone. When the two ancient words were combined to form lodestone in the early 16th century, the new term referred to magnetite, a magnetic iron ore. Just as a new business district might be a magnet for entrepreneurs, or a poor soul a magnet for bad luck, lodestone sees similar figurative use describing things with a seeming power to attract.

Sprightly (SPRYTE-lee)

1 : marked by a cheerful lightness and vivacity (as of movement or manner) : spirited 2 : having a distinctively piquant taste Sprightly comes from spright, an archaic version of the word we now use for an elf or fairy: sprite. Ariel from Shakespeare's The Tempest and the leprechaun of Irish mythology are often referred to as sprites, and it's no coincidence that both are characterized by their light, flitting movements and mannerisms. Sprite derives via Middle English and Old French from the Latin spiritus, which of course gives us spirit as well. A similar-looking adjective that can describe someone who is nimble and energetic is spry, but that word is believed to be of Scandinavian origin.

Captious (KAP-shuss)

1 : marked by an often ill-natured inclination to stress faults and raise objections 2 : calculated to confuse, entrap, or entangle in argument If you suspect that captious is a relative of capture and captivate, you're right. All of those words are related to the Latin verb capere, which means "to take." The direct ancestor of captious is captio, a Latin offspring of capere, which literally means "a taking" but which was also used to mean "a deception" or "a sophistic argument." Arguments labeled "captious" are likely to capture you in a figurative sense; they often entrap through subtly deceptive reasoning or trifling points. A captious individual is one who you might also dub "hypercritical," the sort of carping, censorious critic only too ready to point out minor faults or raise objections on trivial grounds.

Quiescent (kwy-ESS-unt)

1 : marked by inactivity or repose : tranquilly at rest 2 : causing no trouble or symptoms Quiescent won't cause you any pain, and neither will its synonyms latent, dormant, and potential-at least not immediately. All four words mean "not now showing signs of activity or existence." Latent usually applies to something that has not yet come forth but may emerge and develop, as in "a latent desire for success." Dormant implies a state of inactivity similar to sleep, as in "their passions lay dormant." Potential applies to what may or may not come to be. "A potential disaster" is a typical example. Quiescent, which traces to Latin quiescere (meaning "to become quiet" or "to rest"), often suggests a temporary cessation of activity, as in "a quiescent disease" or "a summer resort quiescent in wintertime."

Prudent (PROO-dunt)

1 : marked by wisdom or judiciousness 2 : shrewd in the management of practical affairs 3 : cautious, discreet 4 : thrifty, frugal Prudent arrived in Middle English around the 14th century and traces back, by way of Middle French, to the Latin verb providēre, meaning "to see ahead, foresee, provide (for)." One who is prudent literally has the foresight to make sound or shrewd decisions. Providēre combines pro-, meaning "before," and vidēre, meaning "to see," and it may look familiar to you; it is also the source of our words provide, provident, provision, and improvise. Vidēre also has many English offspring, including evident, supervise, video, and vision.

Brusque (BRUSK)

1 : markedly short and abrupt 2 : blunt in manner or speech often to the point of ungracious harshness We borrowed brusque from French in the 1600s. The French, in turn, had borrowed it from Italian, where it was spelled brusco and meant "tart." And the Italian term came from bruscus, the Medieval Latin name for butcher's-broom, a shrub whose bristly leaf-like twigs have long been used for making brooms. English speakers initially used brusque to refer to a tartness in wine, but the word soon came to denote a harsh and stiff manner-which is just what you might expect of a word bristling with associations to stiff, scratchy brooms.

Quaggy (KWAG-ee)

1 : marshy or boggy 2 : flabby or soft Quaggy is related to quag, a word for a marsh or bog, and quagmire-which can refer to wet, spongy land that gives way underfoot or, figuratively, to a predicament. Etymologists claim no firm footing when it comes to the origin of the syllable the words share in common, though it's been suggested that quag is imitative, echoing the soft, mushy sound that wet ground makes when you walk on it. The words are all roughly the same age, with earliest evidence of quagmire, quag, and quaggy dating to 1566, 1589, and 1596, respectively.

Nonage (NAH-nij)

1 : minority 2 a : a period of youth b : lack of maturity Minority, majority; infancy, adulthood; nonage, full age-here you have the three contrasting pairs that constitute the vocabulary of legal age. Minority, infancy, and nonage are synonyms that mean "the state or time of being under legal age." Majority, adulthood, and full age mean "the state or time of being of legal age." (All these words, particularly infancy and adulthood, have other meanings as well, of course.) Nonage came to us by way of Middle English from an Anglo-French union of non- and age, which combine to mean "not of age."

Dewy (DOO-ee)

1 : moist with, affected by, or suggestive of dew 2 : innocent, unsophisticated "And her faire deawy eies with kisses deare Shee ofte did bathe" (Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene). "I would these dewy teares were from the ground" (William Shakespeare, Richard III). "Till dewie sleep Oppress'd them" (John Milton, Paradise Lost). "Strengthen me, enlighten me ... Thou dewy dawn of memory" (Alfred Tennyson, "Ode to Memory"). Such lines exemplify how the greats have poetically extended the characteristics of dewy grass to misty or crying eyes, as well as to things, like sleep, that affect people gently like forming dew, or to things, like memory, that gradually vanish like a morning's dew. In recent times, the adjective has often been used to describe the luminous complexions of models and starlets—an extension of the "suggestive of dew" meaning. It was not until the 20th century that people began to connect newly formed, undisturbed dew with freshness or purity and, in turn, with innocence and unsophistication, as in our second example sentence.

Jackanapes (JAK-uh-nayps)

1 : monkey, ape 2 a : an impudent or conceited fellow b : a saucy or mischievous child William de la Pole, the Duke of Suffolk, was a well-regarded soldier and commander during the Hundred Years' War. It was during his dukedom (1448-1450), however, that England lost its possessions in northern France, and his popularity consequently suffered. The coat of arms for de la Pole's family sported an image of a collar and chain that, at the time, was commonly used for leashing pet monkeys, then known as jackanapes (a word whose precise origin is uncertain). By association, people gave the Duke the nickname "Jack Napis," and soon jackanapes took on a life of its own as a word for an impudent person and, later, a misbehaving child.

Untenable (un-TEN-uh-bul)

1 : not able to be defended 2 : not able to be occupied Untenable and its opposite tenable come to us from Old French tenir and ultimately from Latin tenēre, both of which mean "to hold." We tend to use untenable in situations where an idea or position is so off base that holding onto it is unjustified or inexcusable. One way to hold onto the meaning of untenable is to associate it with other tenēre descendants whose meanings are associated with "holding" or "holding onto." Tenacious ("holding fast") is one example. Others are contain, detain, sustain, maintain, and retain.

Infrangible (in-FRAN-juh-bul)

1 : not capable of being broken or separated into parts 2 : not to be infringed or violated Infrangible comes to us via Middle French from the Late Latin infrangibilis, and it is ultimately derived from the prefix in- and the Latin verb frangere, meaning "to break." (Believe it or not, our break is ultimately derived from the same ancient word that gave rise to frangere.) Infrangible first appeared in print in English in the 16th century with the literal meaning "impossible to break"; it was later extended metaphorically to things that cannot or should not be broken.

Impeccable (im-PECK-uh-bul)

1 : not capable of sinning or liable to sin 2 : free from fault or blame : flawless The word impeccable has been used in English since at least 1531. It derives from the Latin word impeccabilis, a combination of the Latin prefix in-, meaning "not," and the verb peccare, meaning "to sin." Peccare has other descendants in English. There is peccadillo, meaning "a slight offense," and peccant, meaning "guilty of a moral offense" or simply "faulty." There is also peccavi, which comes from Latin, where it literally means "I have sinned," and which is used in English as a noun meaning "an acknowledgment of sin."

Exorbitant (ig-ZOR-buh-tunt)

1 : not coming within the scope of the law 2 : exceeding the customary or appropriate limits in intensity, quality, amount, or size The first use of exorbitant in English was "wandering or deviating from the normal or ordinary course." That sense is now archaic, but it provides a hint as to the origins of exorbitant: the word derives from Late Latin exorbitans, the present participle of the verb exorbitare, meaning "to deviate." Exorbitare in turn was formed by combining the prefix ex-, meaning "out of," with the noun orbita, meaning "track of a wheel" or "rut." (Orbita itself traces back to orbis, the Latin word for "disk" or "hoop.") In the 15th century exorbitant came to refer to something which fell outside of the normal or intended scope of the law. Eventually, it developed an extended sense as a synonym of excessive.

Quotidian (kwoh-TID-ee-un)

1 : occurring every day 2 : belonging to each day : everyday 3 : commonplace, ordinary In Shakespeare's play As You Like It, the character Rosalind observes that Orlando, who has been running about in the woods carving her name on trees and hanging love poems on branches, "seems to have the quotidian of love upon him." Shakespeare's use doesn't make it clear that quotidian derives from a Latin word that means "every day." But as odd as it may seem, Shakespeare's use of quotidian is just a short semantic step away from the "daily" adjective sense. Some fevers occur intermittently-sometimes daily. The phrase quotidian fever and the noun quotidian have long been used for such recurring maladies. Poor Orlando is simply afflicted with such a "fever" of love.

Kindred (KIN-drud)

1 : of a similar nature or character : like 2 : of the same ancestry If you believe that advice and relatives are inseparable, the etymology of kindred will prove you right. Kindred comes from a combination of kin (a word for one's relatives) and the Old English word ræden ("condition"), which itself comes from the verb ræden, meaning "to advise." Kindred entered English as a noun first, in the 12th century. That noun, which can refer to a group of related individuals or to one's own relatives, gave rise to the adjective kindred in the 14th century.

Rococo (ruh-KOH-koh)

1 : of or relating to an artistic style especially of the 18th century characterized by fanciful curved asymmetrical forms and elaborate ornamentation 2 : excessively ornate or intricate In the 18th century, French artists rebelled against the ponderousness of baroque style and began to create light, delicate interior decorations, furniture, and architectural elements characterized by fanciful, curved, asymmetrical forms and elaborate ornamentation. The name of their new style, rococo, has been traced to the French rocaille, a term that evoked the ornamental use of rock and shell forms. In time, rococo was also applied to similarly ornamented and intimate styles of painting and music. But all fashions fade, and by the mid-1800s the rococo style was deemed excessively ornate and out-of-date. Now rococo is often used with mild disdain to describe the overly elaborate.

Natatorial (nay-tuh-TOR-ee-ul)

1 : of or relating to swimming 2 : adapted to or characterized by swimming The Latin verb natare, meaning "to swim," gave English the word natatorial and its variant natatory. It also gave us natant ("swimming or floating in water"); supernatant ("floating on the surface"); natation ("the action or art of swimming"); and last but not least, natatorium ("an indoor swimming pool"). A few common English words are related to this rather obscure bunch, among them nurture, nutrient, and nutrition, but these descend not from natare, but from nutrire, a Latin word (meaning "to nourish") that shares an ancestor with natare.

Terrestrial (tuh-RESS-tree-ul)

1 : of or relating to the earth or its inhabitants 2 : living or growing on land 3 : belonging to a class of planets that are like the earth (as in density and silicate composition) What do terriers, terrariums, and terraces have in common with terrestrial? [Terra firma](/dictionary/terra firma)! All of those words derive from the Latin root terra, which means "earth." Of course, terrestrial can refer to anything on or from the Earth, and extraterrestrial describes things (or science fiction creatures) that come from space. And early usage of terrestrial, dating from the 15th century, indeed referred to creatures and other things that pertain to this world, as opposed to the heavens. By the 17th century, however, the word was also being used to describe things found strictly on land, as opposed to those found in the sea or air.

Consequential (kahn-suh-KWEN-shul)

1 : of the nature of a secondary result : indirect 2 : consequent 3 : having significant consequences : important 4 : self-important Consequential dates from the 17th century and can be traced back to the Latin verb consequi, meaning "to follow along." Consequi, in turn, combines the prefix con-, meaning "through" or "with," and sequi, meaning "to follow." The English words sequel, second, and suitor are among the offspring of sequi. Henry Fielding's 1728 comedy Love in Several Masques introduced the meaning of "important" to consequential, which had until that point been used primarily in the context of results. Evidence for this usage declined temporarily in the 19th century, causing its acceptability to be questioned by such commentators as H. W. Fowler; it resurfaced in the 20th century, however, and is now considered standard.

Draconian (dray-KOH-nee-un)

1 : of, relating to, or characteristic of Draco or the severe code of laws held to have been framed by him 2 : cruel; also : severe Draconian comes from Draco, the name of a 7th-century B.C.E. Athenian legislator who created a written code of law. Draco's code was intended to clarify existing laws, but its severity is what made it really memorable. In Draco's code, even minor offenses were punishable by death, and failure to pay one's debts could result in slavery. Draconian, as a result, became associated with things cruel or harsh. Something draconian need not always be as cruel as the laws in Draco's code, though; today the word is used in a wide variety of ways and often refers to measures (steep parking fines, for example) that are relatively minor when compared with the death penalty.

Ex parte (eks-PAR-tee)

1 : on or from one side or party only - used of legal proceedings 2 : from a one-sided or partisan point of view "Latin has not been over-used in a procedural context ('ex parte' being a rare exception)," wrote a correspondent to The London Times in May 1999. Indeed, ex parte (which literally meant "on behalf [of]" in Medieval Latin) pops up quite often in legal settings. Even when ex parte steps outside of the courtroom-to be used of an ex parte meeting, interview, chat, conversation, investigation, discussion, or contact, for example-the "one-sided" sense often has some sort of legal or legislative slant referring to involvement of just one party or side in a case or dispute.

Jinni (JEE-nee)

1 : one of a class of spirits that according to Muslim demonology inhabit the earth, assume various forms, and exercise supernatural power 2 : a magic spirit believed to take human form and serve the person who calls it : genie Is that jinni or jinn? Djinni or djinn? Adopted from an Arabic word for demon (usually represented in our alphabet as jinnī), this word is spelled a variety of ways in English-including genie, a spelling that comes from the same Arabic word but by way of French. All of those variant spellings are used to describe a supernatural spirit from Arabic mythology that is made of fire or air and can assume human or animal form. Mythology holds that jinn (that's the plural of jinni) love to punish humans for any harm done to them and that they are the cause of many accidents and diseases.

Gourmand (GOOR-mahnd)

1 : one who is excessively fond of eating and drinking 2 : one who is heartily interested in good food and drink "What God has plagu'd us with this gormaund guest?" As this exasperated question from Alexander Pope's 18th-century translation of Homer's Odyssey suggests, being a gourmand is not always a good thing. When gourmand began appearing in English texts in the 15th century, it was a decidedly bad thing, a synonym of glutton that was reserved for a greedy eater who consumed well past satiation. That negative connotation mostly remained until English speakers borrowed the similar-sounding (and much more positive) gourmet from French in the 19th century. Since then, the meaning of gourmand has softened so that although it still isn't wholly flattering, it now suggests someone who likes good food in large quantities rather than a slobbering glutton.

Superannuated (soo-per-AN-yuh-way-tud)

1 : outmoded, old-fashioned 2 a : incapacitated or disqualified for active duty by advanced age b : older than the typical member of a specified group Superannuated was first put to use in English in the 1600s, having been borrowed from Medieval Latin superannuatus, past participle of superannuari ("to be too old")-from Latin super- ("over" or "above") and annus ("year"). Shortly thereafter, we made our own verb, superannuate, from the adjective. Superannuate means "to dismiss or retire from service with a pension" as well as "to declare obsolete," meanings that are still in active service. Superannuated can mean "outmoded or old-fashioned," as in "superannuated slang" or the "superannuated navy ships" of our second example, or it can simply mean "older than usual," as in our first example sentence.

Bodacious (boh-DAY-shuss)

1 : outright, unmistakable 2 : remarkable, noteworthy 3 : sexy, voluptuous Some of our readers may know bodacious as a word that figured prominently in the lingo of the 1989 film Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Others may recall the term's frequent use in the long-running "Snuffy Smith" comic strip. Neither the creators of the comic strip nor the movie can claim to have coined bodacious, which actually first appeared in print in 1832, but both likely contributed to its popularity. The exact origin of the word is uncertain, but it was most likely influenced by bold and audacious, and it may be linked to boldacious, a term from British dialect.

Macaroni (mak-uh-ROH-nee)

1 : pasta made from semolina and shaped in the form of slender tubes 2 : an affected young man : fop As you may have suspected, the macaroni in the song "Yankee Doodle" is not the familiar food. The feather in Yankee Doodle's cap apparently makes him a macaroni in the now rare "fop" or "dandy" sense. The sense appears to have originated with a club established in London by a group of young, well-traveled Englishmen in the 1760s. The founders prided themselves on their appearance, sense of style, and manners, and they chose the name Macaroni Club to indicate their worldliness. Because macaroni was, at the time, a new and rather exotic food in England, the name was meant to demonstrate how stylish the club's members were. The members were themselves called macaronis, and eventually macaroni became synonymous with dandy and fop.

Obstinate (AHB-stuh-nut)

1 : perversely adhering to an opinion, purpose, or course in spite of reason, arguments, or persuasion 2 : not easily overcome or removed If you're obstinate, you're just plain stubborn. Obstinate, dogged, stubborn, and mulish all mean that someone is unwilling to change course or give up a belief or plan. Obstinate suggests an unreasonable persistence; it's often a negative word. Dogged implies that someone goes after something without ever tiring or quitting; it can be more positive. Stubborn indicates a resistance to change, which may or may not be admirable. Someone who displays a really unreasonable degree of stubbornness could accurately be described as mulish.

Innocuous (ih-NAH-kyuh-wus)

1 : producing no injury : harmless 2 : not likely to give offense or to arouse strong feelings or hostility : inoffensive, insipid Innocuous has harmful roots-it comes to us from the Latin adjective innocuus, which was formed by combining the negative prefix in- with a form of the verb nocēre, meaning "to harm" or "to hurt." In addition, nocēre is related to the truly "harmful" words noxious, nocent, and even nocuous. Innocent is from nocēre as well, but like innocuous it has the in- prefix negating the hurtful possibilities. Innocuous first appeared in print in 1631 with the clearly Latin-derived meaning "harmless or causing no injury" (as in "an innocuous gas"). The second sense is a metaphorical extension of the idea of injury used to indicate that someone or something does not cause hurt feelings, or even strong feelings ("an innocuous book" or "innocuous issues," for example).

Haptic (HAP-tik)

1 : relating to or based on the sense of touch 2 : characterized by a predilection for the sense of touch "Haptic" (from the Greek "haptesthai," meaning "to touch") entered English in the late 19th century as a medical synonym for "tactile." By the middle of the 20th century, it had developed a psychological sense, describing individuals whose perception supposedly depended primarily on touch rather than sight. Although almost no one today divides humans into "haptic" and "visual" personalities, English retains the broadened psychological sense of "haptic" as well as the older "tactile" sense.

Reticulate (rih-TIK-yuh-lut)

1 : resembling a net or network 2 : being or involving evolutionary change dependent on genetic recombination involving diverse interbreeding populations Though reticulate is used in many contexts, it finds particular use in the field of biology. Reticulate comes from the Latin word reticulum, meaning "small net." It first appeared in English in the mid-1600s and was used in connection with the study of plants even back then. Scientists use reticulate to describe a net-like formation of veins, fibers, or lines that crosses something. For example, a leaf with a pattern of veins that resembles a net would be called a "reticulate leaf." In the early 20th century, scientists also began using the word to describe evolutionary lineages that become interwoven through hybridization.

Refractory (rih-FRAK-tuh-ree)

1 : resisting control or authority : stubborn, unmanageable 2 : resistant to treatment or cure 3 : capable of enduring high temperatures Refractory is from the Latin word refractarius. During the 17th century, it was sometimes spelled as refractary, but that spelling, though more in keeping with its Latin parent, had fallen out of use by the century's end. Refractarius, like refractory, is the result of a slight variation in spelling. It stems from the Latin verb refragari, meaning "to oppose." Although refractory often describes things that are unpleasantly stubborn or resistant (such as diseases and unruly audiences), not all senses of refractory are negative. Refractory clays and bricks, for example, are capable of withstanding high temperatures.

Smarmy (SMAR-mee)

1 : revealing or marked by a smug, ingratiating, or false earnestness 2 : of low sleazy taste or quality Something smarmy will often ooze with self-satisfaction and insincerity. Much like its synonyms unctuous and slick, smarmy has a history that starts with a meaning of literal slipperiness or oiliness. The verb smarm appeared in English in the mid-19th century. Etymologists don't know where it came from, but they do know that it meant "to smear," "to gush," or sometimes "to make smooth or oily." A few decades later, the use of smarm was extended to sometimes mean "to use flattery." The adjective smarmy appeared in the early 20th century. At first meaning "insincerely flattering" or "smug," it later took on an additional meaning: "sleazy."

Inviolable (in-VYE-uh-luh-bul)

1 : secure from violation or profanation 2 : secure from assault or trespass : unassailable Inviolable is a venerable word that has been with us since the 15th century. Its opposite, violable ("capable of being or likely to be violated") appeared a century later. The English playwright Shackerley Marmion made good use of violable in A Fine Companion in 1633, writing, "Alas, my heart is Tender and violable with the least weapon Sorrow can dart at me." But English speakers have never warmed up to that word the way we have to inviolable, and it continues to be used much less frequently. Both terms descend from Latin violare, which both shares the meaning and is an ancestor of the English word violate.

Ingenuous (in-JEN-yuh-wus)

1 : showing innocent or childlike simplicity and candidness 2 : lacking craft or subtlety Today, the words ingenuous and ingenious have distinct meanings and are not used interchangeably, but that wasn't always the case. For many years, the two words were used as synonyms. Ingenious has always had the fundamental meaning of "clever," and ingenuous has been most often used to suggest frankness and openness (owing either to good character or, now more often, innocence), but there was a time when ingenious could also mean "frank" and ingenuous could mean "clever." The publication in 1755 of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, in which these synonymous uses are not recognized, may have had something to do with establishing ingenious and ingenuous as distinct words. In any case, they appear to have ceased being used as synonyms by about 1800.

Legerdemain (lej-er-duh-MAYN)

1 : sleight of hand 2 : a display of skill and adroitness In Middle French, folks who were clever enough to fool others with fast-fingered illusions were described as leger de main, literally "light of hand." English speakers condensed that phrase into a noun when they borrowed it in the 15th century and began using it as an alternative to the older sleight of hand. (That term for dexterity or skill in using one's hands makes use of sleight, an old word from Middle English that derives from an Old Norse word meaning "sly.") In more modern times, a feat of legerdemain can even be accomplished without using your hands, as in, for example, "an impressive bit of financial legerdemain."

Virtuoso (ver-choo-OH-soh)

1 : someone skilled in or having a taste for the fine arts 2 : someone who excels in the technique of an art; especially : a highly skilled musical performer 3 : a person who has great skill at some endeavor English speakers borrowed the Italian noun virtuoso in the 1600s, but the Italian word had a former life as an adjective meaning both "virtuous" and "skilled." In English, virtuoso can be pluralized as either virtuosos or virtuosi, and it is often used attributively-that is, like an adjective before another noun, as in "a virtuoso performer." The first virtuosos were individuals of substantial knowledge and learning ("great wits," to quote one 17th-century clergyman). The word was then transferred to those skilled in the arts, and by the 18th century it had acquired its specific sense applied to musicians. In the 20th century, English speakers broadened virtuoso again to apply to a person skilled in any pursuit.

Invidious (in-VID-ee-us)

1 : tending to cause discontent, animosity, or envy 2 a : unpleasant, objectionable, or obnoxious b : of a kind to cause harm or resentment Fittingly, invidious is a relative of envy. Both are descendants of invidia, the Latin word for "envy," which in turn comes from invidēre, meaning "to look askance at" or "to envy." (Invidious descends from invidia by way of the Latin adjective invidiosus, meaning "envious," whereas envy comes to English via the Anglo-French noun envie.) These days, however, invidious is rarely used as a synonym for envious. The preferred uses are primarily pejorative, describing things that are unpleasant (such as "invidious choices" and "invidious tasks") or worthy of scorn ("invidious remarks" or "invidious comparisons").

Sprachgefühl (SHPRAHKH-guh-fuel)

1 : the character of a language 2 : an intuitive sense of what is linguistically appropriate Sprachgefühl was borrowed into English from German at the end of the 19th century and combines two German nouns, Sprache, meaning "language, speech," and Gefühl, meaning "feeling." (Nouns are capitalized in German, and you'll occasionally see sprachgefühl capitalized in English too, as in our second example.) We're quite certain that the quality of sprachgefühl is common among our readers, but the word itself is rare, making only occasional appearances in our language.

Hermitage (HER-mih-tij)

1 : the habitation of a hermit 2 : a secluded residence or private retreat; also : monastery 3 : the life or condition of a hermit Hermitage is of course related to hermit, a word for one who retreats from society to live in solitude, often for religious reasons. The origins of hermitage and hermit are found in Greek. Erēmos (meaning "desolate") gave rise to erēmia (meaning "desert") and eventually to the noun erēmitēs, which was used for a person living in the desert, or, more broadly, for a recluse. The word journeyed from Greek to Latin to Anglo-French to Middle English, where it eventually transformed into hermit. The related hermitage was borrowed into English from Anglo-French in the 14th century. A hermitage can be the dwelling of a hermit (e.g., a mountain shack or a monastery) or simply a secluded home.

Ne plus ultra (nay-plus-UL-truh)

1 : the highest point capable of being attained : acme 2 : the most profound degree of a quality or state It's the height, the zenith, the ultimate, the crown, the pinnacle. It's the peak, the summit, the crest, the high-water mark. All these expressions, of course, mean "the highest point attainable." But ne plus ultra may top them all when it comes to expressing in a sophisticated way that something is the pink of perfection. It is said that the term's predecessor, non plus ultra, was inscribed on the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar, which marked the western end of the classical world. The phrase served as a warning: "(Let there) not (be) more (sailing) beyond." The New Latin version ne plus ultra, meaning "(go) no more beyond," found its way into English in the 1630s.

Etymology (eh-tuh-MAH-luh-jee)

1 : the history of a word or phrase shown by tracing its development and relationships 2 : a branch of linguistics dealing with etymologies Readers of the Word of the Day are already familiar with etymologies—that is, word histories. The etymology of etymology itself is relatively straightforward. Etymon means "origin of a word" in Latin, and comes from the Greek word etymon, meaning "literal meaning of a word according to its origin." Greek etymon in turn comes from etymos, which means "true." Be careful not to confuse etymology with the similar sounding entomology. Entomon means "insect" in Greek, and entomology is the study of bugs.

Velleity (vuh-LEE-uh-tee)

1 : the lowest degree of volition 2 : a slight wish or tendency : inclination Allow us, if you will, to volunteer our knowledge about velleity. It is a derivative of the New Latin noun velleitas,from the Latin verb velle, meaning "to wish or will." You might also wish to know that velle is the word that gave us voluntary (by way of Anglo-French voluntarie and Latin voluntarius) and volunteer (by way of French voluntaire). While both of those words might imply a wish to do something (specifically, to offer one's help) and the will to act upon it, the less common velleity typically refers to a wish or inclination that is so insignificant that a person feels little or no compulsion to act.

Bailiwick (BAY-lih-wik)

1 : the office or jurisdiction of a bailiff 2 : a special domain The first half of the word bailiwick comes from the Middle English word for "bailiff," in this case a term referring to a sheriff or chief officer of a town in medieval England, not the officer who assists today in U.S. courtrooms. Bailiff derives via Anglo-French from the Latin bajulare, meaning "to carry a burden." The second half of bailiwick comes from wik, a Middle English word for "dwelling place" or "village," which ultimately derived from the Latin vicus, meaning "village." (This root also gave us -wich and -wick, suffixes used in place names like Norwich and Warwick.) Although bailiwick dates from the 15th century, the "special domain" sense did not begin to appear in English until the middle of the 19th century.

Vicinity (vuh-SIN-uh-tee)

1 : the quality or state of being near : proximity 2 : a surrounding area or district : neighborhood 3 : an approximate amount, extent, or degree Vicinity has its origins in the idea of neighborliness—it was borrowed into English in the 16th century from Middle French vicinité, which in turn derives from the Latin adjective vicinus, meaning "neighboring." Vicinus itself can be traced back to the noun vicus, meaning "row of houses" or "village," and ultimately all the way back to the same ancient word that gave Gothic, Old Church Slavic, and Greek words for "house." Other descendants of vicinus in English include vicinal ("local" or "of, relating to, or substituted in adjacent sites in a molecule") and vicinage, a synonym of vicinity in the sense of "a neighboring or surrounding district."

Hat trick (HAT-TRICK)

1 : the retiring of three batsmen with three consecutive balls by a bowler in cricket 2 : the scoring of three goals in one game by a single player 3 : a series of three victories, successes, or related accomplishments It may surprise some people to learn that the term hat trick actually originated in British cricket. A bowler who retired three batsmen with three consecutive balls in cricket was entitled to a new hat at the expense of the club to commemorate this feat. Eventually, the phrase was applied to the same player scoring three goals in any goal sport, and baseball announcers now occasionally refer to a batter who gets three hits in three turns at bat as having managed a hat trick as well. The phrase finally broadened to include any string of three important successes or achievements in any field.

Tintinnabulation (tin-tuh-nab-yuh-LAY-shun)

1 : the ringing or sounding of bells 2 : a jingling or tinkling sound as if of bells If the sound of tintinnabulation rings a bell, that may be because it traces to a Latin interpretation of the sound a ringing bell makes. Our English word derives from tintinnabulum, the Latin word for "bell." That Latin word, in turn, comes from the verb tintinnare, which means "to ring, clang, or jingle." Like the English terms "ting" and "tinkle," tintinnare originated with a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it-that is, it is onomatopoeic. Edgar Allan Poe celebrates the sonic overtones of tintinnabulation in his poem "The Bells," which includes lines about "the tintinnabulation that so musically wells / From the bells, bells, bells, bells, / Bells, bells, bells-/ From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells."

Jurisprudence (joor-us-PROO-dunss)

1 : the science or philosophy of law 2 a : a system or body of law b : the course of court decisions 3 : a department of law "For a farewell to our jurisprudent, I wish unto him the gladsome light of jurisprudence...." With this valedictory to English jurist Sir Thomas Littleton, another jurist, Sir Edward Coke, welcomed two new words into English. In 1628, his jurisprudence meant "knowledge of or skill in law," a now archaic sense that reflects the meaning of the word's root. Jurisprudence goes back to Latin prudentia juris (literally "skill in law"), from which was derived the Late Latin formation jurisprudentia, and subsequently our word. The noun jurisprudent means "one skilled in law"—in other words, a jurist. There's also jurisprude, a somewhat rare 20th-century back-formation created from jurisprudence with influence from prude. It means "one who makes ostentatious show of jurisprudential learning."

Obverse (AHB-verss)

1 : the side of a coin or currency note bearing the chief device and lettering; broadly : a front or principal surface 2 : a counterpart having the opposite orientation or force; also : something that is opposed to some other often specified thing : an opposite 3 : a proposition inferred immediately from another by denying the opposite of what the given proposition affirms Heads or tails? If you called heads, obverse is the word for you. Since the 17th century, we've been using obverse for the front side of coins (usually the side depicting the head or bust of a ruler). The opposite of this sense of obverse is reverse, the back or "tails" side of a coin. Since the 19th century, obverse has also had the extended meaning "an opposing counterpart" or "an opposite." Additionally, it can be an adjective meaning "facing the observer or opponent" or "being a counterpart or complement."

Circumlocution (ser-kum-loh-KYOO-shun)

1 : the use of an unnecessarily large number of words to express an idea 2 : evasion in speech In The King's English, grammarian H.W. Fowler advised, "Prefer the single word to the circumlocution." Alas, that good advice was not followed by the framers of "circumlocution." They actually used two terms in forming that word for unnecessarily verbose prose or speech. But their choices were apt; "circumlocution" derives from the Latin "circum-," meaning "around," and "locutio," meaning "speech" -- so it literally means "roundabout speech." Since the 15th century, English writers have used "circumlocution" with disdain, naming a thing to stop, or better yet, to avoid altogether. Charles Dickens even used it to satirize political runarounds when he created the fictional Circumlocution Office, a government department that delayed the dissemination of information and just about everything else.

Stringent (STRIN-junt)

1 : tight, constricted 2 : marked by rigor, strictness, or severity 3 : marked by money scarcity and credit strictness Words that are synonymous with stringent include rigid, which implies uncompromising inflexibility ("rigid rules of conduct"), and rigorous, which suggests hardship and difficulty ("the rigorous training of firefighters"). Also closely related is strict, which emphasizes undeviating conformity to rules, standards, or requirements ("strict enforcement of the law"). Stringent usually involves severe, tight restrictions or limitations ("the college has stringent admissions rules"). That's logical. After all, rigorous and rigid are both derived from rigēre, the Latin word meaning "to be stiff," and stringent and strict developed from the Latin verb stringere, meaning "to bind tight."

Shill (SHIL)

1 : to act as a decoy (as for a pitchman or gambler) 2 : to act as a spokesperson or promoter Although some who shill are legitimately employed to extol the wonders of legitimate products, this was not always the case. In the first documented uses of the word shill, in the early 1900s, it was more likely that anyone hired to shill was trying to con you into parting with some cash. Practitioners were called shills (that noun also dates from the early 1900s), and they did everything from faking big wins at casinos (to promote gambling) to pretending to buy tickets (to encourage people to see certain shows). Shill is thought to be a shortened form of shillaber (an obscure noun synonymous with shill), but etymologists have found no definitive evidence of where that longer term originated.

Apple-polish (AP-ul-pah-lish)

1 : to attempt to ingratiate oneself : toady 2 : to curry favor with (as by flattery) It began innocently enough: a shiny apple for the teacher, a young student's gift (OK, bribe) given in the hope that classroom high jinks would be forgotten or forgiven. The college students of the 1920s tried a more sophisticated version of the trick, polishing professorial egos with compliments in the hopes of getting a better grade. Because of its similarity to the "apple for the teacher" practice, college students dubbed that grade-enhancement strategy apple-polishing. But the idea quickly lost its luster and by 1935 the verb apple-polish had picked up negative connotations. Nowadays, the apple-polisher (academic or otherwise) is viewed in the same much-maligned class as the toady, sycophant, and bootlicker.

Repair (rih-PAIR)

1 : to betake oneself : go 2 : to come together : rally We are all familiar with the verb repair used as a synonym of fix. But today's word, while it is a homograph and a homophone of the more familiar repair, is a slightly older and unrelated verb. Repair, the synonym of fix, comes via Anglo-French from the Latin reparare, a combination of the re- prefix and parare ("prepare"). Repair, the synonym of go (which in English also once meant "to return"), has Anglo-French and Latin roots too, but makes its way back to the Late Latin repatriare (which means "to go home again" and is a source of the English repatriate). Repatriare combines the re- prefix with patria, the Latin word for "native country.

Colligate (KAH-luh-gayt)

1 : to bind, unite, or group together 2 : to subsume (isolated facts) under a general concept 3 : to be or become a member of a group or unit Colligate (not to be confused with collocate or collegiate) is a technical term that descends from Latin colligare, itself from com- ("with") plus ligare ("to tie"). Which of the following words is NOT tied to ligare? ligature, ligament, lien, rely, ally, collogue, oblige, furl, league Ligature, ligament, lien, rely, ally, oblige, furl, and league (in the sense of "an association of persons, groups, or teams") can all be traced back along varying paths to ligare. That leaves only collogue (meaning "to confer")—whose origin is unknown. (Collocate and collegiate are also unrelated via ligare.)

Bilk (BILK)

1 : to block the free development of : frustrate 2 a : to cheat out of something valuable : defraud b : to evade payment of or to 3 : to slip away from Initially, "bilking" wasn't considered cheating-just good strategy for cribbage players. Language historians aren't sure where bilk originated, but they have noticed that its earliest uses occur in contexts referring to cribbage. Part of the scoring in cribbage involves each player adding cards from his or her hand to a pile of discards called the "crib." At the end of a hand, the dealer gets any points in the crib. Strategically, then, it's wisest for the dealer's opponent to discard non-scoring cards-the ones most likely to "balk," or put a check on, the dealer's score. Etymologists theorize that "bilk" may have originated as an alteration of that card-game "balk."

Deflagrate (DEF-luh-grayt)

1 : to burn rapidly with intense heat and sparks being given off 2 : to cause to burn in such a manner Deflagrate combines the Latin verb flagrare, meaning "to burn," with the Latin prefix de-, meaning "down" or "away." Flagrare is also an ancestor of such words as conflagration and flagrant and is distantly related to fulgent and flame. In the field of explosives, deflagrate is used to describe the burning of fuel accelerated by the expansion of gasses under the pressure of containment, which causes the containing vessel to break apart. In comparison, the term detonate (from the Latin tonare, meaning "to thunder") refers to an instant, violent explosion that results when shock waves pass through molecules and displace them at supersonic speed. Deflagrate has been making sparks in English since about 1727, and detonate burst onto the scene a couple of years later.

Debouch (dih-BOUTCH)

1 : to cause to emerge : discharge 2 : to march out into open ground : emerge, issue Debouch emerged in English in the 18th century. It derives from a French verb formed from the prefix dé- ("from") and the noun bouche ("mouth"), which itself derives ultimately from the Latin bucca ("cheek"). (It is not to be confused with debauch, which is from the Old French verb desbauchier, meaning "to scatter, disperse.") Debouch is often used in military contexts to refer to the action of troops proceeding from a closed space to an open one. It is also used frequently to refer to the emergence of anything from a mouth, such as water passing through the mouth of a river into an ocean. The word's ancestors have also given us the adjective buccal ("of or relating to the mouth") and the noun embouchure (the mouthpiece of a musical instrument or the position of the mouth when playing one).

Wimple (WIM-pul)

1 : to cover with or as if with a wimple : veil 2 : to ripple 3 : (chiefly Scottish) to follow a winding course : meander Wimple is the name of the covering worn over the head and around the neck and chin by women in the late medieval period, as well as by some modern nuns. Its name is akin to Old Saxon wimpal and Middle Dutch wimpel, both of which mean "veil" or "banner." Like the word veil, wimple is also used as a verb meaning "cover" and was adopted by literary writers as a substitute for ripple and meander, especially when writing about streams. "Over the little brook which wimpled along below towered an arch," James Russell Lowell once observed.

Cozen (KUZ-un)

1 : to deceive, win over, or induce to do something by artful coaxing and wheedling or shrewd trickery 2 : to gain by artful coaxing or tricky deception "Be not utterly deceived (or to speak in plainer terms, cozened at their hands)." Denouncing the evils of the times, 16th-century Puritan pamphleteer Philip Stubbes thus warned against unscrupulous merchants. Cozen may not seem a "plainer term" to us, but it might have to the horse-dependent folks of the 16th century. Some linguists have theorized that cozen traces to the Italian noun cozzone, which means "horse trader." Horse-trading, as in the actual swapping of horses, usually involved bargaining and compromise-and, in fact, the term "horse-trading" has come to suggest any shrewd negotiation. It seems safe to assume that not all of these negotiations were entirely on the up-and-up. Given its etymological association with horse traders, therefore, it's not too surprising that cozen suggests deception and fraud.

Delve (DELV)

1 : to dig or labor with or as if with a spade 2 a : to make a careful or detailed search for information b : to examine a subject in detail We must dig deep into the English language's past to find the origins of delve. The verb traces to the 9th-century Old English word delfan and is related to the Old High German word telban, meaning "to dig." For some 400 years, there was only delving—no digging—because dig didn't exist until the 13th century. Is the phrase "dig and delve" (as in the line "eleven, twelve, dig and delve," from the nursery rhyme that begins "one, two, buckle my shoe") redundant? Not necessarily. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in some local uses as recently as the late 19th century, dig was the term for working with a mattock (a tool similar to an adze or a pick), while delve was reserved for work done using a spade.

Desiccate (DESS-ih-kayt)

1 : to dry up or become dried up 2 : to preserve (a food) by drying : dehydrate 3 : to drain of emotional or intellectual vitality Raisins are desiccated grapes; they're also dehydrated grapes. And yet, a close look at the etymologies of desiccate and dehydrate raises a tangly question. In Latin siccus means "dry," whereas the Greek stem hydr- means "water." So how could it be that desiccate and dehydrate are synonyms? The answer is in the multiple identities of the prefix de-. It may look like the same prefix, but the de- in desiccate means "completely, thoroughly," as in despoil ("to spoil utterly") or denude ("to strip completely bare"). The de- in dehydrate, on the other hand, means "remove," the same as it does in defoliate ("to strip of leaves") or in deice ("to rid of ice").

Bowlderize (BOHD-ler-ize)

1 : to expurgate by omitting or modifying parts considered vulgar 2 : to modify by abridging, simplifying, or distorting in style or content Few editors have achieved the notoriety of Thomas Bowdler. He was trained as a physician, but when illness prevented him from practicing medicine, he turned to warning Europeans about unsanitary conditions at French watering places. Bowdler then carried his quest for purification to literature, and in 1818 he published his Family Shakspeare [sic], a work in which he promised that "those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family." The sanitized volume was popular with the public of the day, but literary critics denounced his modifications of the words of the Bard. Bowdler applied his literary eraser broadly, and within 11 years of his death in 1825, the word bowdlerize was being used to refer to expurgating books or other texts.

Expiate (EK-spee-ayt)

1 : to extinguish the guilt incurred by 2 : to make amends for "Disaster shall fall upon you, which you will not be able to expiate." That ominous biblical prophecy (Isaiah 47:11, RSV) shows that expiate was once involved in confronting the forces of evil as well as in assuaging guilt. The word derives from expiare, Latin for "to atone for," a root that in turn traces to the Latin term for "pious." Expiate originally referred to warding off evil by using sacred rites or to using sacred rites to cleanse or purify something. By the 17th century, Shakespeare (and others) were using it to mean "to put an end to": "But when in thee time's furrows I behold, / Then look I death my days should expiate" (Sonnet 22). Those senses have since become obsolete, and now only the "extinguish the guilt" and "make amends" senses remain in use.

Discomfit (diss-KUM-fit)

1 : to frustrate the plans of : thwart 2 : to put into a state of perplexity and embarrassment : disconcert Disconcerted by discomfit and discomfort? Here's a little usage history that might help. Several usage commentators have, in the past, tried to convince their readers that discomfit means "to rout" or "to completely defeat" and not "to discomfort, embarrass, or make uneasy." In its earliest uses discomfit did in fact mean "to defeat in battle," but that sense is now rare, and the extended sense, "to thwart," is also uncommon. Most of the recent commentaries agree that the sense "to discomfort or disconcert" has become thoroughly established and is the most prevalent meaning of the word. There is one major difference between discomfit and discomfort, though-discomfit is used almost exclusively as a verb, while discomfort is much more commonly used as a noun than a verb.

Obtain (ub-TAYN)

1 : to gain or attain usually by planned action or effort 2 : to be generally recognized or established : prevail Obtain, which was adopted into English in the 15th century, comes to us via Anglo-French from the Latin obtinēre, meaning "to take hold of." Obtinēre was itself formed by the combination of ob-, meaning "in the way," and the verb tenēre, meaning "to hold." In its earliest uses, obtain often implied a conquest or a successful victory in battle, but it is now used for any attainment through planned action or effort. The verb tenēre has incontestably prevailed in the English language, providing us with such common words as abstain, contain, detain, sustain, and, perhaps less obviously, the adjectives tenable and tenacious.

Purport (per-PORT)

1 : to have the often specious appearance of being, intending, or claiming (something implied or inferred); also : claim 2 : intend, purpose The verb purport passed into English in the late 1300s. It derives from the Anglo-French verb purporter (meaning both "to carry" and "to mean"), which itself combined the prefix pur- ("thoroughly") and the verb porter ("to carry"). Like its French parent, purport originally referred to the indubitable meaning or intention conveyed in a text or statement. Inevitably, what was purported sometimes faced contradiction or doubt. By the late 17th century, use of purport reflected this fact in its now common sense referring to claims, assertions, or appearances that only seem to be true on the surface.

Vilipend (VIL-uh-pend)

1 : to hold or treat as of little worth or account : contemn 2 : to express a low opinion of : disparage Vilipend first appeared in English in the 15th century and had its heyday during the 19th century—being found in the works of such well-known authors as Sir Walter Scott, William Makepeace Thackeray, and George Meredith—but it fell into relative obscurity by the 20th century. The word comes to us through French from the Latin roots vilis, meaning "cheap" or "vile," and pendere, meaning "to weigh" or "to estimate." These roots work in tandem to form a meaning of "to deem to be of little worth." Each has contributed separately to some other common English words. Other vilis offspring include vile and vilify, while pendere has spawned such terms as append, expend, and dispense.

Vilify (VIL-uh-fye)

1 : to lower in estimation or importance 2 : to utter slanderous and abusive statements against : defame Vilify came to English by way of the Middle English vilifien and the Late Latin vilificare from the Latin adjective vilis, meaning "cheap" or "vile." It first appeared in English in the 15th century. Also debuting during that time was another verb that derives from vilis and has a similar meaning: vilipend. When they were first used in English, both vilify and vilipend meant to regard someone or something as being of little worth or importance. Vilipend now carries an additional meaning of "to express a low opinion of somebody," while vilify means, more specifically, to express such an opinion publicly in a way that intends to embarrass a person or ruin his or her reputation.

Eradicate (ih-RAD-uh-kayt)

1 : to pull up by the roots 2 : to do away with as completely as if by pulling up by the roots Given that eradicate first meant "to pull up by the roots," it's not surprising that the root of eradicate is, in fact, "root." Eradicate, which first turned up in English in the 16th century, comes from eradicatus, the past participle of the Latin verb eradicare. Eradicare, in turn, can be traced back to the Latin word radix, meaning "root" or "radish." Although eradicate began life as a word for literal uprooting, by the mid-17th century it had developed a metaphorical application to removing things the way one might yank an undesirable weed up by the roots. Other descendants of radix in English include radical and radish. Even the word root itself is related; it comes from the same ancient word that gave Latin radix.

Perseverate (per-SEV-uh-rayt)

1 : to repeat or recur persistently 2 : to go back over previously covered ground Looking at perseverate and perseveration, you may guess that the latter was formed by adding a suffix to the former, but that is not the case. Perseveration is actually the older term. It has been around since the 1500s, when it was used as a synonym of perseverance (which at one time was pronounced, like perseverate and perseveration, with the stress on sev, instead of on ver). In the early 1900s, psychologists adopted perseveration for the act of repeating a behavior over and over again. (For instance, continually repeating the same syllable or word might be called "verbal perseveration.") Shortly afterward, those scientists wanted a verb for such acts of repetition, so they changed the -tion of perseveration to -ate and perseverate was born.

Absolve (ub-ZAHLV)

1 : to set free from an obligation or the consequences of guilt 2 : to remit (a sin) by absolution The act of absolving can be seen as releasing someone from blame or sin, or "loosening" the hold that responsibility has on a person, which provides a hint about the word's origins. Absolve was adopted into Middle English in the 15th century from the Latin verb absolvere, formed by combining the prefix ab- ("from, away, off") with solvere, meaning "to loosen." (Absolve also once had additional senses of "to finish or accomplish" and "to resolve or explain," but these are now obsolete.) Solvere is also the ancestor of the English words solve, dissolve, resolve, solvent, and solution.

Foreshorten (for-SHORT-un)

1 : to shorten by proportionately contracting in the direction of depth so that an illusion of projection or extension in space is obtained 2 : to make more compact : abridge, shorten Foreshorten first appeared in a 1606 treatise on art by the British writer and artist Henry Peacham: "If I should paint ... an horse with his brest and head looking full in my face, I must of necessity foreshorten him behinde." Peacham's foreshorten comes from fore- (meaning "earlier" or "beforehand") plus shorten. The addition of fore- to verbs was a routine practice in Peacham's day, creating such words as fore-conclude, fore-consider, fore-instruct, and fore-repent. Foreshorten, along with words like foresee and foretell, is one of the few fore- combinations to still survive.

Mesmerize (MEZ-muh-ryze)

1 : to subject to mesmerism; also : hypnotize 2 : spellbind Experts can't agree on whether Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) was a quack or a genius, but all concede that the late 18th-century physician's name is the source of the word mesmerize. In his day, Mesmer was the toast of Paris, where he enjoyed the support of notables including Queen Marie Antoinette. He treated patients with a force he termed [animal magnetism](/dictionary/animal magnetism). Many believe that what he actually used was what we now call hypnotism. Mesmer's name was first applied to a technique for inducing hypnosis by one of his students in 1784.

Capitulate (kuh-PIH-chuh-layt)

1 : to surrender often after negotiation of terms 2 : to cease resisting : acquiesce Capitulate and its synonyms yield, submit, and succumb all mean to give way to someone or something, with a few slight differences in emphasis. Yield may apply to any sort or degree of bowing to force, debate, or pleading ("yields too easily in any argument"). Submit suggests surrender, after resistance, to the will or control of another ("a sinner submitting to the will of God"). Succumb imputes weakness and helplessness to the person giving in, or an overwhelming power to the opposition ("succumbing to temptation"). Capitulate stresses the termination of all resistance and may imply either a coming to terms, as with an adversary, or hopelessness before an irresistible opposing force ("officials capitulated to the demands").

Cannibalize (KAN-uh-buh-lyze)

1 : to take salvageable parts from (as a disabled machine) for use in building or repairing another machine 2 : to take (sales) away from an existing product by selling or being sold as a similar but new product usually from the same manufacturer; also : to affect (as an existing product) adversely by cannibalizing sales 3 : to practice cannibalism During World War II, military personnel often used salvageable parts from disabled vehicles and aircraft to repair other vehicles and aircraft. This sacrifice of one thing for the sake of another of its kind must have reminded some folks of cannibalism by humans and animals, because the process came to be known as cannibalizing. The armed forces of this time were also known to cannibalize-that is, to take away personnel from-units to build up other units. It didn't take long for this military slang to become civilianized. Since its demobilization, the term has been used in a variety of contexts.

Constellate (KAHN-stuh-layt)

1 : to unite in a cluster 2 : to set or adorn with or as if with constellations It's plain that constellate is related to constellation, and, indeed, things that "constellate" (or "are constellated") cluster together like stars in a constellation. Both words derive ultimately from the Latin word for "star," which is stella. Constellation (which came to us by way of Middle French from Late Latin constellation-, constellatio) entered the language first-it dates to at least the 14th century. Constellate didn't appear until a full 300 years later.

Gibe (JYBE)

1 : to utter taunting words 2 : to deride or tease with taunting words Confused about jibe and gibe? The distinction actually isn't as clear-cut as some commentators would like it to be. Jibe is used both for the verb meaning "to be in accord, agree" ("jibe with") and for the nautical verb and its related noun ("jibe the mainsail," "a risky jibe in heavy seas"). Gibe is used for the verb meaning "to deride or tease" and for the related noun meaning "a taunting remark." But jibe is a recognized variant of gibe, so it also has "taunting" or "teasing" uses. Gibe has been used occasionally as a variant of jibe, but this use is very rare, and many people consider it to be an error.

Inveigle (in-VAY-gul)

1 : to win over by wiles : entice 2 : to acquire by ingenuity or flattery : wangle Inveigle, a word that dates from the 16th century, refers to the act of using clever talk, trickery, or flattery either to persuade somebody to do something or to obtain something. What could such a word possibly have to do with blindness? Inveigle came to English from the Anglo-French verb enveegler, which means "to blind or hoodwink someone," from the adjective enveugle, meaning "blind." Enveugle derives from the Medieval Latin ab oculis, a phrase which literally translates to "lacking eyes." You might say that a person who is inveigled to do or give up something is too "blinded" by someone's words to know that he or she is being tricked.

Succumb (suh-KU)

1 : to yield to superior strength or force or overpowering appeal or desire 2 : to be brought to an end (such as death) by the effect of destructive or disruptive forces If the idea of someone succumbing brings to mind the image of a person lying down before more powerful forces, you have an excellent grasp of the Latin that gave us succumb. Succumb derives from the French word succomber, which is itself from the Latin word succumbere, meaning "to fall down" or "to yield." Succumbere was formed by combining sub-, meaning "under," with -cumbere, meaning "to lie down." The earliest application of succumb in the late 15th century was as a transitive verb meaning "to bring down" or "to overwhelm," but this sense is now obsolete. The current sense of "to yield" first appeared in print in the early 17th century; the more specific use-yielding to a disease or other destructive force-followed two centuries later.

Thesaurus (thih-SOR-us)

1 : treasury, storehouse 2 a : a book of words or of information about a particular field or set of concepts; especially : a book of words and their synonyms b : a list of subject headings or descriptors usually with a cross-reference system for use in the organization of a collection of documents for reference and retrieval In the early 19th century, archaeologists borrowed the Latin word thesaurus to denote an ancient treasury, such as that of a temple. Soon after, the word was metaphorically applied to a book containing a "treasury" of words or information about a particular field. In 1852, the English scholar Peter Mark Roget published his Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, in which he listed a treasury of related words organized into numerous categories. This work led to the common acceptance of the term thesaurus for "a book of words and their synonyms." Finally, during the 1950s, thesaurus began being used in the field of word processing to refer to a list of related terms used for indexing and retrieval.

Temerity (tuh-MAIR-uh-tee)

1 : unreasonable or foolhardy contempt of danger or opposition : rashness, recklessness 2 : a rash or reckless act When it comes to flagrant boldness, temerity, audacity, hardihood, and effrontery have the cheek to get your meaning across. Of those synonyms, temerity (from the Latin temere, meaning "blindly" or "recklessly") suggests boldness arising from contempt of danger, while audacity implies a disregard of the restraints commonly imposed by convention or prudence. Hardihood implies firmness in daring and defiance, and effrontery suggests a shameless disregard of propriety and courtesy. If you're looking for a more informal term for a brash attitude, you might consider nerve, cheek, gall, or chutzpah.

Askance (uh-SKANSS)

1 : with a side-glance : obliquely 2 : with disapproval or distrust : scornfully Etymologists have been scratching their heads over the origin of askance for centuries. Sources from Italian and Old Norse, among other languages, have been suggested, but, today, dictionary editors look askance at all of these explanations and simply label the word "origin unknown." What we do know is that the word was first used in English in the mid-16th century with the meaning "sideways" or "with a sideways glance," and that writers over the years have used the suggestion of someone looking askance at something to express a number of feelings from disapproval and distrust to jealousy.

Hieroglyphic (hye-uh-ruh-GLIH-fik)

1 : written in, constituting, or belonging to a system of writing mainly in pictorial characters 2 : inscribed with hieroglyphic 3 : resembling hieroglyphic in difficulty of decipherment If hieroglyphic writing is "all Greek to you," you know more about the etymology of hieroglyphic than you might think. That word comes from the Greek hieroglyphikos, which means "sacred carving" (from hieros, meaning "sacred," and glyphein, meaning "to carve"). The ancient Greeks who named hieroglyphic writing reserved that term for the picture writing they found carved in temple walls or on public monuments in Egypt; it was distinguished from writings done in ink on papyrus or other smooth surfaces. But since making their first appearances in English in the 1580s, both the noun hieroglyphics and the adjective hieroglyphic have been extended to apply to the picture writing of various cultures, whether or not those writings were carved or sacred.

Yaw (YAW)

1 a : (of a ship) to deviate erratically from a course (as when struck by a heavy sea); especially : to move from side to side b : (of an airplane, spacecraft, or projectile) to turn by angular motion about the vertical axis 2 : alternate In the heyday of large sailing ships, numerous nautical words appeared on the horizon, many of which have origins that have never been traced. Yaw is one such word. It began showing up in print in the 16th century, first as a noun (meaning "movement off course" or "side to side movement") and then as a verb. For more than 350 years it remained a sailing word, with occasional side trips to the figurative sense "to alternate." Then dawned the era of airplane flight in the early 20th century, and "yawing" was no longer confined to the sea. Nowadays, people who love boats still use yaw much as the sailors of old did, but pilots and astronauts also refer to the "yawing" of their crafts.

Incidence (IN-suh-dunss)

1 a : [angle of incidence](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/angle of incidence)b : the arrival of something (such as a projectile or a ray of light) at a surface 2 a : an act or the fact or manner of falling upon or affecting : occurrence b : rate of occurrence or influence The words incident, incidence, and instance may seem similar (and, in fact, incident and incidence are closely related), but they are not used identically. In current use, incidence usually means "rate of occurrence" and is often qualified in some way ("a high incidence of diabetes"). Incident usually refers to a particular event, often something unusual or unpleasant ("many such incidents go unreported"). Instance suggests a particular occurrence that is offered as an example ("another instance of bureaucratic bumbling"); it can also be synonymous with case ("many instances in which the wrong form was submitted"). The plural incidences sometimes occurs in such contexts as "several recent incidences of crime," but this use is often criticized as incorrect.

Zephyr (ZEFF-er)

1 a : a breeze from the west b : a gentle breeze 2 : any of various lightweight fabrics and articles of clothing For centuries, poets have eulogized Zephyrus, the Greek god of the west wind, and his "swete breeth" (in the words of Geoffrey Chaucer). Zephyrus, the personified west wind, eventually evolved into zephyr, a word for a breeze that is westerly or gentle, or both. Breezy zephyr may have blown into English with the help of William Shakespeare, who used the word in his 1611 play Cymbeline: "Thou divine Nature, thou thyself thou blazon'st / In these two princely boys! They are as gentle / As zephyrs blowing below the violet." Today, zephyr is also the sobriquet of a lightweight fabric and the clothing that is made from it.

Imprimatur (im-pruh-MAH-toor)

1 a : a license to print or publish especially by Roman Catholic episcopal authority b : approval of a publication under circumstances of official censorship 2 a : sanction, approval b : imprint c : a mark of approval or distinction Imprimatur means "let it be printed" in New Latin. It comes from Latin imprimere, meaning to "imprint" or "impress." In the 1600s, the word appeared in the front matter of books, accompanied by the name of an official authorizing the book's printing. It was also in the 1600s that English speakers began using imprimatur in the general sense of "official approval." The Roman Catholic Church still issues imprimaturs for books concerned with religious matters (to indicate that a work contains nothing offensive to Catholic morals or faith), and there have been other authorities for imprimaturs as well. For example, when Samuel Pepys was president of the Royal Society, he placed his imprimatur on the title page of England's great scientific work, Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, in 1687.

Duffer (DUFF-er)

1 a : a peddler especially of cheap flashy articles b : something counterfeit or worthless 2 : an incompetent, ineffectual, or clumsy person; especially : a mediocre golfer Duffers have never really been straight shooters-on or off the golf course. The original duffers of the mid-18th century were shysters of the first order, merchants who palmed off trashy goods as if they were highly valuable (they often implied to unwary buyers that the goods had been smuggled and were very rare). Over time, the meaning of duffer was extended from a no-good peddler to anyone who was "no good," not just because the individual had low morals, but because he or she was incompetent or stupid. The term has been applied to hopelessly bad golfers since the late 19th century.

Gargoyle (GAR-goy-ul)

1 a : a spout in the form of a grotesque human or animal figure projecting from a roof gutter to throw rainwater clear of a building b : a grotesquely carved figure 2 : a person with an ugly face In the 12th century, St. Bernard of Clairvaux reportedly complained about the new sculptures in the cloisters where he lived. "Surely," he is quoted as saying, "if we do not blush for such absurdities we should at least regret what we have spent on them." St. Bernard was apparently provoked by the grotesque figures designed to drain rainwater from buildings. By the 13th century, those figures were being called gargoyles, a name that came to Middle English from the Old French gargoule. The stone beasts likely earned that name because of the water that gargled out of their throats and mouths; the word gargoule is imitative in origin.

Williwaw (WILL-ih-waw)

1 a : a sudden violent gust of cold land air common along mountainous coasts of high latitudes b : a sudden violent wind 2 : a violent commotion In 1900, Captain Joshua Slocum described williwaws as "compressed gales of wind ... that Boreas handed down over the hills in chunks." To unsuspecting sailors or pilots, such winds might seem to come out of nowhere—just like word williwaw did some 170 years ago. All anyone knows about the origin of the word is that it was first used by writers in the mid-1800s to name fierce winds in the Strait of Magellan at the southern tip of South America. The writers were British, and indications are that they may have learned the word from British sailors and seal hunters. Where these sailors and hunters got the word, we cannot say.

Whammy (WAM-ee)

1 a : a supernatural power bringing bad luck b : a magic curse or spell : jinx, hex 2 : a potent force or attack; specifically : a paralyzing or lethal blow The origin of whammy is not entirely certain, but it is assumed to have been created by combining wham ("a solid blow") with the whimsical -y ending. The first example of whammy in print occurred in 1940, but the word was popularized in the 1950s by the cartoonist Al Capp in the comic strip Li'l Abner. The character Evil-Eye Fleegle could paralyze someone with the sheer power of his gaze. The "single whammy" was a look with one eye, and the fearsome "double whammy" used both eyes. As you may know, "double whammy" has also found a place in English as a general term. It means "a combination of two adverse forces, circumstances, or effects"-in other words, a one-two punch.

Caparison (kuh-PAIR-uh-sun)

1 a : an ornamental covering for a horse b : decorative trappings and harness 2 : rich clothing : adornment Caparison first embellished English in the 1500s, when we borrowed it from the Middle French caparaçon. Early caparisons were likely used to display the heraldic colors of a horseman, and in some cases may also have functioned as protective covering for the horse. In British India, it was elephants, not horses, that were decked out with caparisons-and to this day both animals can still be seen in such attire during parades and circuses. It did not take long for caparison to come to refer to the ornate clothing worn by a man or woman. Caparison also serves English as a verb, a use first recorded in Shakespeare when Richard III commanded, "Come, bustle, bustle; caparison my horse."

Fulsome (FULL-sum)

1 a : characterized by abundance : copious b : generous in amount, extent, or spirit 2 : aesthetically, morally, or generally offensive 3 : exceeding the bounds of good taste : overdone 4 : excessively complimentary or flattering : effusive One has only to survey the meanings of fulsome—listed above in the order in which they developed—to understand why there is a lot of confusion about exactly what fulsome means. Some critics disapprove of using it in its original "copious" sense because they feel that sense is not negative enough; they say that fulsome should always be at least mildly deprecatory. It's true that today fulsome is often used pejoratively to describe overly effusive language, but modern English writers still sometimes use it simply to mean "abundant," or occasionally even in contexts where it is complimentary. Some writers go to the more negative extreme, using it for things that are offensive to normal tastes or sensibilities. To avoid misinterpretation, either be sure that the context in which you use the word makes the intended meaning clear or choose a different word.

Jackleg (JACK-leg)

1 a : characterized by unscrupulousness, dishonesty, or lack of professional standards b : lacking skill or training : amateur 2 : designed as a temporary expedient : makeshift Don't call someone jackleg unless you're prepared for that person to get angry with you. Throughout its 165-year-old history in English, jackleg has most often been used as a term of contempt and deprecation, particularly in reference to lawyers and preachers. Its form echoes that of the similar blackleg, an older term for a cheating gambler or a worker opposed to union policies. Etymologists know that blackleg appeared over fifty years before jackleg, but they don't have any verifiable theories about the origin of either term.

Roustabout (ROWSS-tuh-bowt)

1 a : deckhand b : a person who loads and unloads ships at a seaport 2 : an unskilled or semiskilled laborer especially in an oil field or refinery 3 : a circus worker who erects and dismantles tents, cares for the grounds, and handles animals and equipment 4 : a person with no permanent home or regular occupation; also : one who stirs up trouble Circus roustabouts (who erect and dismantle tents, care for the grounds, and handle animals and equipment) are commonly associated with circus animals, of course, but they also have a connection with game birds, at least in terms of etymology. Roustabout comes from roust, which is an alteration of rouse, a verb from Middle English that originally meant "to shake the feathers" (as in the way a bird might ruffle its feathers or shake its plumage when it is settling down or grooming itself). Rouse, which today is a synonym of awaken, also formerly meant "to cause to break from cover," a sense that may have influenced the modern meaning of roust: "to drive (as from bed) roughly or unceremoniously."

Esoteric (es-uh-TAIR-ik)

1 a : designed for or understood by the specially initiated alone b : requiring or exhibiting knowledge that is restricted to a small group; broadly : difficult to understand 2 a : limited to a small circle b : private, confidential 3 : of special, rare, or unusual interest The opposite of esoteric is exoteric, which means "suitable to be imparted to the public." According to one account, those who were deemed worthy to attend Aristotle's learned discussions were known as his "esoterics," his confidants, while those who merely attended his popular evening lectures were called his "exoterics." Since material that is geared toward a target audience is often not as easily comprehensible to outside observers, esoteric acquired an extended meaning of "difficult to understand." Both esoteric and exoteric started appearing in English in the mid-1600s; esoteric traces back to ancient Greek by way of the Late Latin esotericus. The Greek esōterikos is based on the comparative form of esō, which means "within."

Verdant (VER-dunt)

1 a : green in tint or color b : green with growing plants 2 : unripe in experience or judgment : green English speakers have been using verdant as a ripe synonym of green since the late 16th century, and as a descriptive term for inexperienced or naive people since the 1820s. (By contrast, the more experienced green has colored our language since well before the 12th century and was first applied to inexperienced people in the 1540s.) Verdant is derived from the Old French word for green, vert, which in turn is from Latin virēre, meaning "to be green." Today, vert is used in English as a word for green forest vegetation and the heraldic color green. Another descendant of virēre is the adjective virescent, meaning "beginning to be green."

Timeless (TYME-luss)

1 a : having no beginning or end : eternal b : not restricted to a particular time or date 2 : not affected by time : ageless "Time is money." "Time is the great physician." "Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations." Everyone seems to know what time is, but what does it mean to be "timeless"—that is, "without time"? Until around the turn of the 20th century, timeless was sometimes used to mean "untimely" or "premature," as in "he met his timeless end." That usage, which dates back to the late 16th century, is now considered archaic, but an equally venerable sense, "eternal" or "having no beginning or end," has proven more enduring. The two remaining senses are somewhat newer. The "not restricted to a particular time or date" meaning dates to the mid-18th century, while the most modern meaning—"ageless"—didn't exist until just before the turn of the 20th century. (By the way, the quotations we started with came from Benjamin Franklin, British statesman Benjamin Disraeli, and American writer Faith Baldwin, respectively.)

Masterful (MASS-ter-ful)

1 a : inclined and usually competent to act as master b : suggestive of a domineering nature 2 : having or reflecting the skills of a master Some commentators insist that masterful must only mean "domineering," reserving the "expert, skillful" sense for masterly. The distinction is a modern one. In earlier times, the terms were used interchangeably, with each having both the "domineering" and "expert" senses. The "domineering" sense of masterly fell into disuse around the 18th century, however, and in the 20th century the famous grammarian H. W. Fowler decided that masterful should be similarly limited to a single meaning. He summarily ruled that the "expert" definition of masterful was incorrect. Other usage writers followed his lead. But the "expert" meaning of masterful has continued to flourish in standard prose in spite of the disapproval, and, considering the sense's long history, it cannot really be called an error.

Ulterior (ul-TEER-ee-er)

1 a : lying farther away : more remote b : situated on the farther side 2 : going beyond what is openly said or shown Although now usually hitched to the front of the noun motive to refer to a hidden need or desire that inspires action, ulterior began its career as an adjective in the mid-17th century describing something occurring at a subsequent time. By the early 18th century it was being used to mean both "more distant" (literally and figuratively) and "situated on the farther side." The "hidden" sense with which we're most familiar today followed quickly after those, with the word modifying nouns like purpose, design, and consequence. Ulterior comes directly from the Latin word for "farther" or "further," itself assumed to be the comparative form of ulter, meaning "situated beyond."

Limpid (LIM-pid)

1 a : marked by transparency : pellucid b : clear and simple in style 2 : absolutely serene and untroubled Since the early 1600s, limpid has been used in English to describe things that have the soft clearness of pure water. The aquatic connection is not incidental; language scholars believe that limpid probably traces to lympha, a Latin word meaning "water." That same Latin root is also the source of the word lymph, the English name for the pale liquid that helps maintain the body's fluid balance and that removes bacteria from tissues.

Dubious (DOO-bee-us)

1 a : of doubtful promise or outcome b : questionable or suspect as to true nature or quality 2 : unsettled in opinion : doubtful Dubious derives from the Latin verb dubare, meaning "to hesitate in choice of opinions or courses," and it is related to the Latin word for "two": duo. Dubious can be used to indicate uncertainty about the result of an action or the truth of a statement as well as about the uncertainty of a person and his or her character. In either case, it usually implies a feeling of doubt from suspicion, mistrust, or hesitation.

Moot (MOOT)

1 a : open to question : debatable b : subjected to discussion : disputed 2 : deprived of practical significance : made abstract or purely academic Moot derives from gemōt, an Old English name for a judicial court. Originally, moot named either the court itself or an argument that might be debated by one. By the 16th century, the legal role of judicial moots had diminished, and the only remnant of them were "moot courts," academic mock courts in which law students could try hypothetical cases for practice. Back then, moot was also used as a synonym of debatable, but because the cases students tried in moot courts were simply academic exercises, the adjective gained another sense, "deprived of practical significance." Some commentators still frown on the use of moot to mean "purely academic," but most editors now accept it as standard.

Apprehension (ap-rih-HEN-shun)

1 a : the act or power of perceiving or comprehending b : the result of apprehending mentally : conception 2 : seizure by legal process : arrest 3 : suspicion or fear especially of future evil : foreboding The Latin verb prehendere really grabs our attention. It means "to grasp" or "to seize," and it is an ancestor of various English words. It teamed up with the prefix ad- (which takes the form ap- before p and means "to," "toward," or "near") to form apprehendere, the Latin predecessor of our words apprehension, apprehend, and apprehensive. When prehendere joined the prefix com- ("with," "together," "jointly"), Latin got comprehendere, and English eventually got comprehend, comprehension, and comprehensive. Prehendere also gave us the words comprise, prehensile ("adapted for seizing or grasping"), prison, reprehend, and reprise, among others.

Saltation (sal-TAY-shun)

1 a : the action or process of leaping or jumping b : dance 2 : the origin of a new species or a higher taxon in essentially a single evolutionary step Saltation comes from Latin, deriving ultimately from the verb salire, meaning "to leap." Etymologists think it meant "leap" or "jump" when it was first used in English, too, but documented evidence of early use in that sense is scarce. Instead, the oldest manuscripts containing the word (which date from the 1620s) show it used as a synonym of "dancing." The first recorded incidence of the "leaping" sense dates from 1646, when British physician and author Sir Thomas Browne used it in an entomological context: "Locusts ... being ordained for saltation, their hinder legs doe far exceed the other." The word made the leap to evolutionary theory in the late 19th century.

Diapason (dye-uh-PAY-zun)

1 a : the principal foundation stop in the organ extending through the complete range of the instrument b : the entire range of musical tones 2 a : tuning fork b : a standard of pitch Diapason covers a wide range of meanings in English, almost all pertaining to music or sound. The word derives from the Greek roots dia-, which means "through" and occurs in such words as diameter and diagonal, and pasōn, the genitive feminine plural of pas, meaning "all." Pas is related to the prefix pan-, which is used in such words as pantheism and pandemic. In Greek, the phrase hē dia pasōn chordōn symphōnia translates literally to "the concord through all the notes," with the word concord here referring to a combination of tones that are heard simultaneously and produce an agreeable impression on the listener.

Onomastics (ah-nuh-MAS-tiks)

1 a : the science or study of the origins and forms of words especially as used in a specialized field b : the science or study of the origin and forms of proper names of persons or places 2 : the system underlying the formation and use of words especially for proper names or of words used in a specialized field The original word for the science of naming was onomatology, which was adopted from French in the mid-19th century. About a century later, however, people began referring to the science as onomastics, a term based on the Greek verb onomazein ("to name"). Like many sciences, onomastics is itself composed of special divisions. An onomastician might, for example, study personal names or place names, names of a specific region or historical period, or even the character names of a particular author, like Charles Dickens.

Peruse (puh-ROOZ)

1 a : to examine or consider with attention and in detail : study b : to look over or through in a casual or cursory manner 2 : read; especially : to read over in an attentive or leisurely manner Peruse has long been a literary word, used by such famous authors as Shakespeare, Tennyson, and Thomas Hardy, and it tends to have a literary flavor even in our time. Peruse can suggest paying close attention to something, but it can also simply mean "to read." The "read" sense, which is not especially new and was in fact included in Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary, has drawn some criticism over the years for being too broad. Some commentators have recommended that peruse be reserved for reading with great care and attention to detail. But the fact remains that peruse is often used in situations where a simple "read" definition could be easily substituted. It may suggest either an attentive read or a quick scan.

Belie (bih-LYE)

1 a : to give a false impression of b : to present an appearance not in agreement with 2 : to show (something) to be false or wrong 3 : to run counter to : contradict 4 : disguise "What is a lie?" asked Lord Byron in Don Juan. He then answered himself: "'Tis but the truth in masquerade...." The history of belie illustrates a certain connection between lying and disguising. In its earliest known use, around 590 C.E., belie meant "to deceive by lying." By the 1200s, it was being used to mean "to tell lies about," using a sense similar to that of the modern word slander. Over time its meaning softened, shifting from an act of outright lying to one of mere misrepresentation, and by the early 1600s, the word was being used in the sense "to disguise or conceal." Nowadays, belie suggests giving an impression at variance with the facts rather than telling an intentional untruth.

Affront (uh-FRUNT)

1 a : to insult especially to the face by behavior or language b : to cause offense to 2 : to face in defiance : confront 3 : to appear directly before The Middle English afronten, the ancestor of the Modern English verb affront, was borrowed from the Anglo-French afrunter, a verb which means "to defy" but which also has the specific meaning "to strike on the forehead" or "to slap on the face." These more literal senses reveal the word's Latin origins, a combination of the Latin prefix ad-, meaning "to" or "towards," and front-, frons, which means "forehead" (and which is also the source of the English word front). While the striking or slapping sense of afrunter was not adopted by English, it is alluded to in the oldest use of the Modern English word: "to insult especially to the face."

Foist (FOIST)

1 a : to introduce or insert surreptitiously or without warrant b : to force another to accept especially by stealth or deceit 2 : to pass off as genuine or worthy An early sense of the word foist, now obsolete, referred to palming a phony die and secretly introducing it into a game at an opportune time. The action involved in this cheating tactic reflects the etymology of foist. The word is believed to derive from the obsolete Dutch verb vuisten, meaning "to take into one's hand." Vuisten in turn comes from vuyst, the Middle Dutch word for "fist," which itself is distantly related to the Old English ancestor of "fist." By the late 16th century foist was being used in English to mean "to insert surreptitiously," and it quickly acquired the meaning "to force another to accept by stealth or deceit."

Pontificate (pahn-TIF-uh-kayt)

1 a : to officiate as a pontiff b : to celebrate pontifical mass 2 : to speak or express opinions in a pompous or dogmatic way In ancient Rome, the pontifices were powerful priests who administered the part of civil law that regulated relationships with the deities recognized by the state. Their name, pontifex, derives from the Latin words pons, meaning "bridge," and facere, meaning "to make," and some think it may have developed because the group was associated with a sacred bridge over the river Tiber (although there is no proof of that). With the rise of Catholicism, the title pontifex was transferred to the Pope and to Catholic bishops. Pontificate derives from pontifex, and in its earliest English uses it referred to things associated with such prelates. By the late 1800s, pontificate was also being used derisively for individuals who spoke as if they had the authority of an ecclesiastic.

Parse (PARSS)

1 a : to resolve (as a sentence) into component parts of speech and describe them grammatically b : to describe grammatically by stating the part of speech and explaining the inflection and syntactical relationships 2 : to examine in a minute way : analyze critically If parse brings up images of elementary school and learning the parts of speech, you've done your homework regarding this word. Parse comes from the first element of the Latin term for "part of speech," pars orationis. It's an old word that has been used in the schoolroom since at least the student days of King Edward VI of England (1537-1553). Edward's tutor, Richard Cox, recorded that at the age of nine the young prince had memorized all four of the Roman author Cato's Moral Distichs and had parsed them as well. But it was not until the late 18th century that parse graduated to its extended, non-grammar-related sense. Remember this extended sense, and you're really at the head of the class.

Incandescent (in-kun-DESS-unt)

1 a : white, glowing, or luminous with intense heat b : marked by brilliance especially of expression c : characterized by glowing zeal : ardent 2 a : of, relating to, or being light produced by incandescence b : producing light by incandescence Incandescent came into the English language toward the end of the 18th century, at a time when scientific experiments involving heat and light were being conducted on an increasingly frequent basis. An object that glowed at a high temperature (such as a piece of coal) was "incandescent." By the mid-1800s, the incandescent lamp—a.k.a. the lightbulb—had been invented; it contains a filament which gives off light when heated by an electric current. Incandescent is the modern offspring of a much older parent, the Latin verb candēre, meaning "to glow." Centuries earlier, the word for another source of light, candle, was also derived from candēre.

Travail (truh-VAIL)

1 a : work especially of a painful or laborious nature : toil b : a physical or mental exertion or piece of work : task, effort c : agony, torment 2 : childbirth, labor Etymologists are pretty certain that travail comes from trepalium, the Late Latin name of an instrument of torture. We don't know exactly what a trepalium looked like, but the word's history gives us an idea. Trepalium is derived from the Latin tripalis, which means "having three stakes" (from tri-, meaning "three," and palus, meaning "stake"). From trepalium sprang the Anglo-French verb travailler, which originally meant "to torment" but eventually acquired the milder senses "to trouble" and "to journey." The Anglo-French noun travail was borrowed into English in the 13th century, followed about a century later by travel, another descendant of travailler.

Scupper (SKUP-er)

: (British) to defeat or put an end to : do in All efforts to figure out where this verb came from have been defeated, including attempts to connect it to the noun scupper, a 600-year-old word for a drain opening in the side of a ship. (One conjecture, that the blood of shipboard battle was "scuppered" when it was washed down the scuppers, unfortunately lacks backing in the form of any actual evidence of the verb used this way.) All we know for sure is that scupper meant "to ambush and massacre" in 19th-century military slang and developed its extended uses of "defeat" and "do in" in the early-mid 20th century. The more common modern application to things rather than people being done in or defeated didn't appear until the second half of the 20th century.

Rhadamanthine (rad-uh-MAN-thun)

: (often capitalized) rigorously strict or just In Greek mythology, there were three judges of the underworld: Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus. Minos, a son of Zeus and Europa, had been the king of Crete before becoming supreme judge in the underworld after his death. Aeacus, another son of Zeus, was king of Aegina before joining the underworld triumvirate. Rhadamanthus, brother of Minos and king of the Cyclades Islands, was especially known for being inflexible when administering his judgment-hence, the meaning of rhadamanthine as "rigorously strict or just."

Tyro (TYE-roh)

: a beginner in learning : novice The word tyro is hardly a newcomer to Western language. It comes from the Latin tiro, which means "young soldier," "new recruit," or more generally, "novice." The word was sometimes spelled tyro as early as Medieval Latin, and can be spelled tyro or tiro in English (though tyro is the more common American spelling). Use of tyro in English has never been restricted to the original "young soldier" meaning of the Latin term. Writers in the 17th and 18th centuries wrote of tyros in various fields and occupations. Herman Melville used tyro to refer to men new to whaling and life at sea. The word is sometimes used attributively-that is, directly before another noun-as it has been since the 17th century, as in phrases like "tyro reporter" and "tyro actors."

Menorah (muh-NOR-uh)

: a candelabra with seven or nine lights that is used in Jewish worship English speakers originally used the Hebrew borrowing menorah for the seven-branched candelabra used in Jewish worship since ancient times. The nine-branched Hanukkah candelabra is called hanukkiah in Hebrew, but English speakers have come to use menorah for this candelabra too. The Hanukkah menorah recalls the expulsion by Judas Maccabaeus of invading forces from the Temple of Jerusalem. Maccabaeus and his followers sought oil for the temple's menorah so that the sanctuary could be rededicated, but they found only enough oil for a single day. Miraculously, that tiny amount of oil burned for eight days, until a new supply could be obtained. The Hanukkah menorah includes a candle for each day the oil burned, plus the shammes, a "servant candle" that is used to light the others.

Ailurophile (eye-LOOR-uh-fyle)

: a cat fancier : a lover of cats Although the word ailurophile has only been documented in English since the early 1900s, ailurophiles have been around for thousands of years. The ancient Egyptians were perhaps history's greatest cat lovers, pampering and adorning felines, honoring them in art, even treating them as gods. But the English word ailurophile does not descend from Egyptian; rather, it comes from a combination of the Greek word ailouros, which means "cat," and the suffix -phile, meaning "lover." If Egyptian cat-loving sentiments leave you cold and you're more sympathetic to medieval Europeans who regarded cats as wicked agents of evil, you might prefer the word ailurophobe (from ailouros plus -phobe, meaning "fearing or averse to"). That's a fancy name for someone who hates or fears cats.

Whodunit (hoo-DUN-it)

: a detective story or mystery story In 1930, Donald Gordon, a book reviewer for News of Books, needed to come up with something to say about a rather unremarkable mystery novel called Half-Mast Murder. "A satisfactory whodunit," he wrote. The coinage played fast and loose with spelling and grammar, but whodunit caught on anyway. Other writers tried respelling it who-done-it, and one even insisted on using whodidit, but those sanitized versions lacked the punch of the original and have fallen by the wayside. Whodunit became so popular that by 1939 at least one language pundit had declared it "already heavily overworked" and predicted it would "soon be dumped into the taboo bin." History has proven that prophecy false, and whodunit is still going strong.

Longanimity (long-guh-NIM-uh-tee)

: a disposition to bear injuries patiently : forbearance Longanimity is a word with a long history. It came to English in the 15th century from the Late Latin adjective longanimis, meaning "patient" or "long-suffering." Longanimis, in turn, derives from the Latin combination of longus ("long") and animus ("soul"). Longus is related to the ancestors of our word long and is itself an ancestor to several other English words, including longevity ("long life"), elongate ("to make longer"), and prolong ("to lengthen in time"). Now used somewhat infrequently in English, longanimity stresses the character of one who, like the figure of Job in the Bible, endures prolonged suffering with extreme patience.

Morpheme (MOR-feem)

: a distinctive collocation of phonemes (such as the free form pin or the bound form -s of pins) having no smaller meaningful parts Morphemes are the indivisible basic units of language, much like the atoms which physicists once assumed were the indivisible units of matter. English speakers borrowed morpheme from French morphème, which was itself created from the Greek root morphē, meaning "form." The French borrowed -ème from their word phonème, which, like English phoneme, means "the smallest unit of speech that can be used to make one word different from another word." The French suffix and its English equivalent -eme are used to create words that refer to distinctive units of language structure. Words formed from -eme include lexeme ("a meaningful linguistic unit that is an item in the vocabulary of a language"), grapheme ("a unit of a writing system"), and toneme ("a unit of intonation in a language in which variations in tone distinguish meaning").

Longueur (lawn-GUR)

: a dull and tedious passage or section (as of a book, play, or musical composition) - usually used in plural You've probably come across long, tedious sections of books, plays, or musical works before, but perhaps you didn't know there was a word for them. English speakers began using the French borrowing longueur in the late 18th century. In French, longueurs are tedious passages, and longueur literally means "length." The first recorded use of longueur in English comes from the writer Horace Walpole, who wrote in a letter, "Boswell's book is gossiping; . . . but there are woful longueurs, both about his hero and himself."

Pseudonym (SOO-duh-nihm)

: a fictitious name; especially : pen name Pseudonym, has its origins in the Greek word pseudōnymos, which means "bearing a false name." Greek speakers formed their word by combining pseud-, meaning "false," and onyma, meaning "name." French speakers adopted the Greek word as pseudonyme, and English speakers later modified the French word into pseudonym. Many celebrated authors have used pseudonyms. Samuel Clemens wrote under the pseudonym "Mark Twain," Charles Lutwidge Dodgson assumed the pseudonym "Lewis Carroll," and Mary Ann Evans used "George Eliot" as her pseudonym.

Verdigris (VER-duh-greess)

: a green or bluish deposit formed on copper, brass, or bronze surfaces "Green of Greece"-that is the literal translation of vert de Grece, the Anglo-French phrase from which the modern word verdigris descends. A coating of verdigris forms naturally on copper and copper alloys, such as brass and bronze, when those metals are exposed to air. (It can also be produced artificially.) The word verdigris has been associated with statuary and architecture, ancient and modern, since it was first used in the 14th century. Some American English speakers may find that they know it best from the greenish blue coating that covers the copper of the Statue of Liberty.

Nocebo (noh-SEE-boh)

: a harmless substance that when taken by a patient is associated with harmful effects due to negative expectations or the psychological condition of the patient Nocent has been in the English language as a word for harmful since the 15th century. It comes from Latin nocēre, meaning "to harm." Latin nocebo is a close relative that means "I will be harmful" and that contrasts with placebo, meaning "I shall please." People in medicine began using placebo for inert preparations prescribed solely for a patient's mental relief, and not for relieving a disorder, in the late 18th century. As doctors began to observe the effects of placebos, some noticed that the harmless preparations actually sometimes caused detrimental effects on the patient's health. English speakers began using the word nocebo for substances causing such adverse reactions in patients in 1961.

Xeriscape (ZEER-uh-skayp)

: a landscaping method developed especially for arid and semiarid climates that utilizes water-conserving techniques (such as the use of drought-tolerant plants, mulch, and efficient irrigation) Xēros is the Greek word for "dry" that is the base for a handful of English words related to mainly dry printing (xerography) and dry, or xerophilous, habitats and their plants. In the early 1980s, the Greek adjective was used to name a type of landscaping practiced primarily in the arid western regions of the United States. (The Water Department of Denver, Colorado, is credited with the word's coinage.) Xeriscape, as it is called, uses plants that require little water and techniques that efficiently use water and reduce evaporation.

Majuscule (MAJ-uh-skyool)

: a large letter (such as a capital) Majuscule looks like the complement to minuscule, and the resemblance is no coincidence. Minuscule appeared in the early 18th century as a word for a lowercase letter, then later as the word for certain ancient and medieval writing styles which had "small forms." Minuscule then acquired a more general adjectival use for anything very small. Majuscule is the counterpart to minuscule when it comes to letters, but it never developed a broader sense (despite the fact that its Latin ancestor majusculus has the broad meaning "rather large"). The adjective majuscule also exists (as does majuscular). Not surprisingly, the adjective shares the noun's specificity, referring only to large letters or to a style using such letters.

Grandiloquence (gran-DIH-luh-kwunss)

: a lofty, extravagantly colorful, pompous, or bombastic style, manner, or quality especially in language Grandiloquence, which first appeared in English in the late 16th century, is one of several English words pertaining to speech that derive from the Latin loqui, meaning "to speak." Other offspring of loqui include eloquent ("marked by fluent expression"), loquacious ("full of excessive talk"), and soliloquy ("a long dramatic monologue"). Grandiloquence comes (probably via Middle French) from the Latin adjective grandiloquus, which combines loqui and the adjective grandis ("grand or great"). A word that is very similar in meaning to grandiloquence is magniloquence-and the similarity is not surprising. Magniloquence combines loqui with magnus, another Latin word meaning "great."

Hobbit (HOB-it)

: a member of a fictitious peaceful and genial race of small humanlike creatures that dwell underground "What is a hobbit?" wrote J. R. R. Tolkien in the 1937 fantasy novel that introduced Mr. Bilbo Baggins. The author then answered himself: "They are (or were) little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded Dwarves.... There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along...." Tolkien tells us that hobbits "are inclined to be fat," and that they "dress in bright colours"; they "have good-natured faces, and deep fruity laughs (especially after dinner)." Tolkien, a professional linguist who taught at Oxford, coined the word hobbit (and many other terms-in fact, a whole new language) for The Hobbit and for his enormously popular series The Lord of the Rings.

Paragon (PAIR-uh-gahn)

: a model of excellence or perfection Paragon derives from the Old Italian word paragone, which literally means "touchstone." A touchstone is a black stone that was formerly used to judge the purity of gold or silver. The metal was rubbed on the stone and the color of the streak it left indicated its quality. In modern English, both touchstone and paragon have come to signify a standard against which something should be judged. Ultimately, paragon comes from the Greek parakonan, meaning "to sharpen," from the prefix para- ("alongside of") and akonē, meaning "whetstone."

Objet trouvé (AWB-zhay-troo-VAY)

: a natural or discarded object found by chance and held to have aesthetic value Objet trouvé comes from French, where it literally means "found object." The term entered English during the early 20th century, a time when many artists challenged traditional ideas about the nature of true art. Surrealists and other artists, for instance, held that any object could be a work of art if a person recognized its aesthetic merit. Objet trouvé can refer to naturally formed objects whose beauty is the result of natural forces as well as to man-made artifacts (such as bathtubs, wrecked cars, or scrap metal) that were not originally created as art but are displayed as such.

Callithump (KAL-uh-thump)

: a noisy boisterous band or parade Callithump and the related adjective callithumpian are Americanisms, but their roots stretch back to England. In the 19th century, the noun callithumpians was used in the U.S. of boisterous roisterers who had their own makeshift New Year's parade. Their band instruments consisted of crude noisemakers such as pots, tin horns, and cowbells. The antecedent of callithumpians is an 18th-century British dialect term for another noisy group, the "Gallithumpians," who made a rumpus on election days in southern England. Today, the words callithump and callithumpian see occasional use, especially in the names of specific bands and parades. The callithumpian bands and parades of today are more organized than those of the past, but they retain an association with noise and boisterous fun.

Diapause (DYE-uh-pawz)

: a period of physiologically enforced dormancy between periods of activity Diapause, from the Greek word diapausis, meaning "pause," may have been coined by the entomologist William Wheeler in 1893. Wheeler's focus was insects, but diapause, a spontaneous period of suspended animation that seems to happen in response to adverse environmental conditions, also occurs in the development of crustaceans, snails, and other animals. Exercising poetic license, novelist Joyce Carol Oates even gave the word a human application in her short story "Visitation Rights" (1988): "Her life, seemingly in shambles, ... was not ruined; ... injured perhaps, and surely stunted, but only temporarily. There had been a diapause, and that was all...."

Foodie (FOO-dee)

: a person having an avid interest in the latest food fads Foodie is a relatively recent addition to our language (dating from the early 1980s), but it derives from a much older word, food, which has been with us for as long as there has been anything that could be called English. Food can be traced back through Middle English to the Old English form fōda, which is itself related to Old High German fuotar, meaning "food" or "fodder," and Latin panis, meaning "bread." Panis is the source for empanada (a turnover with a sweet or savory filling), panatela (a type of cigar), panettone (a kind of bread containing raisins and candied fruit), and pantry (a room used for the storage of provisions).

Sounding board (SOUND-ing-BORD)

: a person or group on whom one tries out an idea or opinion as a means of evaluating it Beginning during the Renaissance, a flat wooden canopy called a sounding board was placed over church pulpits, amplifying the sound of the preacher's voice, carrying it to the farthest reaches of the church. Similarly, ideas can be spread by a figurative sounding board. A publication, for example, can be a sounding board for propaganda. That's one modern sense of the word. But when sound bounces off a literal sounding board, not only does it reach more people, it also comes across more clearly. Likewise, "bouncing" ideas off another person can lend clarity to one's thought processes. If someone comes to you and says "How does this sound?" and leaves with his or her mind made up (whether or not you've ventured a word), you have served as a very effective sounding board.

Aficionado (uh-fish-ee-uh-NAH-doh)

: a person who likes, knows about, and appreciates a usually fervently pursued interest or activity : devotee The affection an aficionado has for his or her favorite subject isn't merely emotional-it's also etymological. Back in the early 1800s, English borrowed aficionado from the past participle of the Spanish verb aficionar, which means "to inspire affection." That verb comes from the Spanish noun afición, meaning "affection." Both Spanish words trace to the Latin affectio (which is also an ancestor of the English word affection). Affectio, in turn, is from afficere ("to influence") and gave English speakers the noun and verbs affect.

Quidnunc (KWID-nunk)

: a person who seeks to know all the latest news or gossip : busybody "What's new?" That's a question every busybody wants answered. Latin-speaking Nosey Parkers might have used some version of the expression quid nunc, literally "what now," to ask the same question. Appropriately, the earliest documented English use of quidnunc to refer to a gossiper appeared in 1709 in Sir Richard Steele's famous periodical, The Tatler. Steele is far from the only writer to ply quidnunc in his prose, however. You can also find the word among the pages of works by such writers as Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne. But don't think the term is old news-it sees some use in current publications, too.

Cybrarian (sye-BRAIR-ee-un)

: a person whose job is to find, collect, and manage information that is available on the World Wide Web We've been using librarian for the people who manage libraries since at least the beginning of the 18th century, and the word was used for scribes and copyists even earlier than that. Cybrarian, on the other hand, is much newer; its earliest documented use is from 1991. Librarian combines library (itself from liber, the Latin word for book) and the noun suffix -an, meaning "one specializing in." When people wanted a word for a person who performed duties similar to those of a librarian by using information from the Internet, they went a step further and combined cyber-, meaning "of, relating to, or involving computers or a computer network," with librarian to produce the new cybrarian.

Catbird seat (KAT-berd-SEET)

: a position of great prominence or advantage "In the catbird seat" was among the numerous folksy expressions that legendary baseball broadcaster Red Barber used to delight listeners. Some say he invented the expression; others say that he dug it up from his Southern origins. But the truth may be far stranger than those rumors. In a 1942 short story titled "The Catbird Seat," James Thurber featured a character, Mrs. Barrows, who liked to use the phrase. Another character, Joey Hart, explained that Mrs. Barrows must have picked up the expression from Red Barber. To Red, according to Joey, "sitting in the catbird seat" meant "'sitting pretty,' like a batter with three balls and no strikes on him." But, according to Barber's daughter, it was only after Barber read Thurber's story that he started using "in the catbird seat" himself.

Panjandrum (pan-JAN-drum)

: a powerful personage or pretentious official Panjandrum looks like it might be a combination of Latin and Greek roots, but in fact it is a nonsense word coined by British actor and playwright Samuel Foote around 1755. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Foote made up a line of gibberish to "test the memory of his fellow actor Charles Macklin, who had asserted that he could repeat anything after hearing it once." Foote's made-up line was, "And there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies and the Grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at the top." Some 75 years after this, Foote's passage appeared in a book of stories for children by the Anglo-Irish writer Maria Edgeworth. It took another quarter century before English speakers actually incorporated panjandrum into their general vocabulary.

Amphibology (am-fuh-BAH-luh-jee)

: a sentence or phrase that can be interpreted in more than one way A venerable old word in English, amphibology is from Greek amphibolos (via Late Latin and Latin). Amphibolos, from amphi- ("both") and ballein ("to throw"), literally means "encompassing" or "hitting at both ends"; figuratively it means "ambiguous." Amphibology is an equivocator's friend. An editor who has been sent an unsolicited manuscript to critique, for example, might reply, "I shall lose no time in reading your book." Or a dinner guest who feels the onset of heartburn might say something like, "Ah, that was a meal I shall not soon forget!" But amphibology's ambiguity can be unintended and undesirable as well, as in "When Mom talked to Judy, she said she might call her back the next day." (Who said who might call whom back?)

Sycophant (SIK-uh-funt)

: a servile self-seeking flatterer In the language of ancient Greece, sykophantēs meant "slanderer." The word derives from two other Greek words, sykon (meaning "fig") and phainein (meaning "to show or reveal"). How did fig revealers become slanderers? One theory has to do with the taxes Greek farmers were required to pay on the figs they brought to market. Apparently, the farmers would sometimes try to avoid making the payments, but squealers-fig revealers-would fink on them, and they would be forced to pay. Another possible source is a sense of the word fig meaning "a gesture or sign of contempt (such as thrusting a thumb between two fingers)." In any case, Latin retained the "slanderer" sense when it borrowed a version of sykophantēs, but by the time English speakers in the 16th century borrowed it as sycophant, the squealers had become flatterers.

Youthquake (YOOTH-kwayk)

: a shift in cultural norms influenced by the values, tastes, and mores of young people The 1960s were a time of seismic social upheaval brought about by young people bent on shaking up the establishment. From politics to fashion to music, the ways of youth produced far-reaching cultural changes. Linguistically, the sixties saw the addition to English of such words as flower child, peacenik, hippie, love beads, trippy, vibe, freak-out, and love-in. Not surprisingly, they also saw the emergence of youthquake. Although commonly attributed to Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, an earlier use of youthquake in print comes from a 1966 article in McCall's: "the youthquake, as some call it ... has swept both sides of the Atlantic."

Modicum (MAH-dih-kum)

: a small portion : a limited quantity What does modicum have to do with a toilet? It just so happens that modicum shares the same Latin parent as commode, which is a synonym of "toilet." Modicum and commode ultimately derive from the Latin noun modus, which means "measure." Modicum (which, logically enough, refers to a small "measure" of something) has been a part of the English language since the 15th century. It descends from the Latin modicus ("moderate"), which is itself a descendant of modus. Modus really measures up as a Latin root-it also gave us mode (originally a kind of musical "measure"), modal, model, modern, modify, and modulate. More distant relatives include mete, moderate, and modest.

War story (WOR-STOR-ee)

: a story of a memorable personal experience typically involving an element of danger, hardship, or adventure People have been telling stories about real wars since long before Washington Irving wrote the following in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: "folks ... sat smoking at one end of the piazza, ... drawing out long stories about the war." But today's tellers of "war stories" need not have experienced a literal battlefield. In the latter half of the 20th century, war story took on a more figurative meaning, and nowadays such accounts can encompass challenges in the workplace, on the campaign trail, in sports, in one's travels—wherever difficulties need to be overcome.

Pandiculation (pan-dik-yuh-LAY-shun)

: a stretching and stiffening especially of the trunk and extremities (as when fatigued and drowsy or after waking from sleep) Cat and dog owners who witness daily their pets' methodical body stretching upon awakening might wonder if there is a word to describe their routine-and there is: pandiculation. Pandiculation (which applies to humans too) is the medical term for the stretching and stiffening of the trunk and extremities, often accompanied by yawning, to arouse the body when fatigued or drowsy. The word comes from Latin pandiculatus, the past participle of pandiculari ("to stretch oneself"), and is ultimately derived from pandere, meaning "to spread." Pandere is also the source of expand.

Kinesics (kuh-NEE-siks)

: a systematic study of the relationship between nonlinguistic body motions (such as blushes, shrugs, or eye movement) and communication Anthropologists began to take serious interest in nonverbal communication through gestures, postures, and facial expressions in the 1940s. It is believed, however, that the publication of Ray Birdwhistell's 1952 book Introduction to Kinesics marked the beginning of formal research into what we know familiarly as "body language." Over 60 years later, the results of kinesics are deeply entrenched in our culture, giving us a whole new language with which to interpret everyday encounters and interactions.

Umami (oo-MAH-mee)

: a taste sensation that is meaty or savory and is produced by several amino acids and nucleotides (such as glutamate and aspartate) Japanese scientist Kikunae Ikeda is credited with identifying as a distinct taste the savory flavor of the amino acid glutamic acid, which he first noticed in soup stocks made with seaweed. This fifth basic taste—alongside sweet, sour, salty, and bitter—was named umami, meaning "savoriness" in Japanese. Umami can be experienced in foods such as mushrooms, anchovies, and mature cheeses, as well as in foods enhanced with monosodium glutamate, or MSG, a sodium salt derived from glutamic acid.

Retronym (REH-troh-nim)

: a term (such as analog watch or snail mail) that is newly created and adopted to distinguish the original or older version, form, or example of something from other, more recent versions, forms, or examples Remember way back when cameras used film? Back then, such devices were simply called cameras; they weren't specifically called film cameras until they needed to be distinguished from the digital cameras that came later. Similarly, the term desktop computer wasn't often used until laptops became prevalent. A lot of our common retronyms have come about due to technological advances: acoustic guitar emerged to contrast with electric guitar, and brick-and-mortar store to distinguish traditional stores from online retailers. Retronym was coined by Frank Mankiewicz, an American journalist and former president of National Public Radio, and first seen in print in 1980.

Riot act (RYE-ut-AKT)

: a vigorous reprimand or warning - used in the phrase read the riot act Many people were displeased when George I became king of England in 1714, and his opponents were soon leading rebellions and protests against him. The British government, anxious to stop the protests, passed a law called the "Riot Act." It allowed public officials to break up gatherings of 12 or more people by reading aloud a proclamation, warning those who heard it that they must disperse within the hour or be guilty of a felony punishable by death. By 1819, riot act was also being used more generally for any stern warning or reprimand. Although the law long ago fell into disuse and was finally repealed in 1973, the term that it generated lives on today.

Microburst (MY-kroh-burst)

: a violent short-lived localized downdraft that creates extreme wind shears at low altitudes and is usually associated with thunderstorms Credit for the invention of the word microburst is generally given to tornado expert Tetsuya Theodore Fujita. Fujita first described these extremely intense wind patterns in 1974. He noted that microbursts are usually short-lived, lasting only 5 to 15 minutes, but that they are extremely dangerous, especially for aircraft, because they cause sudden unexpected changes in wind direction or speed. Since the mid-1970s, many airports have installed Doppler radar systems to help detect potentially deadly microbursts.

Bluestocking (BLOO-stah-king)

: a woman having intellectual or literary interests In mid-18th century England, a group of women decided to replace evenings of card playing and idle chatter with "conversation parties," inviting illustrious men of letters to discuss literary and intellectual topics with them. One regular guest was scholar-botanist Benjamin Stillingfleet. His hostesses willingly overlooked his cheap blue worsted stockings (a type disdained by the elite) in order to have the benefit of his lively conversation. Those who considered it inappropriate for women to aspire to learning derisively called the group the "Blue Stocking Society." The women who were the original bluestockings rose above the attempted put-down and adopted the epithet as a name for members of their society.

Weasel word (WEE-zul-WERD)

: a word used in order to evade or retreat from a direct or forthright statement or position Some people believe that weasels can suck the insides out of an egg without damaging the shell, so that an egg thus weasel-treated would look fine on the outside but would actually be empty and useless. It was this supposed behavior on the part of the weasel that led people to start using weasel word to refer to any term intended to give the impression that everything is fine when the speaker is really trying to avoid answering a question, telling the truth, or taking the blame for something.

Durable (DUR-uh-bul)

: able to exist for a long time without significant deterioration; also : designed to be durable Something durable lasts a long time, so it's no surprise that the word comes to us, via Anglo-French, from the Latin verb durare, meaning "to last." Other descendants of durare in English include during, endure,and durance (which now mostly turns up in the phrase in durance vile, a fancy way of saying "in prison"). Durable even has a near synonym in the much rarer perdurable, which combines durare with the prefix per- (meaning "throughout") to create a word that can mean "lasting a very long time or indefinitely" or "eternal."

Abulia (ay-BOO-lee-uh)

: abnormal lack of ability to act or to make decisions "I must have a prodigious quantity of mind," Mark Twain once wrote. "It takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up." The indecision Twain laments is fairly common; only when inability to make decisions reaches an abnormal level does it have an uncommon name: abulia. The English term we use today comes from a New Latin word that combines the prefix a-, meaning "without," with the Greek word boulē, meaning "will." Abulia can refer to the kind of generalized indecision that makes it impossible to choose what flavor ice cream you want, though it was created to name a severe medical disorder that can render a person nearly inert.

Grog (GRAHG)

: alcoholic liquor; especially : liquor (such as rum) cut with water and now often served hot with lemon juice and sometimes sugar Eighteenth-century English admiral Edward Vernon reputedly earned the nickname "Old Grog" because he often wore a cloak made from grogram (a coarse, loosely woven fabric made of silk or silk blended with mohair or wool). In Old Grog's day, sailors in the Royal Navy were customarily given a daily ration of rum, but in 1740 the admiral, concerned about the health of his men, ordered that the rum should be diluted with water. The decision wasn't very popular with the sailors, who supposedly dubbed the mixture grog after Vernon. Today, grog can be used as a general term for any liquor, even undiluted, and someone who acts drunk or shaky can be called groggy.

Consternation (kahn-ster-NAY-shun)

: amazement or dismay that hinders or throws into confusion Wonder what the seemingly dissimilar words prostrate ("stretched out with face on the ground"), stratum ("layer"), and stratus ("a low cloud form extending over a large area") have in common with consternation? They are all thought to share the Latin ancestor sternere, meaning "to spread" or "to strike or throw down." Much to our consternation, we cannot make that sentence definitive: while prostrate, stratum, and stratus are clearly the offspring of sternere, etymologists will only go so far as to say that consternation comes from Latin consternare—and that they have a strong suspicion that consternare is another descendent of sternere.

Mythomania (mith-uh-MAY-nee-uh)

: an excessive or abnormal propensity for lying and exaggerating We wouldn't lie to you about the history of mythomania. It comes from two ancient roots, the Greek mythos (meaning "myth") and the Late Latin mania (meaning "insanity marked by uncontrolled emotion or excitement"). One myth about mythomania is that it's a very old word; actually, the earliest known uses of the term date only from the beginning of the 20th century. It was predated by a related word, mythomaniac, which appeared around the middle of the 19th century. Mythomaniac initially referred to someone who was obsessed with or passionate about myths, but it was eventually used for individuals affected with or exhibiting mythomania.

Xanadu (ZAN-uh-doo)

: an idyllic, exotic, or luxurious place "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree." Those lines are from the poem "Kubla Khan" (published in 1816) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge's fantastic description of an exotic utopia fired public imagination and ultimately contributed to the transition of Xanadu from a name to a generalized term for an idyllic place. The Xanadu in the poem was inspired by Shang-tu, the summer residence of Mongolian general and statesman Kublai Khan (grandson of Genghis Khan). You might also recognize Xanadu as the name of the fantastic estate in Orson Welles's 1941 film Citizen Kane and as the name of a 1980 musical film starring Olivia Newton-John.

Zillionaire (zil-yuh-NAIR)

: an immeasurably wealthy person The word millionaire has been used in English to designate a person who is worth a million pounds or dollars, depending on the side of the ocean, since 1786. We borrowed the word straight from the French, whose millions, of course, were in francs. Millionaire eventually no longer sufficed, and English speakers coined billionaire in 1844. Soon afterwards came multimillionaire, followed by multibillionaire in the early 1900s. Once zillion was made up as a humorous word for an indeterminately large number (patterned on million and billion), it was only a matter of time before zillionaire came along as a humorous word for a person of seemingly immeasurable wealth. Zillion and zillionaire aren't used in the most formal of writing, but they have found their way into plenty of serious publications.

Proclivity (proh-KLIV-uh-tee)

: an inclination or predisposition toward something; especially : a strong inherent inclination toward something objectionable Have you always had this leaning toward wanting to know about words and their etymologies? Maybe you even have a propensity to use the featured word several times in the course of the day—due, of course, not to a proclivity for pretentiousness, but because you simply have a penchant for using a rich vocabulary. And perhaps you have a predilection for using lots of synonyms, such as proclivity (from clivus, the Latin word for "slope"), referring to a tendency usually toward something bad; propensity, suggesting an often uncontrollable inclination; penchant, meaning an irresistible attraction; and predilection, which describes a strong liking derived from one's temperament.

Sinecure (SYE-nih-kyoor)

: an office or position that requires little or no work and that usually provides an income Sinecure comes from the Medieval Latin phrase sine cura, which literally means "without cure." No, the first sinecures were not cushy jobs for those suffering with incurable maladies. The word sinecure first referred to "an ecclesiastical benefice without cure of souls"—that is, a church position in which the job-holder did not have to tend to the spiritual care and instruction of church members. Such sinecures were virtually done away with by the end of the 19th century, but by then the word had acquired a broader sense referring to any paid position with few or no responsibilities.

Oldster (OHLD-ster)

: an old or elderly person Youngster has been used since the 16th century as a word for a young person with a lot of spunk. It has also long been used by maritime people as a word for a midshipman who has served less than four years. This use is connected with the Dutch word younker, which, like youngster, refers to a young person as well as a young seaman. Oldster came about as a word used to differentiate the inexperienced midshipmen, or youngsters, from the experienced ones. To be exact, in maritime contexts, an oldster is a midshipman of four years' standing. Charles Dickens gets credit for the earliest known use of oldster in the general sense of "an old person." In his 1848 novel Dombey & Son he wrote, "Mr Dombey ... said of Florence that her eyes would play the Devil with the youngsters before long—'and the oldsters too, Sir, if you come to that,' added the Major...."

Pachyderm (PAK-ih-derm)

: any of various nonruminant mammals (such as an elephant, a rhinoceros, or a hippopotamus) of a former group (Pachydermata) that have hooves or nails resembling hooves and usually thick skin; especially : elephant Pachydermos in Greek means literally "having thick skin" (figuratively, it means "dull" or "stupid"). It's from pachys, meaning "thick," and derma, meaning "skin." In the late 1700s the French naturalist Georges Cuvier adapted the Greek term as pachyderme and used it for any one of a whole assemblage of hoofed animals having thickish skin: elephants, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, tapirs, horses, pigs, and more. English speakers learned the word from French in the early 1800s. The adjective pachydermatous means "of or relating to the pachyderms" or "thickened" (referring to skin). Not too surprisingly, it also means "callous" or "insensitive" (somewhat unfairly to elephants, which are actually known to be rather sensitive).

Ersatz (AIR-sahts)

: being a usually artificial and inferior substitute or imitation Ersatz can be traced back in English to 1875, but it really came into prominence during World War I. Borrowed from German, where Ersatz is a noun meaning "substitute," the word was frequently applied as an adjective in English to items like ersatz coffee (from acorns) and ersatz flour (from potatoes)-products resulting from the privations of war. By the time World War II came around, bringing with it a resurgence of the word along with more substitute products, ersatz was wholly entrenched in the language. Today, ersatz can be applied to almost anything that seems like an artificial imitation, as in this quote from the August 10, 2012, issue of The Week: "The whole movie feels ersatz and expedient...."

Beholden (bih-HOHL-dun)

: being under obligation for a favor or gift : indebted Have you ever found yourself under obligation to someone else for a gift or favor? It's a common experience, and, not surprisingly, many of the words describing this condition have been part of the English language for centuries. Beholden was first recorded in writing in the 14th century poem "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." Indebted, which entered English through Anglo-French, is even older, first appearing in the 13th century. English speakers in the 14th century would also have had another synonym of beholden to choose from: bounden. That word, though obscure, is still in use with the meaning "made obligatory" or "binding" (as in "our bounden duty"), but its "beholden" sense is now obsolete.

Eolian (ee-OH-lee-un)

: borne, deposited, produced, or eroded by the wind When Aeolus blew into town, things really got moving. He was the Greek god of the winds and the king of the floating island of Aeolia. In The Odyssey, Homer claims Aeolus helped Odysseus by giving him a favorable wind. Aeolus also gave English speakers a few terms based on his name, including today's adjective eolian (also spelled aeolian), which is often used for wind-sculpted geological features such as caves and dunes, and aeolian harp, an instrument that makes music when the wind blows across its strings.

Ex cathedra (eks-kuh-THEE-druh)

: by virtue of or in the exercise of one's office or position Ex cathedra is a Latin phrase, meaning not "from the cathedral" but "from the chair." The phrase does have religious origins though: it was originally applied to decisions made by Popes from their thrones. According to Roman Catholic doctrine, a Pope speaking ex cathedra on issues of faith or morals is infallible. In general use, the phrase has come to be used with regard to statements made by people in positions of authority, and it is often used ironically to describe someone speaking with overbearing or unwarranted self-certainty.

Evitable (EV-uh-tuh-bul)

: capable of being avoided British author T. S. Eliot once gave a lecture at Trinity College (Cambridge, England) in which he spoke about "the disintegration of the intellect" in 19th century Europe, saying, "The 'disintegration' of which I speak may be evitable or inevitable, good or bad; to draw its optimistic or pessimistic conclusions is an occupation for prophets . . . of whom I am not one." Evitable, though not common, has been in English since the beginning of the 16th century; it's often found paired with its opposite, inevitable, as in Eliot's passage as well as in this self-reflection by Liverpool Echo writer Gary Bainbridge in March of 2014: "I have been thinking about my inevitable death, and decided I would like to make it a bit more evitable." Both words were borrowed from similar Latin adjectives, which in turn are based on the verb evitare, which means "to avoid."

Controvertible (KAHN-truh-ver-tuh-bul)

: capable of being disputed or opposed by reason If you're familiar with incontrovertible, you may have wondered about the existence of controvertible. Both words are direct descendants of controvert ("to dispute or oppose by reasoning"), which dates back to 1584 in English and itself derives from controversy. Controvertible was documented in print as early as 1610, and incontrovertible turned up around thirty years later. Controversy comes to us (through Anglo-French) from the Latin controversus, meaning "disputable," and can ultimately be traced back to the Latin contro- ("against") and versus, the past participle of vertere ("to turn").

Frugal (FROO-gul)

: characterized by or reflecting economy in the use of resources Those who are frugal are unwilling to (lavishly) enjoy the fruits of their labors, so it may surprise you to learn that frugal ultimately derives from the Latin frux, meaning "fruit" or "value," and is even a distant cousin of the Latin word for "enjoy" (frui). The connection between fruit/value and restraint was first made in Latin; the Middle French word that English speakers eventually adopted as frugal came from the Latin adjective frugalis, a frux descendant meaning "virtuous" or "frugal." Although English speakers adopted frugal by the early 17th century, they were already lavishly supplied with earlier coinages to denote the idea, including sparing and thrifty.

Xeric (ZEER-ik)

: characterized by, relating to, or requiring only a small amount of moisture By the late 1800s, botanists were using the terms xerophyte and xerophytic for plants that were well adapted for survival in dry environments. But some felt the need of a more generic word that included both animals and plants. In 1926 that group proposed using xeric (derived from xēros, the Greek word for "dry") as a more generalized term for either flora or fauna. They further suggested that "xerophytic ... be entirely abandoned as useless and misleading." Not everyone liked the idea. In fact, the Ecological Society of America stated that xeric was "not desirable," preferring terms such as arid. Others declared that xeric should refer only to habitats, not to organisms. Scientists used it anyway, and by the 1940s xeric was well documented in scientific literature.

Tawdry (TAW-dree)

: cheap and gaudy in appearance or quality; also : ignoble In the 7th century, Etheldreda, the queen of Northumbria, renounced her husband and her royal position for the veil of a nun. She was renowned for her saintliness and is traditionally said to have died of a swelling in her throat, which she took as a judgment upon her fondness for wearing necklaces in her youth. Her shrine became a principal site of pilgrimage in England. An annual fair was held in her honor on October 17th, and her name became simplified to St. Audrey. At these fairs various kinds of cheap knickknacks were sold, along with a type of necklace called St. Audrey's lace, which by the 16th century had become altered to tawdry lace. Eventually, tawdry came to be used to describe anything cheap and gaudy that might be found at these fairs or anywhere else.

Commodious (kuh-MOH-dee-us)

: comfortably or conveniently spacious : roomy Although it's now used to mean "roomy," in the 16th century commodious was regularly used to mean "handy" or "serviceable," a meaning that is true to the word's Latin ancestor, commodum, meaning "convenience." Poet William Cowper used the word in that original sense in a letter referring to a vessel that served double duty, carrying mackerel and herring from a seaside town to London, then making the return trip carrying passengers. As Cowper observed, "The cheapness of the conveyance made it equally commodious for dead fish and lively company." (No doubt the arriving passengers had a lively smell, which may be one reason why Cowper also noted that some visitors to the seaside town were company whom "people who were nice in the choice of their company, were rather fearful of keeping company with.")

Haplology (hap-LAH-luh-jee)

: contraction of a word by omission of one or more similar sounds or syllables Try to say "pierced-ear earrings" three times fast. That exercise will demonstrate why haplology happens: sometimes it's just easier to drop a syllable and leave yourself with something that's easier to say (such as "pierced earrings"). American philologist Maurice Bloomfield recognized the tendency to drop one of a pair of similar syllables a little over a hundred years ago. He has been credited with joining the combining form hapl- or haplo- (meaning "single") with -logy (meaning "oral or written expression") to create haplology as a name for the phenomenon. Haplology is quite common in English, and often the contracted forms it generates spread into the written language. In fact, haplology played a role in naming the nation that is the cradle of English: England was condensed via haplology from Engla land.

Waddy (WAH-dee)

: cowboy It's easier to rope a wild mustang than to round up the origin of waddy. Some folks claim it comes from wadding (the material used in stuffing or padding) because waddies were once extra hands hired to fill in when extra cowhands were needed. But other evidence suggests that waddy originally referred to a cattle rustler, a usage that wouldn't support the wadding theory. There is also an Australian waddy meaning "stick" or "club," but definitive evidence of a connection between the Australian and American words remains elusive. All researchers can say with certainty is that waddy has been used to refer to a cowboy since at least the late 19th century.

Metadata (met-uh-DAY-tuh)

: data that provides information about other data It's easy to find data on the source of metadata: the word was formed by combining data with meta-, which means "transcending" and is often used to describe a new but related discipline designed to deal critically with the original one. Meta- was first used in that way in metaphysics and has been extended to a number of other disciplines, giving us such words as metapsychology and metamathematics. Metadata takes the "transcending" aspect a step further, applying it to the concept of pure information instead of a discipline. Metadata is a fairly new word (it first appeared in print in 1968), whereas "data" can be traced back to the 17th century.

Delectation (dee-lek-TAY-shun)

: delight, enjoyment Pleasure, delight, and enjoyment are all synonyms and all signify the agreeable emotion accompanying the possession or expectation of what is good or greatly desired. Why, then, use delectation, that not-so-familiar synonym? Because, as with most synonym groups, each word has its own subtle distinctions. Pleasure stresses satisfaction or gratification of the senses. Delight adds the idea of liveliness or obviousness in that satisfaction, often less enduring than pleasure. Enjoyment suggests a wide range of deep pleasure, from merely transient though complete gratification to deep-seated happiness. Delectation (which is from the Latin word for "delight") suggests a reaction to pleasurable experience consciously sought or provided. More than all the others, it connotes mere amusement or diversion.

Netiquette (NET-ih-kut)

: etiquette governing communication on the Internet When the first computer networks were being developed in the 1950s and 60s, few people could have predicted the extent to which the Internet would revolutionize our culture-and our language. These days, you don't have to be a computernik (a computer expert or enthusiast) or a mouse potato (someone who spends a great deal of time using a computer) to be familiar with words like blog, download, or the verb google. And even computerphobes are likely to know that in modern jargon, a "mouse" isn't necessarily a small furry rodent and the newest "virus" may be more of a threat to your computer than to your health. Netiquette, a blend of net (as in Internet) and etiquette, joined our language in the early 1980s.

Ambient (AM-bee-unt)

: existing or present on all sides : encompassing 2 of electronic music : quiet and relaxing with melodies that repeat many times Biologists explore the effects of ambient light on plants; acoustics experts try to control ambient sound; and meteorologists study ambient pressure, air, or temperature. All this can make ambient seem like a technical term, but when it first saw light of day, that all-encompassing adjective was as likely to be used in poetry as in science. John Milton used it in Paradise Lost, and Alexander Pope wrote of a mountain "whose tow'ring summit ambient clouds conceal'd." Both poets and scientists who use ambient owe a debt to the Latin verb ambire, meaning "to go around," the grandparent of our English word.

Gossamer (GAH-suh-mer)

: extremely light, delicate, or tenuous In the days of Middle English, a period of mild weather in late autumn or early winter was sometimes called a gossomer, literally "goose summer." People may have chosen that name for a late-season warm spell because October and November were the months when people felt that geese were at their best for eating. Gossomer was also used in Middle English as a word for filmy cobwebs floating through the air in calm, clear weather, apparently because somebody thought the webs looked like the down of a goose. This sense eventually inspired the adjective gossamer, which means "light, delicate, or tenuous"-just like cobwebs or goose down.

Stentorian (sten-TOR-ee-un)

: extremely loud The Greek herald Stentor was known for having a voice that came through loud and clear. In fact, in the Iliad, Homer described Stentor as a man whose voice was as loud as that of fifty men together. Stentor's powerful voice made him a natural choice for delivering announcements and proclamations to the assembled Greek army during the Trojan War, and it also made his name a byword for any person with a loud, strong voice. Both the noun stentor and the related adjective stentorian pay homage to the big-voiced warrior, and both have been making noise in English since the early 17th century.

Disinformation (dis-in-fer-MAY-shun)

: false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth In 1939, a writer describing Nazi intelligence activities noted, "The mood of national suspicion prevalent during the last decade ... is well illustrated by General Krivitsky's account of the German 'Disinformation Service,' engaged in manufacturing fake military plans for the express purpose of having them stolen by foreign governments." Although the Nazis were accused of using disinformation back in the 1930s, the noun and the practice are most often associated with the Soviet KGB. Many people think disinformation is a literal translation of the Russian dezinformatsiya, which means "misinformation," a term the KGB allegedly used in the 1950s to name a department created to dispense propaganda.

Nepotism (NEP-uh-tiz-um)

: favoritism (as in appointment to a job) based on kinship During his papacy from 1471-1484, Sixtus IV granted many special favors to members of his family, in particular his nephews. This practice of papal favoritism was carried on by his successors, and in 1667 it was the subject of Gregorio Leti's book Il Nepotismo di Roma-titled in the English translation, The History of the Popes' Nephews. Shortly after the book's appearance, nepotism began to be used in English for the showing of special favor or unfair preference to any relative by someone in any position of power, be it ecclesiastical or not. (The "nep-" spelling is from nepote, a 17th-century variant of Italian nipote, meaning "nephew.")

Refluent (REH-floo-unt)

: flowing back Refluent was first documented in English during the 15th century, and it can be traced back to the Latin verb refluere, meaning "to flow back." Refluere, in turn, was formed from the prefix re- and the verb fluere ("to flow"). Other fluere descendants in English include confluent ("flowing together"), fluent and fluid (both of which share the earliest sense of "flowing easily"), circumfluent ("flowing around"), and even affluent (which first meant "flowing abundantly"). Refluent even has an antonym derived from fluere-effluent, meaning "flowing out."

Quondam (KWAHN-dum)

: former, sometime Looking for an unusual and creative way to say "former"? "Quondam" (which came to English in the 16th century from Latin quondam, meaning "at one time" or "formerly") certainly fits the bill. Or maybe you'd prefer one of its synonyms: "whilom," "ci-devant" or "preterit." Or you could really go crazy with "umquhile," a word that is extremely rare even in its more natural Scots English setting. "Quondam" itself isn't exactly ubiquitous, but it's used more than any of the other words above. If you're looking for something a bit more pedestrian, you might try yet another synonym: "erstwhile." Despite its wonderfully archaic flavor, "erstwhile" is a highly favored alternative.

Druthers (DRUH-therz)

: free choice : preference - used especially in the phrase if one had one's druthers Druther is an alteration of "would rather." "Any way you druther have it, that is the way I druther have it," says Huck to Tom in Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, Detective. This example of metanalysis (the shifting of a sound from one constituent of a phrase to another) had likely been around for some time in everyday speech when Twain put those words in Huck's mouth. By then, in fact, druthers had already become a plural noun, so Tom could reply, "There ain't any druthers about it, Huck Finn; nobody said anything about druthers." Druthers is essentially a dialectal term and it tends to suggest an informality of tone, but in current use it doesn't necessarily suggest a lack of sophistication or education.

Persiflage (PER-suh-flahzh)

: frivolous bantering talk : light raillery Unwanted persiflage on television might provoke an impatient audience to hiss or boo, but from an etymological standpoint, no other reaction could be more appropriate. English speakers picked up persiflage from French in the 18th century. Its ancestor is the French verb persifler, which means "to banter" and was formed from the prefix per-, meaning "thoroughly," plus siffler, meaning "to whistle, hiss, or boo." Siffler in turn derived from the Latin verb sibilare, meaning "to whistle or hiss." By the way, sibilare is also the source of sibilant, a word linguists use to describe sounds like those made by "s" and "sh" in sash. That Latin root also underlies the verb sibilate, meaning "to hiss" or "to pronounce with or utter an initial sibilant."

Blithesome (BLYTHE-sum)

: gay, merry Blithesome comes from blithe, a word that has been a part of English since before the 12th century. Blithe can mean "casual" and "heedless" as well as "joyful" and "lighthearted," but blithesome makes use of only the "joyful, lighthearted" sense. Blithesome didn't show up in print in English until the late 16th century, and is now relatively uncommon; you're most likely to come across it in literary contexts like the one in our first quote. In addition to L. M. Montgomery, such authors as Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain, and Herman Melville found it useful.

Capricious (kuh-PRISH-us)

: governed or characterized by caprice : impulsive, unpredictable The noun caprice, which first appeared in English in the mid-17th century, is a synonym of whim. Evidence shows that the adjective capricious debuted about sixty years before caprice; it's likely, however, that both words derived via French from the Italian capriccio, which originally referred not to a sudden desire but to a sudden shudder of fear. Capriccio in turn derives from the Italian capo, meaning "head," and riccio, the word for "hedgehog." Someone who shuddered in fear, therefore, was said to have a "hedgehog head"-meaning that his or her hair stood on end like the spines of a hedgehog.

Contumely (kahn-TOO-muh-lee)

: harsh language or treatment arising from haughtiness and contempt; also : an instance of such language or treatment English poet Geoffrey Chaucer wrote about the sin of contumelie, as it was spelled in Middle English, while composing "The Parson's Tale" back in the late 1300s. The word is a borrowing from Middle French (whence it had earlier arrived from Latin contumelia), and it has since seen wide literary use. Perhaps its most famous occurrence is in Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy (in which it is pronounced \KAHN-tyoom-lee\ or \KAHN-chum-lee): "For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, / Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely...."

Chatoyant (shuh-TOY-unt)

: having a changeable luster or color with an undulating narrow band of white light The complex structure of a cat's eye not only enables it to see at night but also gives it the appearance of glowing in the dark. Not surprisingly, jewels that sport a healthy luster are often compared with the feline ocular organ, so much that the term cat's-eye is used to refer to those gems (such as chalcedony) that give off iridescence from within. If you've brushed up on your French lately, you might notice that the French word for cat (chat) provides the first four letters of chatoyant, a word used by jewelers to describe such lustrous gems (and by others who see the same luster elsewhere). Chatoyant derives from the present participle of chatoyer, a French verb that literally means "to shine like a cat's eyes."

Minatory (MIN-uh-tor-ee)

: having a menacing quality Knowing that minatory means "threatening," can you take a guess at a related word? If you're familiar with mythology, perhaps you guessed Minotaur, the name of the bull-headed, people-eating monster of Crete. Minotaur is a good guess, but as terrifying as the monster sounds, its name isn't related to today's word. The relative we're searching for is actually menace. Minatory and menace both come from derivatives of the Latin verb minari, which means "to threaten." Minatory was borrowed directly from Late Latin minatorius. Menace came to English via Anglo-French manace, menace, which came from Latin minac-, minax, meaning "threatening."

Titanic (tye-TAN-ik)

: having great magnitude, force, or power : colossal Before becoming the name of the most famous ship in history, titanic referred to the Titans, a family of giants in Greek mythology who were believed to have once ruled the earth. They were subsequently overpowered and replaced by the younger Olympian gods under the leadership of Zeus. The size and power of the Titans is memorialized in the adjective titanic and in the noun titanium, a chemical element of exceptional strength that is used in the production of steel.

Multifarious (mul-tuh-FAIR-ee-us)

: having or occurring in great variety : diverse Dictionary makers have dated the first appearance of multifarious in print as 1593-and rightly so-but before that time another word similar in form and meaning was being used: multifary, meaning "in many ways" and appearing (and disappearing) in the 15th century. Before either of the English words existed, there was the Medieval Latin word multifarius (same meaning as multifarious), from Latin multifariam, meaning "in many places" or "on many sides." Multi-, as you may know, is a combining form meaning "many." A relative of multifarious in English is omnifarious ("of all varieties, forms, or kinds"), created with omni- ("all") rather than multi-.

Unclubbable (un-KLUB-uh-bul)

: having or showing a disinclination for social activity : unsociable The word unclubbable dates to the late 1770s, a time when lexicographer Samuel Johnson was still riding a wave of fame in the wake of the publication of his 1755 A Dictionary of the English Language. Johnson himself likely coined unclubbable. Earliest evidence of the word in use is from a 1778 entry in author Fanny Burney's diary, in which she quotes Johnson as using the word to describe a friend. Burney herself may have coined the unflattering descriptor's antonym: in a 1781 diary entry, she describes Johnson himself as clubbable—an adjective that has stuck to him ever since. For Johnson, a person's clubbability was likely determined by how well the person might do in a very particular club: "The Club"—later known as "The Literary Club"—established by Johnson and the artist Joshua Reynolds in 1764.

Erudite (AIR-uh-dyte)

: having or showing knowledge that is gained by studying : possessing or displaying extensive knowledge acquired chiefly from books Erudite derives via Middle English erudit from Latin eruditus, the past participle of the verb erudire, meaning "to instruct." A closer look at that verb shows that it is formed by combining the prefix e-, meaning "missing" or "absent," with the adjective rudis, which means "rude" or "ignorant" and is also the source of our word rude. We typically use the word rude to mean "discourteous" or "uncouth," but it can also mean "lacking refinement" or "uncivilized"; someone who is erudite, therefore, has been transformed from a roughened or uninformed state to a polished and knowledgeable one through a devotion to learning.

Omnipotent (ahm-NIP-uh-tunt)

: having virtually unlimited authority or influence The word omnipotent made its way into English through Anglo-French, but it ultimately derives from the Latin prefix omni-, meaning "all," and the word potens, meaning "potent." The omni- prefix has also given us similar words such as omniscient (meaning "all-knowing") and omnivorous (describing an animal that eats both plants and other animals). Although omnipotent is used in general contexts to mean "all-powerful" (as in "an omnipotent warlord"), its original applications in English referred specifically to the power held by an almighty God. The word has been used as an English adjective since the 14th century; since 1600 it has also been used as a noun referring to one who is omnipotent.

Urticaria (er-tuh-KAIR-ee-uh)

: hives Hives can be caused by a number of things. It can be a reaction to a piece of food you ate, a new medication you took, or irritants in the air you're breathing-or to wandering into a patch of nettles. Urticaria, the medical term for hives, points the finger at nettles, at least etymologically: it comes from the Latin word urtica, meaning "nettle." Urtica itself is related to the Latin verb urere, meaning "to burn," a nod to the stinging hairs many species of nettle possess.

Incisive (in-SYE-siv)

: impressively direct and decisive (as in manner or presentation) Incisive has meant "impressively direct and decisive" since around 1834 and derives from the Latin verb caedere, meaning "to cut." Its linguistic kin include many cuttings from the fruitful stem caedere, such as scissors, chisel, incise ("to cut into or engrave"), excise ("to remove by cutting"), incisor ("a front tooth typically adapted for cutting"), incision ("cut" or "gash"), precise ("minutely exact"), and concise ("brief"). In addition to the meaning illustrated above, incisive also carries a couple of lesser-known literal meanings relating to cutting: "having a cutting edge or piercing point" (as in "incisive fangs"), and, in dentistry, "of, relating to, or situated near the incisors."

Indomitable (in-DAH-muh-tuh-bul)

: incapable of being subdued : unconquerable The prefix in- means "not" in numerous English words (think of indecent, indecisive, inconvenient, and infallible). When in- teamed up with the Latin domitare ("to tame"), the result was a word meaning "unable to be tamed." Indomitable was first used in English in the 1600s as a synonym of wild, but over time its sense of untamability turned from a problem to a virtue. By the 1800s, indomitable was being used for people whose courage and persistence helped them to succeed in difficult situations.

Bunkum (BUNG-kum)

: insincere or foolish talk : nonsense Some words in our language have more colorful histories than others, but in the case of bunkum, you could almost say it was an act of Congress that brought the word into being. Back in 1820 Felix Walker, who represented Buncombe County, North Carolina, in the U.S. House of Representatives, was determined that his voice be heard on his constituents' behalf, even though the matter up for debate was irrelevant to Walker's district and he had little to contribute. To the exasperation of his colleagues, Walker insisted on delivering a long and wearisome "speech for Buncombe." His persistent-if insignificant-harangue made buncombe (later respelled bunkum) a synonym for meaningless political claptrap and later for any kind of nonsense.

Anastrophe (uh-NASS-truh-fee)

: inversion of the usual syntactical order of words for rhetorical effect "Powerful you have become Dooku, the dark side I sense in you." Fans of Star Wars will recognize Yoda's line in Attack of the Clones. Others might guess that Yoda is the speaker because of the unconventional syntax that is the hallmark of Yoda's speech. (In typical Yoda fashion, the subject is second instead of first in both clauses-it follows a predicate adjective and the direct object, respectively.) The name for this kind of syntactical inversion is anastrophe, from the Greek verb anastrephein, meaning "to turn back." President John F. Kennedy employed anastrophe for rhetorical effect when he inverted the typical positive-to-negative parallelism in his famous line "Ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country." In poetry, anastrophe is often used to create rhythm, as in these lines from Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky": "So rested he by the Tumtum tree, / And stood awhile in thought."

Hoosegow (HOOSS-gow)

: jail In Spanish, juzgado means "panel of judges, courtroom." The word is based on the Spanish past participle of juzgar, meaning "to judge," which itself was influenced by Latin judicare-a combination of jus, "right, law," and dicere, "to decide, say." When English speakers of the American West borrowed juzgado in the early 1900s, they recorded it the way they heard it: hoosegow. They also associated the word specifically with the jail that was usually in the same building as a courthouse. Today, hoosegow has become slang for any place of confinement for lawbreakers.

Acumen (uh-KYOO-mun)

: keenness and depth of perception, discernment, or discrimination especially in practical matters A keen mind and a sharp wit can pierce the soul as easily as a needle passes through cloth. Remember the analogy between a jabbing needle and piercing perception, and you will readily recall the history of acumen. Our English word retains the spelling and figurative meaning of its direct Latin ancestor, a term that literally meant "point." Latin acumen traces to the verb acuere, which means "to sharpen" and derives from acus, the Latin word for "needle." In its first known English uses in the 1500s, acumen referred specifically to a sharpness of wit. In modern English, it conveys the sense that someone is perceptive enough to grasp a situation quickly and clever enough to use it.

Disingenuous (dis-in-JEN-yuh-wuss)

: lacking in candor; also : giving a false appearance of simple frankness : calculating Today's word has its roots in the slave-holding society of ancient Rome. Its ancestor ingenuus is a Latin adjective meaning "native" or "freeborn" (itself from gignere, meaning "to beget"). Ingenuus begot the English adjective ingenuous. That adjective originally meant "freeborn" (as in "ingenuous Roman subjects") or "noble and honorable," but it eventually came to mean "showing childlike innocence" or "lacking guile." In the mid-17th century, English speakers combined the negative prefix dis- with ingenuous to create disingenuous, meaning "guileful" or "deceitful."

Lucullan (loo-KULL-un)

: lavish, luxurious Lucullan echoes the name of Roman general Lucius Licinius Lucullus. The general had a distinguished military career (including the defeat of Mithradates VI Eupator, king of Pontus, at Cabira in 72 B.C.E.), but he is best remembered for the splendor of his opulent retirement. Lucullus established a reputation for magnificent banquets, at which he wined and dined the leading poets, artists, and philosophers of his time. His feasts were sufficiently extravagant to establish a lasting place for his name (in adjective form) as a synonym of lavish in the English lexicon.

Meticulous (muh-TIK-yuh-lus)

: marked by extreme or excessive care in the consideration or treatment of details It may surprise you to learn that meticulous is derived from the Latin word for "fearful"-meticulosus-and ultimately comes from the Latin noun metus, meaning "fear." Although meticulous currently has no "fearful" meanings, it was originally used as a synonym of frightened and timid. This sense had fallen into disuse by 1700, and in the 19th century meticulous acquired a new sense of "overly and timidly careful" (probably influenced by the French word méticuleux). This in turn led to the current meaning of "painstakingly careful," with no connotations of fear at all. The newest use was controversial among some usage commentators at first, but it has since become by far the most common meaning and is no longer considered an error.

August (aw-GUST)

: marked by majestic dignity or grandeur August comes from the Latin word augustus, meaning "consecrated" or "venerable," which in turn is related to the Latin augur, meaning "consecrated by augury" or "auspicious." In 8 B.C. the Roman Senate honored Augustus Caesar, the first Roman emperor, by changing the name of their month Sextilis to Augustus. Old English speakers inherited the name of the month of August, but it wasn't until the late 1500s that august came to be used generically in English, more or less as augustus was in Latin, to refer to someone with imperial qualities.

Expeditious (ek-spuh-DISH-us)

: marked by or acting with prompt efficiency Like expeditious, all of the following words contain ped. Can you guess which ones get those three letters from the same Latin root as expeditious? encyclopedia, expedition, stampede, torpedo, orthopedic, & impede The Latin source of expeditious is the verb expedire, which means "to extricate," "to prepare," or "to be useful." The ped is from pes, meaning "foot." (The ex- means "out of," and the literal sense of expedire is "to free the feet.") The ped in impede also comes from pes. But the ped in encyclopedia and orthopedic is from the Greek pais, meaning "child"; stampede is from the Spanish estampar, meaning "to stamp"; and torpedo is from the Latin torpēre, meaning "to be sluggish." What about expedition? Meaning both "a journey" and "promptness," it is from expedire and, in turn, pes.

Stalwart (STAWL-wert)

: marked by outstanding strength and vigor of body, mind, or spirit Sometime in the 15th century, English speakers began to use stalwart in place of the older form stalworth. Although stalworth is now archaic, it laid the groundwork for today's meaning of stalwart. In the 12th century, stalworth began to be used to describe strongly built people or animals (a meaning stalwart took on about two centuries later). It also came to be used as an adjective for people who showed bravery or courage (likewise a meaning passed on to stalwart). So, in a way, stalwart has been serviceable in keeping the spirit of stalworth alive. This character of stalwart is true to its roots. Stalworth came from the Old English word stælwierthe (meaning "serviceable"), which, in turn, is thought to come from terms meaning "foundation" and "worth."

Brobdingnagian (brob-ding-NAG-ee-un)

: marked by tremendous size In Jonathan Swift's novel Gulliver's Travels, Brobdingnag is the name of a land that is populated by a race of human giants "as tall as an ordinary spire steeple." In Gulliver's first close-up encounter with the giants, he is attempting to get past a stile of which every step is six feet high when a group of field-workers approach with strides ten yards long and reaping hooks as large as six scythes. Their voices he at first mistakes for thunder. Swift's book fired the imagination of the public and within two years of the 1726 publication of the story, people had begun using Brobdingnagian to refer to anything of unusually large size. (Swift himself had used Brobdingnagian as a noun to refer to the inhabitants of Brobdingnag.)

Rambunctious (ram-BUNK-shuss)

: marked by uncontrollable exuberance : unruly Rambunctious first appeared in print in 1830, at a time when the fast-growing United States was forging its identity and indulging in a fashion for colorful new coinages suggestive of the young nation's optimism and exuberance. Rip-roaring, scalawag, scrumptious, hornswoggle, and skedaddle are other examples of the lively language of that era. Did Americans alter the largely British rumbustious because it sounded, well, British? That could be. Rumbustious, which first appeared in Britain in the late 1700s just after our signing of the Declaration of Independence, was probably based on robustious, a much older adjective that meant both "robust" and "boisterous."

Clandestine (klan-DES-tun)

: marked by, held in, or conducted with secrecy : surreptitious In 1658, the English poet John Milton wrote of "clandestine Hostility cover'd over with the name of Peace." Over three and a half centuries later we use clandestine in much the same way. The word is often used as a synonym of secret and covert, and it is commonly applied to actions that involve secrecy maintained for an evil, illicit, or unauthorized purpose. It comes to us by way of Middle French from Latin clandestinus, which is itself from clam, meaning "secretly."

Febrile (FEB-ryle)

: marked or caused by fever : feverish Not too surprisingly, febrile originated in the field of medicine. We note its first use in the work of the 17th-century medical reformer Noah Biggs. Biggs used it in admonishing physicians to care for their "febrile patients" properly. Both feverish and febrile are from the Latin word for fever, which is febris. Nowadays, febrile is used in medicine in a variety of ways, including references to such things as "the febrile phase" of an illness. And, like feverish, it also has an extended sense, as in "a febrile emotional state."

Septentrional (sep-TEN-tree-uh-nul)

: northern Look to the northern night skies for the origin of septentrional. Latin Septentriones (or Septemtriones) refers to the seven stars in Ursa Major that make up the Big Dipper, or sometimes to the seven stars in Ursa Minor that comprise the Little Dipper. Because of the reliable northerly presence of these stars, Septentriones was extended to mean "northern quarter of the sky," or simply "the north"-hence, our borrowed adjective septentrional, meaning "northern." The noun septentrion also appears in works in Middle and Early Modern English to designate "northern regions" or "the north." In Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part III, for example, the Duke of York rebukes Queen Margaret, saying: "Thou art as opposite to every good ... as the South to the Septentrion."

Incontrovertible (in-kahn-truh-VER-tuh-bul)

: not open to question : indisputable If something is indisputable, it's incontrovertible. But if it is open to question, is it controvertible? It sure is. The antonyms controvertible and incontrovertible are both derivatives of the verb controvert (meaning "to dispute or oppose by reasoning"), which is itself a spin-off of controversy. And what is the source of all of these controversial terms? The Latin adjective controversus, which literally means "turned against."

Louche (LOOSH)

: not reputable or decent Louche ultimately comes from the Latin word luscus, meaning "blind in one eye" or "having poor sight." This Latin term gave rise to the French louche, meaning "squinting" or "cross-eyed." The French gave their term a figurative sense as well, taking that squinty look to mean "shady" or "devious." English speakers didn't see the need for the sight-impaired uses when they borrowed the term in the 19th century, but they kept the figurative one. The word is still quite visible today and is used to describe both people and things of questionable repute.

Ruly (ROO-lee)

: obedient, orderly You're probably familiar with unruly, meaning "not readily controlled or disciplined." It's a useful word, along with such synonyms as defiant and willful. It has plenty of antonyms too, among them the wholly logical ruly. Haven't heard of ruly till now? We're not surprised. Ruly and unruly are of the same 15th-century vintage, but the former never caught on the way unruly did. The more common unruly is also the older of the pair: ruly was formed by a process called "back-formation" from unruly. Ultimately, both words come from reuly, a Middle English word meaning "disciplined." Reuly in turn comes from Middle English reule, a predecessor of rule.

Bicoastal (bye-KOAST-ul)

: of or relating to or living or working on both the east and west coasts of the United States Bicoastal is a word whose meaning shifted in the 1970s to reflect our mobile society. Prior to that, the term was occasionally used in general contexts involving both coasts (as in "a bicoastal naval defense"). These days bicoastal is almost always associated with people who make frequent trips between one coast and the other. An article with a Los Angeles dateline published in The New York Times in 1983 declared bicoastal to be "a popular term among an affluent, mobile set of Angelenos." But Angelenos weren't the only ones using the term-by that time, the word had already been appearing in national magazines.

Fatidic (fay-TID-ik)

: of or relating to prophecy As you might guess, fatidic is a relative of the word fate. The Latin word for fate is fatum, which literally means "what has been spoken." Fatum, in turn, comes from fari, meaning "to speak." In the eyes of the ancients, your fate was out of your hands-what happened was up to gods and demigods. Predicting your fate was a job for oracles and prophets. Fatidic is fatum combined with dicere, meaning "to say." That makes fatidic a relative of the word predict as well; the -dict of predict also comes from Latin dicere.

Estival (ESS-tuh-vul)

: of or relating to the summer Estival and festival look so much alike that you might think they're very closely related, but that isn't the case. Estival traces back to aestas, which is the Latin word for "summer" (and which also gave us estivate, a verb for spending the summer in a torpid state-a sort of hot-weather equivalent of hibernation). Festival also comes from Latin, but it has a different and unrelated root. It derives from festivus, a term that means "festive" or "merry." Festivus is also the ancestor of festive and festivity as well as the much rarer festivous (which also means "festive") and infestive, meaning "not merry, mirthless."

Favonian (fuh-VOH-nee-un)

: of or relating to the west wind : mild In "Ode to the West Wind," poet Percy Bysshe Shelley called the "wild West Wind" the "breath of Autumn's being." But according to Greco-Roman tradition, the west wind was warm and usually gentle. Its Latin name, Favonius, is the basis for the English adjective favonian and derives from roots that are akin to the Latin fovēre, meaning "to warm." Zephyros, a Greek name for the west wind, is the ultimate source of zephyr, meaning "a gentle breeze." In Greco-Roman tradition, it was the north wind, Boreas (aka Aquilo), who was the rude and blustery type.

Morganatic (mor-guh-NAT-ik)

: of, relating to, or being a marriage between a member of a royal or noble family and a person of inferior rank in which the rank of the inferior partner remains unchanged and the children of the marriage do not succeed to the titles, fiefs, or entailed property of the parent of higher rank Although the deprivations imposed on the lower-ranking spouse by a morganatic marriage may seem like a royal pain in the neck, the word morganatic actually comes from a word for a marriage benefit. The New Latin term morganatica means "morning gift" and refers to a gift that a new husband traditionally gave to his bride on the morning after the marriage. So why was the New Latin phrase matrimonium ad morganaticam, which means literally "marriage with morning gift," the term for a morganatic marriage? Because it was just that-the wife got the morning gift, but that's all she was entitled to of her husband's possessions.

Bipartisan (bye-PAR-ti-zun)

: of, relating to, or involving members of two parties; specifically : marked by or involving cooperation, agreement, and compromise between two major political parties Bipartisan is a two-part word. The first element is the prefix bi-, which means "two"; the second is partisan, a word that traces through Middle French and north Italian dialect to the Latin part- or pars, meaning "part." Partisan itself has a long history as a word in English. It has been used as a noun in reference to a firm adherent to a party, faction, or cause (especially one exhibiting blind, prejudiced, and unreasoning allegiance), since the 16th century. The related adjective (meaning "of, relating to, or characteristic of a partisan") appeared in the 19th century, as did, after a space of some 50 years, the adjective bipartisan.

Thrasonical (thray-SAH-nih-kul)

: of, relating to, resembling, or characteristic of Thraso : bragging, boastful Thraso was a blustering old soldier in the comedy Eunuchus, a play written by the great Roman dramatist Terence more than 2,000 years ago. Terence is generally remembered for his realistic characterizations, and in Thraso he created a swaggerer whose vainglorious boastfulness was not soon to be forgotten. Thraso's reputation as a braggart lives on in thrasonical, a word that boasts a 450-year history as an English adjective.

Bellwether (BEL-WEH-ther)

: one that takes the lead or initiative : leader; also : an indicator of trends We usually think of sheep more as followers than leaders, but in a flock one sheep must lead the way. Long ago, it was common practice for shepherds to hang a bell around the neck of one sheep in their flock, thereby designating it the lead sheep. This animal was called the bellwether, a word formed by a combination of the Middle English words belle (meaning "bell") and wether (a noun that refers to a male sheep that has been castrated). It eventually followed that bellwether would come to refer to someone who takes initiative or who actively establishes a trend that is taken up by others. This usage first appeared in English in the 13th century.

Confidant (KAHN-fuh-dahnt)

: one to whom secrets are entrusted; especially : an intimate friend If you're confident of the trustworthiness of your confidants, you're inadvertently aware of the origins of the word confidant. It comes from the French noun confident, which goes back to the Italian adjective confidente, meaning "confident" or "trustworthy" and to the Latin verb confidere, meaning "to confide"—the root of which is fidere, meaning "to trust." Other descendants of confidere in English include confide, confidence,and confident, as well as confidential (which was formed from confidence).

Quisling (KWIZ-ling)

: one who commits treason : traitor, collaborator Vidkun Quisling was a Norwegian army officer who in 1933 founded Norway's fascist party. In December 1939, he met with Adolf Hitler and urged him to occupy Norway. Following the German invasion of April 1940, Quisling served as a figurehead in the puppet government set up by the German occupation forces, and his linguistic fate was sealed. Before the end of 1940, quisling was being used generically in English to refer to any traitor. Winston Churchill, George Orwell, and H. G. Wells used it in their wartime writings. Quisling lived to see his name thus immortalized, but not much longer. He was executed for treason soon after the liberation of Norway in 1945.

Phreaker (FREE-ker)

: one who gains illegal access to the telephone system Phreakers are people who specialize in attacks on the telephone system. The word, which became popular in the mid-1980s, is probably a combination of the words phone and freak. (Phreakers are also known as "phreaks" or "phone phreaks.") In the early days, phreakers whistled or used an instrument to mimic the tones the phone system then used to route calls and identify payment, especially as a way to avoid paying for an expensive call. Modern phreaking involves breaking into and manipulating the phone company's computer system, making it a specialized kind of hacking.

Askew (uh-SKYOO)

: out of line : awry It's believed that askew was formed simply by attaching the prefix a- (meaning, among other things, "in (such) a state or condition") to skew. The word skew, which derives via Middle English from Anglo-French eschiver, meaning "to escape or avoid," can be a verb, adjective, or noun. But at the time of the first appearance of askew in English, in the middle of the 16th century, skew had only been established as a verb meaning "to take an oblique course or direction." At least one etymologist has suggested that askew might have been influenced by an Old Norse phrase, and that the same phrase might have also given us askance. In the past, askew was used synonymously with askance, as in "She looked at me askew after my ill-timed joke."

Zydeco (ZYE-duh-koh)

: popular music of southern Louisiana that combines tunes of French origin with elements of Caribbean music and the blues You might say that the lively form of music known as zydeco is full of beans, etymologically speaking. Legend has it that the word zydeco originated in the lyrics of Les Haricots Sont Pas Salés, a popular Cajun dance tune. Loosely translated, the song's title means "the beans are not salty," and when spoken in French Creole, les haricots (French for "beans") sounds something like zydeco. Zydeco first appeared in print in 1949 and has been used to describe this kind of music ever since.

Vox populi (VOKS-POP-yoo-lye)

: popular sentiment Vox populi is a Latin phrase that literally translates as "the voice of the people." It can be found in the longer maxim, Vox populi, vox Dei, which means "The voice of the people is the voice of God." Many people think that expression means that the people are always right, but it really implies that the will of the masses-right or wrong-is often irresistible. Since the mid-1960s, English speakers, especially British ones, have trimmed vox populi down to the abbreviated form vox pop, an expression used particularly for popular opinion as it is used and expressed by the media.

Lucrative (LOO-kruh-tiv)

: producing wealth : profitable Paying, gainful, remunerative, and lucrative share the meaning of bringing in a return of money, but each term casts a different light on how much green you take in. Paying is the word for jobs that yield the smallest potatoes-your first paying job probably provided satisfactory compensation, but you weren't going to get rich by it. Gainful employment might offer a bit more cash, and gainful certainly suggests that an individual is motivated by a desire for gain. Remunerative implies that a job provides more than the usual rewards, but a lucrative position is the one you want-those are the kind that go well beyond your initial hopes or expectations.

Neoteric (nee-uh-TAIR-ik)

: recent in origin : modern The word neoteric is not itself neoteric; it's been part of English since at least 1577, and its roots go back even further-to ancient Greek. We adapted the word from Late Latin neotericus, which also means "recent." Neotericus in turn comes from Late Greek neōterikos and ultimately from Greek neos, meaning "new" or "young." As old as its roots are, however, neoteric itself entered English later than its synonyms novel (which appeared in the 15th century) and newfangled (which was being used to describe things of the newest style or kind almost 50 years prior).

Riparian (ruh-PAIR-ee-un)

: relating to or living or located on the bank of a natural watercourse (such as a river) or sometimes of a lake or a tidewater Riparian came to English from the same source that gave us river-the Latin riparius, a noun deriving from ripa, meaning "bank" or "shore." First appearing in English in the 19th century, riparian refers to things that exist alongside a river (such as riparian wetlands, habitats, trees, etc.). Some river communities have laws called "riparian rights," referring to the rights of those owning land along a river to have access to the waterway. Note the distinction of this word from littoral, which usually refers to things that occur along the shore of a sea or ocean.

Rebarbative (rih-BAR-buh-tiv)

: repellent, irritating You may be surprised to learn that today's word traces back to the Latin word for beard-barba-making it a very distant relative of the English word beard. But there is some sense to the connection. After all, beards may not be repellent, but they can be prickly and scratchy. Another descendant of Latin barba is the English word barb, which can refer to a sharp projection (as found on barbed wire) or a biting critical remark, both of which can discourage others from getting too close. An interesting side note: barber too traces back to barba-but by way of an Anglo-French word for beard.

Dauntless (DAWNT-lus)

: resolute especially in the face of danger or difficulty : fearless, undaunted The history of the world is peopled with dauntless men and women who refused to be subdued or "tamed" by fear. The word dauntless can be traced back to Latin domare, meaning "to tame" or "to subdue." When our verb daunt (a domare descendant borrowed by way of Anglo-French) was first used in the 14th century, it shared these meanings. The now-obsolete "tame" sense referred to the taming or breaking of wild animals, particularly horses: an undaunted horse was an unbroken horse. Not until the late 16th century did we use undaunted with the meaning "undiscouraged and courageously resolute" to describe people. By then, such lionhearted souls could also be described as undauntable, and finally, in Henry VI, Part 3, Shakespeare gave us dauntless.

Deference (DEF-uh-runss)

: respect and esteem due a superior or an elder; also : affected or ingratiating regard for another's wishes The words deference and defer both derive from the Latin deferre, which means "to bring down" or "to carry away." At the same time you might also hear that defer traces to the Latin differre, which means "to postpone" or "to differ." Which root is right? Both. That's because English has two verbs, or homographs, spelled defer. One means "to submit or delegate to another" (as in "I defer to your greater expertise"). That's the one that is closely related to deference and that comes from deferre. The other means "to put off or delay" (as in "we decided to defer the decision until next month"); that second defer derives from differre.

Manqué (mahng-KAY - the "ng" is not pronounced, but the preceding vowel is)

: short of or frustrated in the fulfillment of one's aspirations or talents -- used postpositively The etymology of manqué is likely to vex left-handers. English speakers picked up manqué directly from French more than two centuries ago, and it ultimately comes from Latin manco, meaning "having a crippled hand." But in between the Latin and French portions of this word's history came the Italian word manco, which means both "lacking" and "left-handed." Lefties may be further displeased to learn that manqué isn't the only English word with a history that links left-handedness with something undesirable. For example, the word awkward comes from awke, a Middle English word meaning both "turned the wrong way" and "left-handed." And the noun gawk ("a clumsy stupid person") probably comes from a gawk that means "left-handed" in English dialect.

Fictioneer (fik-shuh-NEER)

: someone who writes fiction especially in quantity and without high standards In Latin, the verb fingere means "to shape, fashion, or feign." Fictioneers surely do shape stories and feign the truth, so you could say that the noun fictioneer is etymologically true to its ancestor. The word fiction had been around for more than 500 years by the time fictioneer appeared in English in 1923, bearing a suffix that harks back to such words as engineer and pamphleteer. The word is used generally to refer to any writer of fiction but often specifically to one who writes with little concern for literary quality. Fictioneer and fiction aren't the only English feigners and shapers born of fingere. The words effigy, feign, and figment are among others that trace back to that Latin verb.

Ilk (ILK)

: sort, kind The Old English pronoun ilca is the predecessor of the modern noun ilk, but by way of a pronoun ilk that does not exist in most dialects of modern English. That ilk is synonymous with same, and persists in Scots where it's used in the phrase "of that ilk," meaning "of the same place, territorial designation, or name." It is used chiefly in reference to the names of land-owning families and their eponymous estates, as in "the Guthries of that ilk," which means "the Guthries of Guthrie." Centuries ago a misunderstanding arose concerning the Scots phrase: it was interpreted as meaning "of that kind or sort," a usage that found its way into modern English. Ilk has been established in English with its current meaning and part of speech since the late 18th century.

Technobabble (TEK-nuh-bab-ul)

: technical jargon Technobabble was formed by combining techno- (meaning "technical or technological") with babble ("continuous meaningless vocal sounds"), and unsurprisingly suggests language which sounds highly technical and is incomprehensible to the listener. Techno- as a combining form has given English speakers a number of interesting words, including but not limited to technocrat, technophile and technophobia, techno-thriller, technopreneur, and even technostructure ("the network of professionally skilled scientists, engineers, and administrators that tends to control the economy"). Techno- itself traces back to the same root word that gave us technology, namely the Greek word technē, meaning "art, craft, or practical skill."

Exculpatory (ek-SKUL-puh-tor-ee)

: tending or serving to clear from alleged fault or guilt Exculpatory is the adjectival form of the verb exculpate, meaning "to clear from guilt." The pair of words cannot be accused of being secretive-their joint etymology reveals all: they are tied to the Latin verb exculpatus, a word that combines the prefix ex-, meaning "out of" or "away from," with the Latin noun culpa, meaning "blame." The related but lesser-known terms inculpate and inculpatory are antonyms of exculpate and exculpatory. Inculpate means "to incriminate" and inculpatory means "incriminating." A related noun, culpable, means "meriting condemnation or blame for doing something wrong."

Tantara (tan-TAIR-uh)

: the blare of a trumpet or horn Tantara is a shortening of the Latin taratantara, an onomatopoetic word that in ancient times evoked the terrible sound of the war-trumpet. When tantara entered English in the 16th century, the sound it evoked was a merry one. "Tantara, tantara, the trumpets sound, / Which makes our hearte with joy abound," wrote Humphrey Gifford in 1580. Today, tantara is sometimes used as a synonym of fanfare, a word for a short, lively sound of trumpets that may also be onomatopoetic in origin.

Thanatology (than-uh-TAH-luh-jee)

: the description or study of the phenomena of death and of psychological mechanisms for coping with them In Greek mythology, Thanatos was the personification of death and the twin brother of Hypnos (Sleep). The ancient Greeks eventually came to use thanatos as a generic word for "death." Thanatology is a direct linguistic heir of the Greek term and was first documented in English in the mid-1800s. As a science, thanatology examines attitudes toward death, the meaning and behaviors of bereavement and grief, and other matters. In 1935, the word thanatos itself made its debut in English, ushered in with psychoanalytic theory to describe an unconscious tendency toward self-destruction.

Googol (GOO-goll)

: the figure 1 followed by 100 zeros equal to 10100 Around 1930, American mathematician Edward Kasner found himself working with numbers as large as 10 to the 100th power—that's a one followed by 100 zeroes. While it is possible to write that number using standard scientific notation, Dr. Kasner felt that it deserved a name of its own. According to his own account, Dr. Kasner asked his nine-year-old nephew, Milton Sirotta, to pick a name, promising the boy that he would use the word in the future. Milton made up the word googol, and so the enormous number was christened. Dr. Kasner kept his promise, and the word has spread and been widely adopted by mathematicians and the general public alike.

Warp speed (WORP-SPEED)

: the highest possible speed Warp speed is an example of a phrase that entered the public consciousness through science fiction and eventually gained enough popularity to end up in the dictionary. The expression was popularized on the science-fiction show Star Trek in the 1960s. On the show, warp speed referred to a specific concept, namely the idea of faster-than-light travel. Within a relatively short period of time, Star Trek gained a devoted and intense following. Fans were soon discussing the fictional concepts of the show, including warp speed, with great enthusiasm. Eventually, the term warp speed was adopted by the general population. In the process, however, it lost its specific fictional meaning and came to mean simply "the highest possible speed."

Syzygy (SIZ-uh-jee)

: the nearly straight-line configuration of three celestial bodies (such as the sun, moon, and earth during a solar or lunar eclipse) in a gravitational system At first glance, syzygy appears to be a somewhat singular member of the English language. Despite its appearance, however, it does have etymological ties to a few words in Modern English. Syzygy can be traced to the Greek syzygos ("yoked together"), a combination of syn- ("with, together with") and zygon ("yoke"). Zygon is also the source of zygote ("a cell formed by the union of two gametes") and zygoma, which refers to several bones and processes of the skull, including the zygomatic bone (a.k.a., the cheekbone). Zygon is also related to the Old English geoc—the source of the Modern English yoke—and the Latin jungere, from which the English words join and junction are derived.

Noblesse oblige (noh-BLESS-uh-BLEEZH)

: the obligation of honorable, generous, and responsible behavior associated with high rank or birth In French, noblesse oblige means literally "nobility obligates." French speakers transformed the phrase into a noun, which English speakers picked up in the 19th century. Then, as now, noblesse oblige referred to the unwritten obligation of people from a noble ancestry to act honorably and generously to others. Later, by extension, it also came to refer to the obligation of anyone who is in a better position than others-due, for example, to high office or celebrity-to act respectably and responsibly toward others.

Euphemism (YOO-fuh-miz-um)

: the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant; also : the expression so substituted Euphemism derives from the Greek euphemos, which means "auspicious, sounding good." The first part of that root is the Greek prefix eu-, meaning "good." The second part is phēmē, a Greek word for "speech" that is itself a derivative of the verb phanai, meaning "to speak." Among the numerous linguistic cousins of euphemism on the eu- side of the family are eulogy, euphoria, and euthanasia; on the phanai side, its kin include prophet and aphasia (loss of the power to understand words).

Octothorpe (AHK-tuh-thorp)

: the symbol # A versatile symbol with many names (among them hash mark, number sign, and pound sign), the octothorpe has become popularized as the go-to symbol for marking trending topics on Twitter and other social media. It is believed to have been adopted by the telecommunications industry with the advent of touch-tone dialing in the 1960s. Stories abound about how the odd symbol got its name. The octo- part almost certainly refers to the eight points on the symbol, but the -thorpe remains a mystery. One story links it to a telephone company employee who happened to burp while talking about the symbol with co-workers. Another relates it to the athlete Jim Thorpe and the campaign to restore posthumously his Olympic medals, which were taken away after it was discovered that he played baseball professionally previous to the 1912 Games. A third claims it derives from an Old English word for "village."

Henotheism (HEN-uh-thee-iz-um)

: the worship of one god without denying the existence of other gods Henotheism comes to us from the German word Henotheismus, which in turn is derived from Greek hen- ("one") and theos ("god"). Someone who engages in henotheism worships one god but does not deny that there are others. Max Müller, a respected 19th-century scholar, is credited with promoting the word henotheism as a counterpart to polytheism ("belief in or worship of more than one god") and monotheism ("the doctrine or belief that there is but one God"). Müller also used the related word kathenotheism, from Greek kath' hena ("one at a time"), for the worship of several gods successively.

Dyed-in-the-wool (dyde-in-thuh-WOOL)

: thoroughgoing, uncompromising Early yarn makers would dye wool before spinning it into yarn to make the fibers retain their color longer. In 16th-century England, that make-it-last coloring practice provoked writers to draw a comparison between the dyeing of wool and the way children could, if taught early, be influenced in ways that would adhere throughout their lives. In the 19th-century U.S., the wool-dyeing practice put eloquent Federalist orator Daniel Webster in mind of a certain type of Democrat whose attitudes were as unyielding as the dye in unspun wool. Of course, Democrats were soon using the term against their opponents, too, but over time the partisanship of the expression faded and it is now a general term for anyone or anything that seems unlikely or unwilling to change.

Trepid (TREP-id)

: timorous, fearful The most frightening thing about trepid is how similar it is to tepid. Commit the distinction to memory—trepid has the r, like its synonyms timorous and fearful, and tepid means "lukewarm," literally and figuratively—and then do not be trepid in using either. You may also want to use some words related to trepid by way of its Latin ancestor trepidus, which means "alarmed" or "agitated": trepidate means "to tremble with fear" and trepidant means "timid" or "trembling." More common than any of these, though, is the antonym of trepid, intrepid. This word is 30 years younger than the 365-year-old trepid, and is the least likely to intimidate your listener.`

Purloin (per-LOYN)

: to appropriate wrongfully and often by a breach of trust Purloin, pilfer, and filch may just seem like fancy words for "steal," but each has a slightly different connotation. Pilfer implies stealing repeatedly in small amounts, as in this sentence: "It was months before her boss realized she was pilfering office supplies." Filch adds a suggestion of snatching quickly and surreptitiously, e.g., "He filched an apple from the tray." Purloin stresses removing or carrying off something for one's own use or purposes, as in "She purloined the manuscript and tried to pass it off as her own work."

Fulminate (FULL-muh-nayt)

: to complain loudly or angrily : to send forth censures or invectives Lightning strikes more than once in the history of fulminate. That word comes from the Latin fulminare, meaning "to strike," a verb usually used to refer to lightning strikes—not surprising since it sprang from fulmen, Latin for "lightning." When fulminate was adopted into English in the 15th century, it lost much of its ancestral thunder and was used largely as a technical term for the issuing of formal denunciations by ecclesiastical authorities. But its original lightning spark remains in its suggestion of tirades so vigorous that, as one 18th-century bishop put it, they seem to be delivered "with the air of one who [has] divine Vengeance at his disposal."

Prevaricate (prih-VAIR-uh-kayt)

: to deviate from the truth : equivocate Prevaricate and its synonyms lie and equivocate all refer to playing fast and loose with the truth. Lie is the bluntest of the three. When you accuse someone of lying, you are saying he or she was intentionally dishonest, no bones about it. Prevaricate is less accusatory and softens the bluntness of lie, usually implying that someone is evading the truth rather than purposely making false statements. Equivocate is similar to prevaricate, but it generally implies that someone is deliberately using words that have more than one meaning as a way to conceal the truth.

Underwhelm (un-der-WELM)

: to fail to impress or stimulate Overwhelm and its rare synonym whelm have both been around since the 14th century, but underwhelm first appeared in print in 1948. Both overwhelm and whelm are derived from the Middle English whelmen, which is perhaps an alteration of whelven ("to turn over" or "to cover up"). And underwhelm is a playful overturning of overwhelm well suited for describing the unimpressive. More than one person claims the distinction of having invented underwhelm; several sources attribute it to the playwright George S. Kaufman, but sports columnist Red Smith is quoted as believing he coined the word himself, and still other sources cite other potential creators. Chances are that the word was in fact coined by more than one inventive writer.

Rue (ROO)

: to feel regret, remorse, or penitence for If you remember your high school French, or if you've ever strolled down the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, you may have the notion that the English word rue is somehow connected to the French word for "street." In actuality, the French and English words are not related at all. The English rue is originally from the Old English word hrēow, meaning "sorrow." Used as both a noun (meaning "regret, sorrow") and, more frequently, a verb, rue is very old, dating back to before the 12th century.

Adulate (AJ-uh-layt)

: to flatter or admire excessively or slavishly Man's best friend is often thought of in admiring terms as faithful and true, but there are also people who more clearly perceive the fawning and cringing aspect of doggishness. When the Romans used the Latin verb adulari to mean "to fawn on," they equated it with the behavior of a dog toward its master. The actual root of the word may even be connected to an earlier Indo-European word for "tail" (which, of course, brings tail wagging to mind). In English, we first used the noun adulation, meaning "exhibition of excessive fondness" (similar in meaning but not etymologically related to adoration), then the adjective adulatory (an adulatory speech, for example, is an excessively flattering one), before we came up with the verb in the 18th century.

Emigrate (EM-uh-grayt)

: to leave one's place of residence or country to live elsewhere Migrate, emigrate, and immigrate are all about being on the move. All those terms come from the Latin word migrare, which means "to move from one place to another." Emigrate and immigrate sound alike, and it is true that both involve leaving one location and entering another. The subtle difference between them lies in point of view: emigrate stresses leaving the original place, while immigrate focuses on entering the new one. You won't have trouble keeping them straight if you remember that the prefix e- means "away," as in eject, and the prefix im- or in- means "into," as in inject.

Lampoon (lam-POON)

: to make the subject of a satire : ridicule Lampoon can be a noun or a verb. The noun lampoon (meaning "satire" or, specifically, "a harsh satire usually directed against an individual") was first used in English in 1645. The verb followed about a decade later. The words come from the French lampon, which probably originated from lampons, the first person plural imperative of lamper ("to guzzle"). Lampons! (meaning "Let us guzzle!") is a frequent refrain in 17th-century French satirical poems.

Advocate (AD-vuh-kayt)

: to plead in favor of Benjamin Franklin may have been a great innovator in science and politics, but on the subject of advocate, he was against change. In 1789, he wrote a letter to his compatriot Noah Webster complaining about a "new word": the verb advocate. Like others of his day, Franklin knew advocate primarily as a noun meaning "one who pleads the cause of another," and he urged Webster to condemn the verb's use. In truth, the verb wasn't as new as Franklin assumed (etymologists have traced it back to 1599), though it was apparently surging in popularity in his day. Webster evidently did not heed Franklin's plea. His famous 1828 dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language, entered both the noun and the verb senses of advocate.

Interpellate (in-ter-PELL-ayt)

: to question (someone, such as a foreign minister) formally concerning an official action or policy or personal conduct Interpellate is a word you might encounter in the international news section of a newspaper or magazine. It refers to a form of political challenging used in the congress or parliament of many nations throughout the world, in some cases provided for in the country's constitution. Formal interpellation isn't practiced in the U.S. Congress, but in places where it is practiced, it can be the first step in ousting an appointed official or bringing to task an elected one. The word was borrowed from the Latin term interpellatus, past participle of interpellare, which means "to interrupt or disturb a person speaking." The "interrupt" sense, once used in English, is now obsolete, and interpellate should not be confused with interpolate, which means "to insert words into a text or conversation."

Cavil (KAV-il)

: to raise trivial and frivolous objection "You must be joking!" That's just one of the things you might be tempted to exclaim if you found yourself quarreling with a caviler—and you'd be right, etymologically speaking at least. Cavil derives from the Latin verb cavillari, meaning "to jest" or "to raise silly objections," which in turn derives from the Latin noun cavilla, meaning "raillery." In case you're wondering, cavil is not related to the adjective cavalier ("marked by or given to offhand and often disdainful dismissal of important matters"). Cavalier, which is also a noun for a gentleman trained in arms and horsemanship, traces back via Middle French to the Late Latin caballarius, meaning "horseman."

Abstain (ub-STAYN)

: to refrain deliberately and often with an effort of self-denial from an action or practice If you abstain, you're consciously and usually with effort choosing to "hold back" from doing something that you would like to do. One may abstain from a vice, for example, or in parliamentary procedure, one might abstain from placing a vote. So it's no surprise that abstain traces back through Middle English and Anglo-French to the Latin abstinēre, which combines the prefix ab- ("from, away, off") with tenēre, a Latin verb meaning "to hold." Tenēre has many offspring in English-other descendants include contain, detain, maintain, obtain, pertain, retain, and sustain, as well as some words that don't end in -tain, such as tenacious. Abstain, like many of its cousins, has been used by English speakers since at least the 14th century.

Extradite (EK-struh-dyte)

: to send (one who has been accused of a crime) to another state or country for trial Some countries have a tradition of extradition—a fact which might concern criminals. Likely of significantly less concern to most criminals is the fact that extradition and tradition are related; both come from the Latin verb tradere, which means "to hand over." (Think of a tradition as something handed over from one generation to the next.) Some other words that have been handed down from tradere include betray, traitor, and treason.

Flimflam (FLIM-flam)

: to subject to a deception or fraud English is full of words concerned with trickery and deception, ranging from the colorful flimflam, bamboozle, and hornswoggle to the more mundane deceive, mislead, and delude. Flimflam first entered English as a noun meaning "deceptive nonsense" in the 16th century. A sense meaning "deception" or "fraud" soon developed. The verb use didn't show up until well into the next century. In addition to general deceiving or tricking, the verb flimflam is often used specifically to refer to swindling someone out of money. The ultimate origin of flimflam is uncertain, but the word is probably of Scandinavian origin and may be related to the Old Norse flim, meaning "mockery."

Ingurgitate (in-GUR-juh-tayt)

: to swallow greedily or in large quantities : guzzle Most people are familiar with regurgitate as a fancy synonym for "throw up," but far fewer know of its rarer antonym ingurgitate. It's a word more likely to turn up in a spelling bee than in a conversation, but it does see occasional use, both literal (as in "ingurgitating red wine") and figurative (as in "ingurgitating artwork"). Regurgitate and ingurgitate (as well as gurgitate, an even rarer synonym of ingurgitate, and gorge, meaning "to eat greedily") can be ultimately traced back to the Latin word for "whirlpool," which is gurges.

Inculcate (in-KUL-kayt)

: to teach and impress by frequent repetitions or admonitions Inculcate derives from the past participle of the Latin verb inculcare, meaning "to tread on." In Latin, inculcare possesses both literal and figurative meanings, referring to either the act of walking over something or to that of impressing something upon the mind, often by way of steady repetition. It is the figurative sense that survives with inculcate, which was first used in English in the 16th century. Inculcare was formed in Latin by combining the prefix in- with calcare, meaning "to trample," and ultimately derives from the noun calx, meaning "heel." In normal usage inculcate is typically followed by the prepositions in or into, with the object of the preposition being the person or thing receiving the instruction.

Distemper (dis-TEM-pe)

: to throw out of order If you temper something, you soften or dilute it by mixing in something else. You might, for example, temper wine with water or temper judgment with mercy. But what if you add the wrong thing and just end up with a big mess? That's the general idea behind distemper, which came to English in the 14th century from Late Latin distemperare ("to mix badly"). Nowadays, we often use the participial form distempered to refer to a mood that is affected by negative feelings. There's also the noun distemper, which can mean "bad humor or temper" or "a serious virus disease of dogs." Another noun and verb pair of distemper entered English centuries after our featured word. The noun refers to a painting process in which pigments are mixed with glutinous substances, like egg yolks or whites. The related verb means "to paint in or with distemper."

Savvy (SAV-ee)

: to understand You may be familiar with the noun savvy, meaning "practical know-how" (as in "her political savvy"), and the adjective use (as in "a savvy investor"). And if you've seen any of the blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean movies, you also know that the verb is used as an informal, one-word question meaning "Do you understand?" (as in "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. Savvy?"). But Jack Sparrow (i.e., Johnny Depp) didn't invent the term. Both the noun and the verb came into use around 1785. Savvy is based on the Portuguese term sabe, meaning "he knows," which itself is from Latin sapere, meaning "to be wise." Creole speakers interpreted the Portuguese term as sabi and began using it as one would "know." Eventually, the Creole sabi evolved into today's word.

Skulduggery (skull-DUG-uh-ree)

: underhanded or unscrupulous behavior; also : a devious device or trick Skulduggery, which can also be spelled skullduggery, was first documented in the mid-19th century with the spelling scull-duggery. Etymologists aren't sure exactly how the word arrived in English, but despite the macabre imagery conjured by the word's parts, they do not believe it had anything to do with skulls. It is possibly derived from the now-very-rare sculduddery, a term once used to refer to gross or lewd conduct, but unfortunately the origins of that word are also unknown.

Umpteen (UMP-teen)

: very many : indefinitely numerous "I'll go to bed and I'll not get up for umpty-eleven months." You know the feeling. The speaker here is war-weary Bill, a character in Patrick MacGill's early 20th-century novel The Great Push. His umpty originated as military slang around 1905 and stood for an indefinite number, generally largish. (It was probably created by analogy to actual numbers such as twenty.) Soon, there followed umpteen, blending umpty and -teen. Umpteen usually describes an indefinite and large number or amount, while the related umpteenth is used for the latest or last in an indefinitely numerous series. We only occasionally use umpty these days (and even more rarely umptieth), but you're bound to hear or read umpteen and umpteenth any number of times.

Jenuesse dorée (zheuh-ness-dor-RAY)

: young people of wealth and fashion French revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre and his allies, the Jacobins, gained many enemies for their role in the Reign of Terror. One of their fiercest opponents was Louis Freron, a former Jacobin who played a key role in overthrowing their government. On July 27, 1794, counter-revolutionaries toppled the Jacobin regime and had Robespierre arrested and executed. In the midst of the chaos that followed, Louis Freron organized gangs of fashionably dressed young toughs to terrorize the remaining Jacobins. French speakers called those stylish young thugs the jeunesse dorée-literally, the "gilded youth." By the time the term jeunesse dorée was adopted into English in the 1830s, it had lost its association with violent street gangs and simply referred to any wealthy young socialites.

Ampersand (am-per-sand)

a character & that is used for the word and Despite appearances, the history of ampersand owes nothing to amp or sand. The familiar character & derives from a symbol that was used in place of the Latin word et, which also means "and." In the late Middle Ages, single letters used as words-words like I-were, when spelled, incorporated into a phrase that clarified that they were in fact individual words. For I the phrase was I per se, I, which in Latin means "I by itself (is the word) I." In early lists of the alphabet, Z was followed by the symbol &, which was rendered & per se, and, meaning "& by itself (is the word) and." Over the years, that phrase (which when spoken aloud was pronounced "and per se and") was shortened by English speakers to ampersand.