Vocabulary and Analytical Reasoning V

Beltane (BEL-tayn)

: the Celtic May Day festival To the ancient Celts, May Day was a critical time when the boundaries between the human and supernatural worlds were removed and people needed to take special measures to protect themselves against enchantments. The Beltane fire festival originated in a spring ritual in which cattle were herded between two huge bonfires to protect them from evil and disease. The earliest known mention of Beltane (formerly spelled beltene, belltaine, and beltine) is in an Old Irish dictionary commonly attributed to Cormac, a king and bishop who lived in Cashel, Ireland, toward the end of the first millennium. The Beltane spelling entered English in the 15th century by way of Scottish Gaelic.

Thaumaturgy (THAW-muh-ter-jee)

: the performance of miracles; specifically : magic The magic of thaumaturgy is miraculous. The word, from a Greek word meaning "miracle working," is applicable to any performance of miracles, especially by incantation. It can also be used of things that merely seem miraculous and unexplainable, like the thaumaturgy of a motion picture's illusions (aka "movie magic"), or the thaumaturgy at work in an athletic team's "miracle" comeback. In addition to thaumaturgy, we also have thaumaturge and thaumaturgist, both of which mean "a performer of miracles" or "a magician," and the adjective thaumaturgic, meaning "performing miracles" or "of, relating to, or dependent on thaumaturgy."

Reminisce (rem-uh-NISS)

: to indulge in the process or practice of thinking or telling about past experiences Reminisce and its relative reminiscence come from the mind—that is to say, they come from the Latin word for "mind," which is mens. A root related to mens teamed up with the prefix re- to create the Latin verb reminisci ("to remember"), an ancestor of both words. Reminisce is one of several English verbs starting with re- that mean "to bring an image or idea from the past into the mind." Others in this group include remember, recall, remind, and recollect. Reminisce distinguishes itself from the others by implying a casual recalling of experiences long past, often with a sense of nostalgia.

Jovial (JOH-vee-ul)

1 : (capitalized Jovial) of or relating to Jove 2 : markedly good-humored especially as evidenced by jollity and conviviality Jupiter, also called Jove, was the chief Roman god and was considered a majestic, authoritative type—just the kind of god to name a massive planet like Jupiter for. Our word jovial comes by way of Middle French from the Late Latin adjective jovialis, meaning "of or relating to Jove." When English speakers first picked up jovial in the late 16th century, it was a term of astrology used to describe those born under the influence of Jupiter, which, as a natal planet, was believed to impart joy and happiness. They soon began applying jovial to folks who shared the good-natured character of Jupiter, regardless of their birth date.

Exodus (EK-suh-dus)

1 : (capitalized) the mainly narrative second book of canonical Jewish and Christian Scripture 2 : a mass departure : emigration The Biblical book of Exodus describes the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, so it's no surprise that the word has come to refer more generally to any mass departure. The word itself was adopted into English (via Latin) from Greek Exodos, which literally means "the road out." The Greek word was formed by combining the prefix ex- and hodos, meaning "road" or "way." Other descendants of the prolific hodos in English include episode, method, odometer, and period. There are also several scientific words that can be traced back to hodos. Anode and cathode can refer, respectively, to the positive and negative electrodes of a diode, and hodoscope refers to an instrument for tracing the paths of ionizing particles.

Juggernaut (JUG-er-nawt)

1 : (chiefly British) a large heavy truck2 : a massive inexorable force, campaign, movement, or object that crushes whatever is in its path In the early 14th century, Franciscan missionary Friar Odoric brought to Europe the story of an enormous carriage that carried an image of the Hindu god Vishnu (whose title was Jagannath, literally, "lord of the world") through the streets of India in religious processions. Odoric reported that some worshippers deliberately allowed themselves to be crushed beneath the vehicle's wheels as a sacrifice to Vishnu. That story was probably an exaggeration or misinterpretation of actual events, but it spread throughout Europe anyway. The tale caught the imagination of English listeners, and by the 19th century, they were using juggernaut to refer to any massive vehicle (such as a steam locomotive) or to any other enormous entity with powerful crushing capabilities.

Winkle (WINK-ul)

1 : (chiefly British) to displace, remove, or evict from a position 2 : (chiefly British) to obtain or draw out by effort If you have ever extracted a winkle from its shell, then you understand how the verb winkle came to be. The word winkle is short for periwinkle, the name of a marine or freshwater snail. Periwinkle is ultimately derived from Latin pina, the name of a mussel, and Old English wincle, a snail shell. Evidently the personnel of World War I's Allied Powers found their duty of finding and removing the enemy from the trenches analogous to extracting a well-entrenched snail and began using winkle to describe their efforts. The action of "winkling the enemy out" was later extended to other situations, such as "winkling information out of someone."

Jubilee (JOO-buh-lee)

1 : (often capitalized Jubilee) a year of emancipation and restoration provided by ancient Hebrew law to be kept every 50 years by the emancipation of Hebrew slaves, restoration of alienated lands to their former owners, and omission of all cultivation of the land 2 : a special anniversary; especially : a 50th anniversary 3 : a period of time proclaimed by the Roman Catholic pope ordinarily every 25 years as a time of special solemnity 4 : a state of joy or rejoicing : jubilation 5 : a religious song of black Americans usually referring to a time of future happiness According to Leviticus, every 50th year was to be a time when Hebrew slaves were set free, lands were given back to their former owners, and the fields were not harvested. This year of liberty was announced when a ram's horn was blown. In Hebrew, that ceremonial horn was called a yōbhēl, and the celebratory year took its name from that of the horn. As the Bible was translated into other languages, the concept of the yōbhēl spread around the world, as did its name (albeit with spelling modifications). In Latin, yōbhēl was transcribed as jubilaeus (influenced by Latin jubilare, meaning "to let out joyful shouts"). French-speakers adopted the word as jubilé, and English-speakers created jubilee from the French and Latin forms.

Babel (BAY-bul)

1 : (sometimes capitalized Babel) a confusion of sounds or voices 2 : (sometimes capitalized Babel) a scene of noise or confusion The story of the Tower of Babel comes from the Bible, specifically, Genesis 11:4-9. It describes an attempt by Noah's descendants to build a giant tower that would reach to heaven. God interrupted the project, however, by causing the builders to begin speaking different languages. Construction of the tower ceased, and the people were dispersed over the Earth. The account of the Tower of Babel, which may have been inspired by an actual tower in Babylonia, is generally read as an attempt to explain the diversity of languages. The story has also given English a word for any situation that calls to mind the noisy chaos that would surely have ensued as the workers first tried to communicate using different languages.

Dreidel (DRAY-dul)

1 : a 4-sided toy marked with Hebrew letters and spun like a top in a game of chance 2 : a children's game of chance played especially at Hanukkah with a dreidel On each of the dreidel's four sides is inscribed a Hebrew letter—nun, gimel, he, and shin—which together stands for "Nes gadol haya sham," meaning "A great miracle happened there" (in Israel, the letter pe, short for po, "here," is often used instead of shin). This phrase refers to the miracle of the small amount of oil—enough for one day—which burned for eight days in the Temple of Jerusalem. But when playing dreidel, the letters have a more utilitarian significance. The dreidel is spun and depending on which letter is on top when it lands, the player's currency—be it pennies or candy—is added to or taken from the pot. (Nun means the player does nothing; gimel means the player gets everything; he means the player gets half; and shin means the player adds to the pot.) The word dreidel was borrowed into English early in the 20th century from the Yiddish dreydl (itself from the word dreyen, which means "to turn").

Mugwump (MUG-wump)

1 : a bolter from the Republican party in 1884 2 : a person who is independent (as in politics) or who remains undecided or neutral Mugwump is an anglicized version of a word used by Massachusett Indians to mean "war leader." The word was sometimes jestingly applied in early America to someone who was the "head guy." The first political mugwumps were Republicans in the presidential race of 1884 who chose to support Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland rather than their own party's nominee. Their independence prompted one 1930s humorist to define a mugwump as "a bird who sits with its mug on one side of the fence and its wump on the other."

Scion (SYE-un)

1 : a detached living portion of a plant (as a bud or shoot) joined to a stock in grafting and usually supplying solely aerial parts to a graft 2 : descendant, child; especially : a descendant of a wealthy, aristocratic, or influential family 3 : heir Scion derives from the Middle English sioun and Old French cion and is related to the Old English cīth and the Old High German kīdi (meaning "sprout" or "shoot"). When it first sprouted in English in the 14th century, scion meant "a shoot or twig." That sense withered in horticultural contexts, but the word branched out, adding the grafting-related meaning we know today. A figurative sense also blossomed referring to one's descendants, with particular reference to those who are descendants of notable families.

Dedication (ded-ih-KAY-shun)

1 : a devoting or setting aside for a particular purpose or use 2 : a name and often a message prefixed to a literary, musical, or artistic production in tribute to a person or cause 3 : self-sacrificing devotion 4 : a ceremony to mark the official completion or opening of something (as a building) The word dedication first appears in the 14th century as a name for the solemn act of dedicating something, such as a calendar day or a church, to a divine being or to a sacred use. The word—formed from the Latin past participle of dedicare, meaning "to dedicate"—did not take hold in secular contexts until a few centuries later when English speakers began using it to refer to the act of devoting time and energy to a particular purpose. One of the earliest writers to do so is William Shakespeare. "His life I gave him, and did thereto ad / My love without retention or restraint, / All his in dedication....," proclaims his character Antonio in Twelfth Night. Dedication has also come to describe the quality of being loyal or devoted to a cause, ideal, or purpose. Nowadays, people are commonly spoken of as having a dedication to his or her family or work.

Domicile (DAH-muh-syle)

1 : a dwelling place : place of residence : home 2 a : a person's fixed, permanent, and principal home for legal purposes b : the place where a corporation is actually or officially established Domicile traces to Latin domus, meaning "home," and English speakers have been using it as a word for "home" since at least the 15th century. In the eyes of the law, a domicile can also be a legal residence, the address from which one registers to vote, licenses a car, and pays income tax. Wealthy people may have several homes in which they live at different times of the year, but only one of their homes can be their official domicile for all legal purposes.

Brogue (BROHG)

1 : a heavy shoe often with a hobnailed sole 2 : a stout oxford shoe with perforations and usually a wing tip Did you expect brogue to be defined as "an Irish accent"? You're probably not alone. Our definition is different because brogue has two homographs (words that are spelled—and in this case pronounced—the same but have different origins or parts of speech). Brogue the shoe comes from the Irish word bróg, which probably derives from an Old Norse term meaning "leg covering." Brogue the accent comes from a different Irish word, barróg, which means "accent" or "speech impediment."

Bevy (BEV-ee)

1 : a large group or collection 2 : a group of animals and especially quail What do you call a group of crows? Or swine? Or leopards? Well-educated members of the medieval gentry seem to have been expected to know the answers: a murder of crows, a sounder of swine, and a leap of leopards. They would also have been expected to know that bevy referred specifically to a group of deer, quail, larks, or young ladies. Scholars aren't certain why bevy was chosen for those groups (though they have theories). What is known for sure is that bevy first appeared in the 15th century and was used as a highly specific collective for many years. Today, however, bevies can include anything from football players to toaster ovens.

Pundit (PUN-dit)

1 : a learned person : teacher 2 : a person who gives opinions in an authoritative manner usually through the mass media : critic The original pundits were highly respected teachers and leaders in India. Their title was taken from the Hindi word paṇḍit, a term of respect for a wise person that itself derives from the Sanskrit paṇḍita, meaning "learned." English speakers began using the form pundit specifically to refer to those Hindu sages as long ago as the 1600s. By the 1800s, they had also extended the term to refer to other sagacious individuals, and now pundit is often used with a hint of sarcasm to refer to informed opinion makers (such as political commentators, financial analysts, and newspaper columnists) who boldly share their views (sometimes at great length) on just about any subject that lies within their areas of expertise.

Will-o'-the-wisp (will-uh-thuh-WISP)

1 : a light that appears at night over marshy ground 2 : a misleading or elusive goal or hope The will-o'-the-wisp is a flame-like phosphorescence caused by gases from decaying plants in marshy areas. In olden days, it was personified as "Will with the wisp," a sprite who carried a fleeting "wisp" of light. Foolish travelers were said to try to follow the light and were then led astray into the marsh. (An 18th-century fairy tale described Will as one "who bears the wispy fire to trail the swains among the mire.") The light was first known, and still also is, as ignis fatuus, which in Latin means "foolish fire." Eventually, the name will-o'-the-wisp was extended to any impractical or unattainable goal.

Theriac (THEER-ee-ak)

1 : a mixture of many drugs and honey formerly held to be an antidote to poison 2 : a remedy for all ills : cure-all, panacea There really is no such thing as a single remedy for all that ails us. But that hasn't kept English speakers from creating not just a single word, but several words, that mean "cure-all": catholicon, elixir, nostrum, panacea, and today's word, theriac. When we first used theriac, it meant "an antidote for poison"—for any and all poisons, that is. That's how our Roman and Greek forebears used their theriaca and thēriakē, which derive ultimately from thēr, the Greek word for "wild animal." The first theriac was supposedly created by the first-century Greek physician Andromachus, whose concoction consisted of some 70 drugs pulverized with honey. Medieval physicians created even more elaborate theriacs to dose a plague-dreading populace, for whom the possibility of a cure-all didn't seem too wild a notion at all.

Riddle (RID-ul)

1 : a mystifying, misleading, or puzzling question posed as a problem to be solved or guessed : conundrum, enigma 2 : something or someone difficult to understand It is not unusual for words to acquire and lose meanings over time, and riddle is no exception. Old English speakers—who had a variety of spellings for riddle, including hrædels, redelse, and rædelse—used the word as we do today to describe a question posed as a problem to be solved or guessed, but they also used it in the now obsolete senses of "counsel," "consideration," "debate," "conjecture," "interpretation," "imagination," and "example." (Not surprisingly, the Old English source of riddle is a cousin to Old English rǣdan, meaning "to interpret" or "to advise.") By the beginning of the 15th century riddle acquired the sense of "a puzzling or perplexing thing," and in the 17th century it also came to refer to "a puzzling or enigmatic person or being."

Iconoclast (eye-KAH-nuh-klast)

1 : a person who destroys religious images or opposes their veneration 2 : a person who attacks settled beliefs or institutions Iconoclast is a word that often shows up on vocabulary lists and College Board tests. How will you remember the meaning of this vocabulary-boosting term? If you already know the word icon, you're halfway there. An icon is a picture that represents something. The most common icons today are those little images on our computers and smartphones that represent a program or function, but in the still-recent past, the most common icons were religious images. Icon comes from the Greek eikōn, which is from eikenai, meaning "to resemble." Iconoclast comes to us by way of Medieval Latin from Middle Greek eikonoklastēs, which joins eikōn with a form of the word klan, meaning "to break." Iconoclast literally means "image destroyer."

Soul Mate (SOHL-MAYT)

1 : a person who is perfectly suited to another in temperament 2 : a person who strongly resembles another in attitudes or beliefs The earliest known use of soul mate is found in an 1822 letter from English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge to "a Young Lady" in which he writes, "To be happy in Marriage Life, nay ... in order not to be miserable, you must have a Soul-mate as well as a House or a Yoke-mate...." The word yokemate is used to refer to someone who is figuratively yoked to another, such as a close associate or companion, or, as Coleridge uses the word, a spouse. Coleridge's advice to the recipient of his letter, then, is that she should not simply settle for a husband, but rather for a person whose character and sensibilities are of a nature suitable to her own. Soul mate is now often used by English speakers to describe those with whom our bonds of affection are marked by a strong sense of like-mindedness and intertwined affinities.

Hypocorism (hye-PAH-kuh-riz-um)

1 : a pet name 2 : the use of pet names In Late Latin and Greek, the words hypocorisma and hypokorisma had the same meaning as hypocorism does in English today. They in turn evolved from the Greek verb hypokorizesthai ("to call by pet names"), which itself comes from korizesthai ("to caress"). Hypocorism joined the English language in the mid-19th century and was once briefly a buzzword among linguists, who used it rather broadly to mean "adult baby talk"—that is, the altered speech adults use when supposedly imitating babies. Once the baby talk issue faded, hypocorism settled back into being just a fancy word for a pet name. Pet names can be diminutives like "Johnny" for "John," endearing terms such as "honey-bunch," or, yes, names from baby talk, like "Nana" for "Grandma."

Quodlibet (KWAHD-luh-bet)

1 : a philosophical or theological point proposed for disputation; also : a disputation on such a point 2 : a whimsical combination of familiar melodies or texts "Whatever." Try to get philosophical nowadays and that may be the response you hear. We don't know if someone quibbling over a minor philosophical or theological point 600 years ago might have gotten a similar reaction, but we do know that Latin quodlibet, meaning "any whatever," was the name given to such academic debates. Quodlibet is a form of quilibet, from qui, meaning "what," and libet, meaning "it pleases." We can't say with certainty how quodlibet went from disputations to musical conglomerations, but English speakers have been using quodlibet for light musical mélanges since the early 19th century.

Sepulcher (SEP-ul-ker)

1 : a place of burial : tomb 2 : a receptacle for religious relics especially in an altar Sepulchre (also spelled sepulcher) first appeared in Middle English around the beginning of the 13th century. It was originally spelled sepulcre, a spelling taken from Anglo-French. Like many words borrowed into English from French, sepulchre has roots buried in Latin. The word arose from Latin sepulcrum, a noun derived from the verb sepelire, meaning "to bury." Sepultus, the past participle of sepelire, gave us—also by way of Anglo-French—the related noun sepulture, which is a synonym of burial and sepulchre.

Litany (LIT-uh-nee)

1 : a prayer consisting of a series of invocations and supplications by the leader with alternate responses by the congregation 2 a : a resonant or repetitive chant b : a usually lengthy recitation or enumeration c : a sizable series or set Litany came to English through Anglo-French and Late Latin, ultimately from the Greek word litaneia, meaning "entreaty." Litany refers literally to a type of prayer in which a series of lines are spoken alternately by a leader and a congregation. This use dates to the 13th century. Between that century and the 20th, three figurative senses developed. The chant-like quality of a literal litany led first to a "repetitive chant" sense. Next, the repetitious—and sometimes interminable—nature of the original litany led to a "lengthy recitation" sense. Finally, the "lengthy recitation" sense was extended to refer to any sizable series or set.

Ukase (yoo-KAYSS)

1 : a proclamation by a Russian emperor or government having the force of law 2 a : a proclamation having the force of law b : order, command English speakers adopted ukase more or less simultaneously from French (ukase) and Russian (ukaz) in the early 18th century. The word can be traced further back to the Russian verb ukazat', meaning "to show" or "to order," and its ultimate source is an ancient root that led to similar words in Latin, Sanskrit, and Old Church Slavic. A Russian ukase was a command from the highest levels of government that could not be disobeyed. But by the early 19th century, English speakers were also using ukase generally for any command that seemed to come from a higher authority, particularly one that was final or arbitrary.

Foliage (FOH-lee-ij)

1 : a representation of leaves, flowers, and branches for architectural ornamentation 2 : the aggregate of leaves of one or more plants 3 : a cluster of leaves, flowers, and branches The English language has its share of common but disputed usages. One such example is the pronunciation of foliage as FOH-lij or, even more irksome to some, FOY-lij. The first of these two pronunciations, though frequently disparaged, is consistent with the pronunciation of the -iage ending in marriage and carriage, as well the less common but widely accepted pronunciation of verbiage as VER-bij. The second of these is often more fiercely denounced, in part because of its association with the nonstandard spelling foilage. Oddly enough, foliage traces back to Middle French foille ("leaf"), which is also the source of the English word foil (as in "aluminum foil"). When adopted by Middle English speakers, foil originally meant "leaf."

Vignette (vin-YET)

1 : a running ornament or design (as of vine leaves, tendrils, and grapes) put on or just before a title page or at the beginning or end of a chapter 2 a : a picture (such as an engraving or photograph) that shades off gradually into the surrounding paper b : the pictorial part of a postage stamp 3 a : a short descriptive literary sketch b : a brief incident or scene (as in a play or movie) Vignette comes from Middle French vignete, the diminutive form of the noun vigne, meaning "vine." In English, the word was first used in the mid-18th century for a design or illustration that ran along the blank border of a page, or one that marked the beginning or end of a chapter. Such designs got their name because they often looked like little vines. It wasn't until the late 19th century that usage of vignette had shifted to cover a brief literary sketch or narrative, as we commonly see it used today.

Quorum (KWOR-um)

1 : a select group 2 : the number (such as a majority) of officers or members of a body that when duly assembled is legally competent to transact business In Latin, quorum means "of whom" and is itself the genitive plural of qui, meaning "who." At one time, Latin quorum was used in the wording of the commissions issued to justices of the peace in England. In English, quorum initially referred to the number of justices of the peace who had to be present to constitute a legally sufficient bench. That sense is now rare, but it's not surprising that quorum has come to mean both "a select group" and "the minimum people required in order to conduct business."

Genius (JEEN-yus)

1 : a single strongly marked capacity or aptitude 2 : extraordinary intellectual power especially as manifested in creative activity 3 : a person endowed with transcendent mental superiority; especially : a person with a very high IQ The belief system of the ancient Romans included spirits that were somewhere in between gods and humans and were thought to accompany each person through life as a protector. The Latin name for this spirit was genius, which came from the verb gignere, meaning "to beget." This sense of "attendant spirit" was first borrowed into English in the 14th century. Part of such a spirit's role was to protect a person's moral character, and from that idea an extended sense developed in the 16th century meaning "an identifying character." In time, that meaning was extended to cover a special ability for doing something, and eventually genius acquired senses referring particularly to "very great intelligence" and "people of great intelligence."

Echelon (ESH-uh-lahn)

1 : a steplike arrangement (as of troops or airplanes) 2 a : one of a series of levels or grades in an organization or field of activity b : a group of individuals at a particular level or grade in an organization Echelon is a useful word for anyone who is climbing the ladder of success. It traces back to scala, a Late Latin word meaning "ladder" that was the ancestor of the Old French eschelon, meaning "rung of a ladder." Over time, the French word (which is échelon in Modern French) came to mean "step," "grade," or "level." When it was first borrowed into English in the 18th century, echelon referred specifically to a steplike arrangement of troops, but it now usually refers to a level or category within an organization or group of people.

Oaf (OHF)

1 : a stupid person 2 : a big clumsy slow-witted person A long time ago in England, it was believed that goblins sometimes secretly exchanged their babies for human babies. This was used as an explanation when parents found themselves with a particularly ugly or deformed child: these parents wanted to believe that their real baby had been stolen by goblins, and the other left in its place. The label for such a child was auf, or alfe (meaning "goblin's child"), terms that were later altered to form our present-day oaf. Although the linguistic history is not entirely clear, auf and alfe are likely from the Middle English alven and elven, meaning "elf" or "fairy." Today the word oaf is no longer associated with unattractive babies and is instead applied to anyone who appears especially unintelligent or graceless.

Dynasty (DYE-nuh-stee)

1 : a succession of rulers of the same line of descent 2 : a powerful group or family that maintains its position for a considerable time Dynast and dynasty both descend from the Greek verb dynasthai, which means "to be able" or "to have power." Dynasty came to prominence in English first; it has been part of our language since at least the 14th century. Dynast took its place in the linguistic family line in the early 1600s, and it has been used to describe sovereigns and other rulers ever since.

Qualm (KWAHM)

1 : a sudden attack of illness, faintness, or nausea 2 : a sudden feeling of doubt, fear, or uneasiness especially in not following one's conscience or better judgment Etymologists aren't sure where qualm originated, but they do know it entered English around 1530. Originally, it referred to a sudden sick feeling. Robert Louis Stevenson made use of this older sense in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: "A qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering." Soon after qualm entered the language, it came to designate not only sudden attacks of illness, but also sudden attacks of emotion or principle. In The Sketch Book, for example, Washington Irving wrote, "Immediately after one of these fits of extravagance, he will be taken with violent qualms of economy...." Eventually, qualm took on the specific (and now most common) meaning of doubt or uneasiness, particularly in not following one's conscience or better judgment.

Homily (HAH-muh-lee)

1 : a usually short sermon 2 : a lecture or discourse on a moral theme 3 : an inspirational catchphrase; also : platitude Gather around for the history of homily. The story starts with ancient Greek homilos, meaning "crowd" or "assembly." Greeks used homilos to create the verb homilein ("to consort with" or "to address"), as well as the noun homilia ("conversation"). Latin speakers borrowed homilia, then passed it on to Anglo-French. By the time it crossed into Middle English, the spelling had shifted to omelie, but by the mid-16th century the term had regained its "h" and the "y" of the modern spelling was added.

Journeyman (JER-nee-mun)

1 : a worker who has learned a trade and works for another person usually by the day 2 : an experienced reliable worker, athlete, or performer especially as distinguished from one who is brilliant or colorful The journey in journeyman refers to a sense of the familiar word not often used anymore: "a day's labor." This sense of journey was first used in the 14th century. When journeyman appeared the following century, it originally referred to a person who, having learned a handicraft or trade through an apprenticeship, worked for daily wages. In the 16th century, journeyman picked up a figurative (and mainly deprecatory) sense; namely, "one who drudges for another." These days, however, journeyman has little to do with drudgery, and lots to do with knowing a trade inside out.

Rescript (REE-skript)

1 : a written answer of a Roman emperor or of a pope to a legal inquiry or petition 2 : an official or authoritative order, decree, edict, or announcement 3 : an act or instance of rewriting Rescript was first used in the 15th century for the written reply of a sovereign or pope to a question about some matter of law or state, and then for any type of authoritative declaration. Since the 19th century, however, it has also seen use as a synonym of rewrite. Charlotte Brontë, for one, used the word this way in her novel Villette. "I wrote [the letter] three times ... subduing the phrases at every rescript," her narrator confesses.

Palatable (PAL-uh-tuh-bul)

1 : agreeable to the palate or taste 2 : agreeable or acceptable to the mind Palatable comes from palate, a Latin-derived word for the roof of the mouth. The palate was once thought of as the seat of the sense of taste, so the word eventually came to mean "sense of taste," or broadly, "liking." Palatable has been used in English to refer to palate-pleasing foods since 1619, but it isn't our only—or our oldest—adjective for agreeable tastes. Savory dates from the 14th century. Toothsome has been around since 1551. Tasty was first used in the early 17th century. And appetizing has been gracing culinary reviews since 1653.

Triptych (TRIP-tik)

1 : an ancient Roman writing tablet with three waxed leaves hinged together 2 a : a picture (such as an altarpiece) or carving in three panels side by side b : something composed or presented in three parts or sections; especially : trilogy A painted or carved triptych typically has three hinged panels, and the two outer panels can be folded in towards the central one. A literary or musical triptych generally consists of three closely related or contrasting themes or parts. Triptych derives from the Greek triptychos ("having three folds"), formed by combining tri- ("three") and ptychē ("fold" or "layer"). Although triptych originally described a specific type of Roman writing tablet that had three hinged sections, it is not surprising that the idea was generalized first to a type of painting, and then to anything composed of three parts.

Golem (GOH-lum)

1 : an artificial being in Hebrew folklore endowed with life 2 : someone or something resembling a golem: such as a : automaton b : blockhead The Hebrew ancestor of the word golem meant "shapeless mass," and the original golems started as lumps of clay that were formed into figures and brought to life by means of a charm or a combination of letters forming a sacred word. In the Middle Ages, golems were thought to be the perfect servants; their only fault was that they were sometimes too literal or mechanical in fulfilling their masters' orders. In the 16th century, the golem was thought of as a protector of the Jews in times of persecution. But by the late 1800s, golem had acquired a less friendly second sense, referring to a man-made monster that inspired many of the back-from-the-dead creations of classic horror fiction.

Mirage (muh-RAHZH)

1 : an illusion sometimes seen at sea, in the desert, or over hot pavement that looks like a pool of water or a mirror in which distant objects are seen inverted 2 : something illusory and unattainable like a mirage A mirage is a sort of optical illusion, a reflection of light that can trick the mind into interpreting the sight as an apparently solid thing. It makes sense, therefore, that the word mirage has its roots in the concept of vision. Mirage was borrowed into English at the dawn of the 19th century from the French verb mirer ("to look at"), which also gave us the word mirror. Mirer in turn derives from Latin mirari ("to wonder at"). Mirari is also the ancestor of the English words admire, miracle, and marvel, as well as the rare adjective mirific (meaning "marvelous").

Palooka (puh-LOO-kuh)

1 : an inexperienced or incompetent boxer 2 : oaf, lout The origin of palooka is unknown, though various theories have been put forth. (Some sources credit the baseball player and sportswriter Jack Conway with the coinage, for example.) Palooka first appeared in print in 1920 and may have been popularized by a comic strip titled "Joe Palooka" (by Ham Fisher), which debuted in newspapers a decade later. The probable connection between Fisher's comic and palooka only adds to the mystery surrounding this term, however. Joe Palooka was a boxer who was neither incompetent nor clumsy and oafish, and yet the word palooka came to have those negative meanings. In addition, palooka has been used as a general synonym for rookie and also as a term describing horses with very little chance of winning.

Protocol (PROH-tuh-kawl)

1 : an original draft or record of a document or transaction 2 : a preliminary memorandum of diplomatic negotiation 3 : a code prescribing strict adherence to correct etiquette and precedence 4 : a set of conventions for formatting data in an electronic communications system 5 : a detailed plan of a scientific or medical experiment, treatment, or procedure In Late Greek, the word prōtokollon referred to the first sheet of a papyrus roll bearing the date of its manufacture. In some instances, it consisted of a flyleaf that was glued to the outside of a manuscript's case and provided a description of its contents. Coming from the Greek prefix prōto- ("first") and the noun kolla ("glue"), prōtokollon gave us our word protocol. In its earliest uses in the 15th century, the word referred to a prologue or preface and also to a record of a document or transaction. In the late 19th century, it began to be used in reference to the etiquette observed by the Head of State of France in ceremonies and relations with other dignitaries. This sense has since extended in meaning to cover any code of proper conduct.

Ramshackle (RAM-shak-ul)

1 : appearing ready to collapse : rickety 2 : carelessly or loosely constructed Ramshackle has nothing to do with rams, nor the act of being rammed, nor shackles. The word is an alteration of ransackled, an obsolete form of the verb ransack, meaning "to search through or plunder." (Ransack in turn derives, via Middle English, from Old Norse words meaning "house" and "seek.") A home that has been ransacked has had its contents thrown into disarray, and that image may be what caused us to start using ramshackle in the first half of the 19th century to describe something that is poorly constructed or in a state of near collapse. These days, ramshackle can also be used figuratively, as in "He could only devise a ramshackle excuse for his absence."

Rarefied (RAIR-uh-fyde)

1 : being less dense 2 : of, relating to, or interesting to a select group : esoteric 3 : very high Rarefied was formed from the verb rarefy, which derives from a combination of the Latin rarus ("thin" or "rare") with facere ("to make") and has meant "to make thin" since the 14th century. In its original uses back in the 1500s, the adjective rarefied was on the lean side too; it meant "made less dense" (as in "the fog lifted and we could breathe more easily in the rarefied air"). By the 17th century, rarefy had gained the sense "to refine or purify," and over time rarefied followed suit.

Inflammable (in-FLAM-uh-bul)

1 : capable of being easily ignited and of burning : flammable 2 : easily inflamed, excited, or angered : irascible Combustible and incombustible are opposites, but flammable and inflammable are synonyms. How can that be? The in- of incombustible is a common prefix meaning "not," but the in- of inflammable is a different prefix. Inflammable, which dates back to 1605, descends from Latin inflammare ("to inflame"), itself from in- (here meaning "in" or "into") plus flammare ("to flame"). Flammable also comes from flammare but didn't enter English until 1813. In the early 20th century, firefighters worried that people might think inflammable meant "not able to catch fire," so they adopted flammable and nonflammable as official safety labels and encouraged their use to prevent confusion. In general use, flammable is now the preferred term for describing things that can catch fire, but inflammable is still occasionally used with that meaning as well.

Palpable (PAL-puh-bul)

1 : capable of being touched or felt : tangible 2 : easily perceptible : noticeable 3 : easily perceptible by the mind : manifest The word palpable has been used in English since the 14th century. It derives from the Latin word palpare, meaning "to stroke" or "to caress"—the same root that gives us the word palpitation. The Latin verb is also a linguistic ancestor of the verb feel. Palpable can be used to describe things that can be felt through the skin, such as a person's pulse, but even more frequently it is used in reference to things that cannot be touched but are still so easy to perceive that it is as though they could be touched—such as "a palpable tension in the air."

Shibboleth (SHIB-uh-luth)

1 : catchword, slogan 2 : a widely held belief or truism 3 : a custom or usage regarded as distinctive of a particular group The Bible's Book of Judges (12:4-6) tells the story of the Ephraimites, who, after they were routed by the Gileadite army, tried to retreat by sneaking across a ford of the Jordan River that was held by their enemy. The Gileadites, wary of the ploy, asked every soldier who tried to cross if he was an Ephraimite. When the soldier said no, he was asked to say shibbōleth (which means "stream" in Hebrew). Gileadites pronounced the word "shibboleth," but Ephraimites said "sibboleth." Anyone who left out the initial "sh" was killed on the spot. When English speakers first borrowed shibboleth, they used it to mean "test phrase," but it has acquired additional meanings since that time.

Peculiar (pih-KYOOL-yer)

1 : characteristic of only one person, group, or thing : distinctive 2 : special, particular 3 : odd, curious 4 : eccentric Peculiar comes from Latin peculiaris, an adjective meaning "privately owned" or "special" that is derived from the word for "property," peculium. Those words are cognate with pecu, a word for "cattle" that is also etymologically linked to a few English words related to money. Among these are pecuniary ("of or relating to money"), peculate ("to embezzle"), and impecunious ("having very little or no money"). Peculiar borrowed the Latin meanings of peculiaris, but it eventually came to refer to qualities possessed only by a particular individual, group, or thing. That sense is commonly followed by the preposition to, as in "a custom peculiar to America." In time, peculiar was being used specifically for unusual qualities, as well as the individuals that possessed them, which led to the word's "odd," "curious," and "eccentric" senses.

Piebald (PYE-bawld)

1 : composed of incongruous parts 2 : of different colors; especially : spotted or blotched with black and white To many people, the noisy black and white birds that go by the scientific name Pica pica—better known as magpies—are nothing but pests. But the Latin root that was adopted for their name isn't a linguistic nuisance; it played an important role in the development of piebald. The pie of piebald (pie is another name for a magpie) derives from pica, which is Latin for "magpie." The other part of piebald comes from the word bald, which can mean "marked with white"; it can also be found in skewbald, an adjective used to describe animals marked with patches of white and any other color but black.

Cavalier (kav-uh-LEER)

1 : debonair 2 : marked by or given to offhand and often disdainful dismissal of important matters According to a dictionary prepared by Thomas Blount in 1656, a cavalier was "a knight or gentleman, serving on horseback, a man of arms." That meaning is true to the history of the noun, which traces back to the Late Latin word caballarius, meaning "horseman." By around 1600, it had also come to denote "a roistering, swaggering fellow." In the 1640s, English Puritans applied it disdainfully to their adversaries, the swashbuckling Royalist followers of Charles I, who sported longish hair and swords. Although some thought those cavaliers "several sorts of Malignant Men,... ready to commit all manner of Outrage and Violence," others saw them as quite suave—which may explain why cavalier can be either complimentary or a bit insulting.

Exemplary (ig-ZEM-pluh-ree)

1 : deserving imitation especially because of excellence : commendable 2 : serving as a warning : monitory 3 : serving as an example, instance, or illustration Since the 1500s, exemplary has been used in English for things deserving imitation. The word (and its close relatives example and exemplify) derives from the Latin noun exemplum, which means "example." Usage commentators have sometimes warned against using exemplary as if it were simply a synonym of excellent, but clear-cut instances of such usage are hard to come by. When exemplary describes something excellent, as it often does, it almost always carries the further suggestion that the thing described is worthy of imitation.

Untoward (un-TOH-erd)

1 : difficult to guide, manage, or work with : unruly, intractable 2 a : marked by trouble or unhappiness : unlucky b : not favorable or propitious : adverse 3 : improper, indecorous More than 700 years ago, English speakers began using the word toward for "forward-moving" youngsters, the kind who showed promise and were open to listening to their elders. After about 150 years, the use was broadened somewhat to mean simply "docile" or "obliging." The opposite of this toward is froward, meaning "perverse" or "ungovernable." Today, froward has fallen out of common use, and the cooperative sense of toward is downright obsolete, but the newcomer to this series—untoward—has kept its toehold. Untoward first showed up as a synonym of unruly in the 1500s, and it is still used, just as it was then, though it has since acquired other meanings as well.

Lenient (LEEN-yunt)

1 : exerting a soothing or easing influence : relieving pain or stress 2 : of mild and tolerant disposition; especially : indulgent Lenient is a word with a soothing history. It derives from the Latin verb lenire, meaning "to soothe" or "to soften" (itself from lenis, meaning "soft or mild"). The first, now archaic, sense of lenient referred to something soothing that relieved pain and stress. That meaning was shared by lenitive, an earlier derivative of lenire that was commonly used with electuary (a "lenitive electuary" being a medicated paste prepared with honey or another sweet and used by veterinarians to alleviate pain in the mouth). Linguists also borrowed lenis to describe speech sounds that are softened—for instance, the "t" sound in gutter is lenis. By way of comparison, the "t" sound in toe is fortis.

Inveterate (in-VET-uh-rut)

1 : firmly established by long persistence 2 : confirmed in a habit : habitual Like veteran, inveterate ultimately comes from Latin vetus, which means "old," and which led to the Latin verb inveterare ("to age"). That verb in turn gave rise eventually to the adjective inveteratus, the direct source of our adjective inveterate (in use since the 14th century). In the past, inveterate has meant "long-standing" or simply "old." For example, one 16th-century writer warned of "Those great Flyes which in the springe time of the yeare creepe out of inveterate walls." Today, inveterate most often applies to a habit, attitude, or feeling of such long existence that it is practically ineradicable or unalterable.

Wherefore (WAIR-for)

1 : for what reason or purpose : why 2 : therefore When Shakespeare's Juliet asks, "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" she is not inquiring into her beloved's whereabouts. Rather she is asking why it is that Romeo must be Romeo, a member of the Montague family and, therefore, an enemy of Juliet's own family, the Capulets. Yet, wherefore does wherefore mean "why"? Starting in the early 13th century, a number of new words were formed by combining where with a preposition. In such words, where had the meaning of "what" or "which," giving the English language such adverbs as wherein ("in what"), whereon ("on what"), and wherefore ("for what"). English speakers have largely dropped the adverb wherefore in favor of why, but the noun wherefore, meaning "an answer or statement giving an explanation," continues to be used, particularly in the phrase "the whys and wherefores."

Rugose (ROO-gohss)

1 : full of wrinkles 2 : having the veinlets sunken and the spaces between elevated Rugose was borrowed into English in the 15th century from the Latin adjective rugosus ("wrinkled"), which itself derives from ruga ("wrinkle"). One descendant of ruga that you'll probably recognize is corrugate, which initially meant "to form or shape into wrinkles or folds" (as in "corrugated cardboard"). Another, which might be more familiar to scientists, is rugulose, meaning "finely wrinkled." In addition, there is the noun rugosity, which can refer to either the quality or state of being full of wrinkles or to an individual wrinkled place. Rugose is most commonly encountered in technical contexts, but it's also found occasionally in literary contexts, as in our quote above, from the second-place winner in an H. P. Lovecraft short story contest in The Providence Journal.

Wistful (WIST-ful)

1 : full of yearning or desire tinged with melancholy; also : inspiring such yearning 2 : musingly sad : pensive Are you yearning to know the history of wistful? If so, we can ease your melancholy a little by telling you that wistful comes from a combination of wishful and wistly, a now obsolete word meaning "intently." We can't say with certainty where wistly came from, but it may have sprung from whistly, an old term meaning "silently" or "quietly." How did the supposed transition from a word meaning "quietly" to one meaning "intently" come about? That's something to muse about, but the answer isn't known.

Chirography (kye-RAH-gruh-fee)

1 : handwriting, penmanship 2 : calligraphy Though some might argue that handwriting is a dying art in the age of electronic communication, this fancy word for it persists. The root graph means "writing" and appears in many common English words such as autograph and graphite. The lesser-known root chir, or chiro-, comes from a Greek word meaning "hand" and occurs in words such as chiromancy ("the art of palm reading") and enchiridion ("a handbook or manual"), as well as chiropractic. Chirography first appeared in English in the 17th century and probably derived from chirograph, a now rare word referring to any of various legal documents. Chirography should not be confused with choreography, which refers to the composition and arrangement of dances.

Variegated (VAIR-ee-uh-gay-tud)

1 : having discrete markings of different colors 2 : various, diverse, varied Variegated has been adding color to our language since the 17th century. It is used in botany to describe the presence of two or more colors in the leaves, petals, or other parts of plants, and it also appears in the names of some animals (such as the variegated cutworm). It can be used by the general speaker to refer to anything marked with different colors ("a variegated silk robe," for instance) or to things that are simply various and diverse ("a variegated collection"). Variegated has a variety of relatives in English—it is ultimately derived from the Latin root varius, meaning "varied," which also gave us vary, various, and variety.

Omniscient (ahm-NISH-unt)

1 : having infinite awareness, understanding, and insight 2 : possessed of universal or complete knowledge One who is omniscient literally knows all. The word omniscient, which has been part of English since at least the beginning of the 17th century, brings together two Latin roots: the prefix omni-, meaning "all," and the verb scire, meaning "to know." You will recognize omni- as the prefix that tells all in such words as omnivorous ("eating all" or, more precisely, "eating both meat and vegetables") and omnipotent ("all-powerful"). Scire likewise has a number of other knowledge-related descendants in English, including conscience, science, and prescience (meaning "foreknowledge").

Univocal (yoo-NIV-uh-kul)

1 : having one meaning only 2 : unambiguous Earliest known print evidence of univocal, in the sense of "having one meaning only," dates the word to the mid-1500s, somewhat earlier than its more familiar antonym equivocal (meaning "often misleadingly subject to two or more interpretations"). Both words trace back to the Latin noun vox, which means "voice." The prefix uni- ("one") was combined with vox to create the Late Latin word univocus, from which English speakers borrowed univocal. Univocal was indeed once used in the sense of "speaking in one voice" (or "unanimous") as its etymology would imply, but that use is now obsolete.

Astute (uh-STOOT)

1 : having or showing shrewdness and perspicacity 2 : crafty, wily Astute is similar in meaning to shrewd and sagacious, but there are subtle differences in connotation among them. All three suggest sharp thinking and sound judgment, but shrewd stresses practical, hardheaded cleverness and judgment ("a shrewd judge of character"), whereas sagacious implies wisdom and foresight combined with good judgment ("sagacious investors"). Astute, which derives from the Latin noun astus, meaning "craft," suggests cleverness, mental sharpness, and diplomatic skill ("an astute player of party politics").

Nimrod (NIM-rahd)

1 : hunter 2 : idiot, jerk The word nimrod gets its start in the Bible: Nimrod was king of a country known as Shinar, and he's described in Genesis as "the first on earth to be a mighty man" and "a mighty hunter before the Lord." English speakers of the 16th century didn't think Nimrod was particularly benevolent; they used his name as a synonym of "tyrant"—a meaning that is now obsolete. In the 17th century, English speakers began using nimrod as a generic term for any hunter. That meaning is not especially common today but it's still encountered occasionally, especially in hunting and fishing journalism. The legendary Nimrod is also sometimes associated with the attempt to build the Tower of Babel. Because the tower resulted in the wrath of the Lord and proved a disastrous idea, nimrod is currently used with yet another meaning: "a stupid person."

Facetious (fuh-SEE-shuss)

1 : joking or jesting often inappropriately : waggish 2 : meant to be humorous or funny : not serious Facetious—which puzzle fans know is one of the few English words containing the vowels a, e, i, o, u in order—came to English from the Middle French word facetieux, which traces to the Latin word facetia, meaning "jest." Facetia seems to have made only one other lasting contribution to the English language: facetiae, meaning "witty or humorous writings or sayings." Facetiae, which comes from the plural of facetia and is pronounced \fuh-SEE-shee-ee\ or \fuh-SEE-shee-eye\, is a far less common word than facetious, but it does show up occasionally. For example, American essayist Louis Menand used it in his 2002 book American Studies to describe the early days of The New Yorker. "The New Yorker," he wrote, "started as a hectic book of gossip, cartoons, and facetiae."

Namby-Pamby (nam-bee-PAM-bee)

1 : lacking in character or substance : insipid 2 : weak, indecisive Eighteenth-century poets Alexander Pope and Henry Carey didn't think much of their contemporary Ambrose Philips. His sentimental, singsong verses were too childish and simple for their palates. In 1726, Carey came up with the rhyming nickname Namby-Pamby (playing on Ambrose) to parody Philips: "Namby-Pamby's doubly mild / Once a man and twice a child ... / Now he pumps his little wits / All by little tiny bits." In 1729, Pope borrowed the nickname to take his own satirical jab at Philips in the poem "The Dunciad." Before long, namby-pamby was being applied to any piece of writing that was insipidly precious, simple, or sentimental, and later to anyone considered pathetically weak or indecisive.

Jejune (jih-JOON)

1 : lacking nutritive value 2 : devoid of significance or interest : dull 3 : juvenile, puerile Starved for excitement? You won't get it from something jejune. That term derives from the Latin jejunus, which means "empty of food," "meager," or "hungry." Back in the 1600s, English speakers used jejune in senses very similar to those of its Latin parent, lamenting "jejune appetites" and "jejune morsels." Something that is meager rarely satisfies, and before long jejune was being used not only for meager meals or hunger, but for things wanting in intellectual or emotional substance. The word most likely gained its "childish" sense when people confused it with the look-alike French word jeune, which means "young."

Dunnage (DUN-ij)

1 : loose materials used to support and protect cargo in a ship's hold; also : padding in a shipping container 2 : baggage Etymologists don't know the exact origin of dunnage. Some have pointed out the similarity of the word to dünne twige, a Low German term meaning "brushwood," but no one has ever proven the two are related. Others have speculated that it derives from Dunlop, the name of a famous cheese-making town in Scotland; however, neither the town nor the cheese has any connection to dunnage. Truth be told, though dunnage has been with us since the 15th century, its etymological history remains a mystery.

Impetuous (im-PECH-uh-wus)

1 : marked by impulsive vehemence or passion 2 : marked by force and violence of movement or action When we borrowed impetuous in the late 14th century, we used it of people and their actions. About a hundred years later, we added another sense to describe physical things like wind or storms or seas—this second sense we don't use much anymore. The word comes via Anglo-French from Late Latin impetuosus, which is from impetus. Latin impetus (which of course gave us our own impetus, meaning "driving force") essentially means "assault," but it also has figurative senses ranging from "violence" to "ardor." Our impetuous has a similar range of meaning, from "violent" to "passionate." It also carries the suggestion of impulsiveness. Often, we put a light touch on the word, as when we refer—somewhat longingly, perhaps—to our "impetuous youth."

Obstreperous (ub-STREP-uh-rus)

1 : marked by unruly or aggressive noisiness : clamorous 2 : stubbornly resistant to control : unruly The handy Latin prefix ob-, meaning "in the way," "against," or "toward," occurs in many Latin and English words, often in alternate forms. Obstreperous comes from ob- plus strepere, a verb meaning "to make a noise," so someone who is obstreperous is literally making noise to rebel against something, much like a protesting crowd or an unruly child. The word has been used in English since around the beginning of the 17th century. Strepere has not played a role in the formation of any other notable English words, but ob- words abound; these include obese, obnoxious, occasion, offend, omit, oppress, and oust.

Ignominious (ig-nuh-MIN-ee-us)

1 : marked with or characterized by disgrace or shame : dishonorable 2 : deserving of shame or infamy : despicable 3 : humiliating, degrading The -nom- of ignominious comes from nomen, the Latin word for "name" or "repute." (Nomen is also the root of misnomer, nomenclature, and nominal, among others.) The ig- part of the word is akin to the negative prefix in-; when joined to the root -nom-, it indicates the namelessness that goes with shame or dishonor. To suffer an ignominious fate is to lose the opportunity to make a name for oneself or to lose one's good name. When ignominious was first borrowed from a French form of the word in the 15th century, it meant "disgraced" or "dishonorable." The word continues to have such meanings, but it also has the somewhat milder meanings of "embarrassing" and "humiliating."

Morass (muh-RASS)

1 : marsh, swamp 2 a : a situation that traps, confuses, or impedes b : an overwhelming or confusing mass or mixture We won't swamp you with details: morass comes from the Dutch word moeras, which itself derives from an Old French word, maresc, meaning "marsh." Morass has been part of English for centuries, and in its earliest uses it was a synonym of swamp or marsh. (That was the sense Robert Louis Stevenson used when he described Long John Silver emerging from "a low white vapour that had crawled during the night out of the morass" in Treasure Island.) Imagine walking through a thick, muddy swamp—it's easy to compare such slogging to trying to disentangle yourself from a sticky situation. By the mid-19th century, morass had gained a figurative sense, and could refer to any predicament that was as murky, confusing, or difficult to navigate as a literal swamp or quagmire.

Salient (SAIL-yunt)

1 : moving by leaps or springs : jumping 2 : jetting upward 3 : standing out conspicuously : prominent; especially : of notable significance Salient first popped up in English in the 16th century as a term of heraldry meaning "rampant but leaning forward as if leaping." By the mid-17th century, it had leaped into more general use in the senses of "moving by leaps or springs" or "spouting forth." Those senses aren't too much of a jump from the word's parent, the Latin verb salire, which means "to leap." Salire also occurs in the etymologies of some other English words, including somersault and sally, as well as Salientia, the name for an order of amphibians that includes frogs, toads, and other notable jumpers. Today, salient is usually used to describe things that are physically prominent (such as a salient nose) or that stand out figuratively (such as the salient features of a painting or the salient points in an argument).

Nomenclature (NOH-mun-klay-cher)

1 : name, designation 2 : the act or process or an instance of naming 3 a : a system or set of terms or symbols especially in a particular science, discipline, or art b : an international system of standardized New Latin names used in biology for kinds and groups of kinds of animals and plants In his 1926 Dictionary of Modern English Usage, grammarian H. W. Fowler asserted that it was wrong to use nomenclature as a synonym for name; he declared that nomenclature could only mean "a system of naming or of names." It is true that nomenclature comes from the Latin nomenclatura, meaning "the assigning of names," but the name sense was the first to appear in English (it is documented as long ago as 1610), and it has been considered perfectly standard for centuries.

Effete (ih-FEET)

1 : no longer fertile 2 a : having lost character, vitality, or strength b : marked by weakness or decadence c : soft or delicate from or as if from a pampered existence 3 : having feminine qualities untypical of a man : not manly in appearance or manner Effete derives from Latin effetus, meaning "no longer fruitful," and for a brief time in English it was used to describe an animal no longer capable of producing offspring. For most of its existence in English, however, the use of effete has been entirely figurative. The usual figurative sense of the word was for many years "exhausted" or "worn out." But since at least the beginning of the 20th century, effete has also been used to suggest overrefinement, weakness of character, snobbery, and effeminacy. It's these meanings you're most likely to encounter today.

Benign (bih-NYNE)

1 : of a gentle disposition : gracious 2 a : showing kindness and gentleness b : favorable, wholesome 3 a : of a mild type or character that does not threaten health or life; especially : not becoming cancerous b : having no significant effect : harmless Benediction, benefactor, benefit, benevolent, and benign are just some of the English words that derive from the well-tempered Latin root bene, which means "well." Benign came to English via Anglo-French from the Latin benignus, which in turn paired bene with gignere, meaning "to beget." Gignere has produced a few offspring of its own in English. Its descendants include congenital, genius, germ, indigenous, and progenitor, among others. Benign is commonly used in medical contexts to describe conditions, such as noncancerous masses, that present no apparent harm to the patient. It is also found in the phrase benign neglect, which refers to an attitude or policy of ignoring an often delicate or undesirable situation that one has the responsibility to manage.

Aureate (OR-ee-ut)

1 : of a golden color or brilliance 2 : marked by grandiloquent and rhetorical style Aureate is among several adjectives in English pertaining to gold that derive from the Latin name for the metal, aurum. While its relatives auriferous and auric are more likely to appear in scientific contexts to describe substances containing or made from gold (or Au, to use its chemical symbol), aureate has tended to have a more literary allure since it was first used in English in the early 15th century. Over time, the word's use was extended from "golden" to "resplendent," and it finally lost some of its luster as it came to mean "grandiloquent."

Somnolent (SAHM-nuh-lunt)

1 : of a kind likely to induce sleep 2 a : inclined to or heavy with sleep : drowsy b : sleepy Somnolent first appeared in the late 15th century in the redundant phrase "somnolent sleep." It came into English by way of Anglo-French from the Latin word somnolentus, which itself comes from somnus, meaning "sleep." Another offspring of somnus is somnambulism, a synonym of sleepwalking. Insomnia is also a member of this sleepy word family, though it might be considered the black sheep, since it means, of course, "the inability to sleep."

Sagacious (suh-GAY-shus)

1 : of keen and farsighted penetration and judgment : discerning2 : caused by or indicating acute discernment You might expect the root of sagacious to be sage, which means "wise" or "wise man," but that wouldn't be a wise assumption. Despite their similarities, the two words are not all that closely related. Sagacious traces back to sagire, a Latin verb meaning "to perceive keenly." It's also related to the Latin adjective sagus ("prophetic"), which is the ancestor of our verb seek. Etymologists believe that sage comes from a different Latin verb, sapere, which means "to taste," "to have good taste," or "to be wise."

Liminal (LIM-uh-nul)

1 : of or relating to a sensory threshold 2 : barely perceptible 3 : of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition : in-between, transitional The noun limen refers to the point at which a physiological or psychological effect begins to be produced, and liminal is the adjective used to describe things associated with that point, or threshold, as it is also called. Likewise, the closely related word subliminal means "below a threshold"; it can describe something inadequate to produce a sensation or something operating below a threshold of consciousness. Because the sensory threshold is a transitional point where sensations are just beginning to be perceptible, liminal acquired two extended meanings. It can mean "barely perceptible" and is now often used to mean "transitional" or "intermediate," as in "the liminal zone between sleep and wakefulness."

Fauve (FOHV)

1 : of or relating to painters practicing fauvism 2 : vivid in color When French art critic Louis Vauxcelles spotted a statue reminiscent of 15th-century Italian art in the midst of works by an avant-garde group of painters—principal among them Henri Matisse—at an exhibit in Paris in 1905, he verbalized his shock with the words "Donatello au milieu des fauves!" ("Donatello among the wild animals!"). His reaction was to the painters' unconventional use of intensely vivid color and free treatment of form, and apparently his words weren't far off the mark in describing their art: Matisse and company's art movement became known as "Fauvism" and the artists flourishing in it, the "Fauves." In 1967, the intense impact of their colors was still vibrant, inspiring one writer for Vogue to use fauve as an adjective to describe the colors of a "striking" flowered coat—and that use can still be found today vivifying colors.

Sidereal (sye-DEER-ee-ul)

1 : of or relating to stars or constellations 2 : measured by the apparent motion of the stars In Latin, the word for a star or constellation is sidus. Latin speakers used that word to form desiderare ("from a heavenly body") and considerare ("to think about a heavenly body"), which were adopted into English as desire and consider. Sidereal, another sidus creation, was first documented in English in 1642. Thirty-four years later, an astronomer coined the phrase "sidereal year" for the time in which the earth completes one revolution in its orbit around the sun, measured with respect to the fixed stars. Not surprisingly, other sidereal measurements of time followed, including the sidereal month, the sidereal day, the sidereal hour, and even the sidereal minute.

Empyreal (em-pye-REE-ul)

1 : of or relating to the heavens or firmament : celestial 2 : sublime Empyreal can be traced back to the Greek word for "fiery," empyros, which was formed from the prefix em- ("in," "within," or "inside") and -pyros, from pyr, the Greek word for "fire." When empyreal entered the English language—via the Late Latin empyreus or empyrius—in the 15th century, it specifically referred to things related to the empyrean, the highest heaven or outermost heavenly sphere of ancient and medieval cosmology, which was often thought to contain or be composed of the element of fire. In the works of Christian writers—such as Dante's Divine Comedy and John Milton's Paradise Lost—this outermost heavenly sphere was associated with the Christian paradise. Empyreal is now also used more broadly in the senses of "celestial" and "sublime."

Filial (FIL-ee-ul)

1 : of, relating to, or befitting a son or daughter 2 : having or assuming the relation of a child or offspring Filial is descended from Latin filius, meaning "son," and filia, meaning "daughter," and in English (where it has been used since at least the 14th century) it has always applied to both sexes. The word has long carried the dutiful sense "owed to a parent by a child," as found in such phrases as "filial respect" and "filial piety." These days it can also be used more generally for any emotion or behavior of a child to a parent. You might suspect that filia is also the source of the word filly, meaning "a young female horse" or "a young girl," but it isn't. Rather, filly is from Old Norse fylja.

Weird (WEERD)

1 : of, relating to, or caused by witchcraft or the supernatural : magical 2 : of strange or extraordinary character : odd, fantastic You may know today's word as a generalized term describing something unusual, but weird also has older meanings that are more specific. Weird derives from the Old English noun wyrd, essentially meaning "fate." By the 8th century, the plural wyrde had begun to appear in texts as a gloss for Parcae, the Latin name for the Fates—three goddesses who spun, measured, and cut the thread of life. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Scots authors employed werd or weird in the phrase "weird sisters" to refer to the Fates. William Shakespeare adopted this usage in Macbeth, in which the "weird sisters" are depicted as three witches. Subsequent adjectival use of weird grew out of a reinterpretation of the weird used by Shakespeare.

Quantal (KWAHN-tul)

1 : of, relating to, or having only two experimental alternatives (such as dead or alive, all or none) 2 : of or relating to a quantum or to quanta (as of energy or a neurotransmitter) In Latin, quantum is the neuter form [of or denoting a gender of nouns in some languages, typically contrasting with masculine and feminine or common. "it is a neuter word in Greek" of quantus], meaning "how much?" Both of these forms played a role in the development of quantal. The first sense of quantal, used in scientific experimentation to refer to cases in which only one of two possible results occurs, derived from quanti, the plural of quantus. (Quantus is also an ancestor of our noun quantity.) The second sense of quantal is more directly related to Latin quantum and the English noun quantum, which refers to the smallest possible unit of a form of energy (such as light).

Vulpine (VUL-pine)

1 : of, relating to, or resembling a fox 2 : foxy, crafty In Walden (1854), Henry David Thoreau described foxes crying out "raggedly and demoniacally" as they hunted through the winter forest, and he wrote, "Sometimes one came near to my window, attracted by my light, barked a vulpine curse at me, and then retreated." Thoreau's was far from the first use of vulpine; English writers have been applying that adjective to the foxlike or crafty since at least the 15th century, and the Latin parent of our term, vulpinus (from the noun vulpes, meaning "fox"), was around long before that.

Colubrine (KAHL-yuh-bryne)

1 : of, relating to, or resembling a snake 2 : of or relating to a large cosmopolitan family (Colubridae) of chiefly nonvenomous snakes Colubrine may be less common than other animal words—such as canine, feline, and bovine—but it has been around for a good long while. Ultimately derived from the Latin colubra ("snake"), it slithered into the English language in the 16th century. (Cobra, by the way, comes from the same Latin word, but it entered English through Portuguese.) Some other words for "snakelike" are serpentine (a more common alternative) and ophidian (from the Greek word for snake: ophis).

Crepuscular (krih-PUHSS-kyuh-ler)

1 : of, relating to, or resembling twilight : dim 2 : occurring or active during the twilight The early Romans had two words for the twilight. Crepusculum was favored by Roman writers for the half-light of evening, just after the sun sets; it is a diminutive formation based on their word for "dusky," which is creper. Diluculum was reserved for morning twilight, just before the sun rises—it is related to lucidus, meaning "bright." We didn't embrace either of these Latin nouns as substitutes for our Middle English twilight, but we did form the adjective crepuscular in the 17th century. At first, it only meant "dim" or "indistinct," often used in a figurative sense. In the 1820s, we added its special zoological sense, describing animals that are most active at twilight.

Éclat (ay-KLAH)

1 : ostentatious display : publicity 2 : dazzling effect : brilliance 3 a : brilliant or conspicuous success b : praise, applause Éclat burst onto the scene in English in the 17th century. The word derives from French, where it can mean "splinter" (the French idiom voler en éclats means "to fly into pieces") as well as "burst" (un éclat de rire means "a burst of laughter"), among other things. The "burst" sense is reflected in the earliest English sense of the word, meaning "ostentatious display or publicity." This sense found its own idiomatic usage in the phrase "to make an éclat," which at one time meant "to create a sensation." By the 1740s, éclat took on the additional meaning of "applause or acclamation," as in "The performer was received with great éclat."

Lambent (LAM-bunt)

1 : playing lightly on or over a surface : flickering 2 : softly bright or radiant 3 : marked by lightness or brilliance especially of expression Fire is frequently associated with lapping or licking imagery: flames are often described as "tongues" that "lick." Lambent, which first appeared in English in the 17th century, is a part of this tradition, coming from lambens, the present participle of the Latin verb lambere, meaning "to lick." In its earliest uses, lambent meant "playing lightly over a surface," "gliding over," or "flickering." These uses were usually applied to flames or light, and by way of that association, the term eventually came to describe things with a radiant or brilliant glow, as Alexander Pope used it in his 1717 poem "Eloisa to Abelard": "Those smiling eyes, attemp'ring ev'ry ray, Shone sweetly lambent with celestial day."

Levigate (LEV-uh-gayt)

1 : polish, smooth 2 a : to grind to a fine smooth powder while in moist condition b : to separate (fine powder) from coarser material by suspending in a liquid Levigate comes from Latin levigatus, the past participle of the verb levigare ("to make smooth"). Levigare is derived in part from levis, the Latin word for "smooth." Alleviate and levity can also be traced back to a Latin levis, and the levi- root in both words might suggest a close relationship with levigate. This is not the case, however. The Latin levis that gives us alleviate and levity does not mean "smooth," but "light" (in the sense of having little weight). One possible relative of levigate in English is oblivion, which comes from the Latin oblivisci ("to forget"), a word which may be a combination of ob- ("in the way") and the levis that means "smooth."

Canaille (kuh-NYE)

1 : rabble, riffraff 2 : proletarian For a creature said to be man's best friend, the dog doesn't get a whole lot of respect in the English language. Something that has "gone to the dogs," for example, has gone to ruin, and the Britishism dog's breakfast means a confused mess of something. The word canaille, which debuted in English in the 17th century, shows that we have no qualms about associating dogs with the lower levels of human society; it derives via French from Italian canaglia, and ultimately from canis, the Latin word for "dog." Canis, of course, is also the source of canine, which as a noun refers to a dog (as well as a conical pointed tooth), and as an adjective means "of or relating to dogs or to the family to which they belong."

Hermetic (her-MET-ik)

1 : relating to or characterized by occultism or abstruseness : recondite 2 a : airtight b : impervious to external influence c : recluse, solitary Hermetic derives from Greek via the Medieval Latin word hermeticus. When it first entered English in the early 17th century, hermetic was associated with writings attributed to Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom. Thoth, whom the Greeks called Hermes Trismegistus ("thrice-great Hermes"), was believed to be the author of a number of mystical, philosophical, and alchemistic works. The obscure subject matter of these works may have made them difficult to wade through, for soon English speakers were also applying hermetic to things that were beyond ordinary human comprehension. Additionally, Hermes Trismegistus was said to have invented a magic seal that could keep vessels airtight. Hermetic thus came to mean "airtight," both literally and figuratively. These days, it can also sometimes mean "solitary."

Phlegmatic (fleg-MAT-ik)

1 : resembling, consisting of, or producing the humor phlegm 2 : having or showing a slow and stolid temperament According to the ancient Greeks, human personalities were controlled by four bodily fluids or semifluids called humors: blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm. Each humor was associated with one of the four basic elements: air, earth, fire, and water. Phlegm was paired with water—the cold, moist element—and it was believed to impart the cool, calm, unemotional personality we now call the "phlegmatic type." That's a bit odd, given that the term derives from the Greek phlegma, which literally means "flame," perhaps a reflection of the inflammation that colds and flus often bring.

Undulate (UN-juh-lunt)

1 : rising and falling in waves 2 : having a wavy form, outline, or surface Unda, Latin for "wave," ripples through the history of words such as abound, inundate, redound, surround, and, of course, undulant, which first showed up in print in English around 1822. (The adjective undulate, a synonym of undulant, is almost 200 years older but rarely used today. The far more common verb undulate has several meanings including "to form or move in waves.") The meaning of undulant is broad enough to describe both a dancer's hips and a disease marked by a fever that continually waxes and wanes.

Adjuvant (AJ-uh-vunt)

1 : serving to aid or contribute : auxiliary 2 : assisting in the prevention, amelioration, or cure of disease Things that are adjuvant rarely get top billing—they're the supporting players, not the stars. But that doesn't mean they're not important. An adjuvant medicine, for example, can have a powerful healing effect when teamed up with another medicine or curative treatment. Adjuvant descends from the Latin verb adjuvare ("to aid"), which also gave English the nouns coadjutor ("assistant") and aid. These days, adjuvant tends to turn up most often in medical contexts, but it can also be used in the general sense of "serving to aid." Likewise, the noun adjuvant can mean "a drug or method that enhances the effectiveness of medical treatment" or simply "one that helps or facilitates."

Solicitous (suh-LIS-uh-tus)

1 : showing attentive care or protectiveness : manifesting or expressing solicitude 2 : full of concern or fears : apprehensive 3 : meticulously careful 4 : full of desire : eager If you're solicitous about learning the connections between words, you'll surely want to know about the relationship between solicitous and another word you've probably heard before—solicit. Solicitous doesn't come from solicit, but the two words are related. They both have their roots in the Latin word sollicitus, meaning "anxious." Solicitous itself came directly from this Latin word, whereas solicit made its way to English with a few more steps. From sollicitus came the Latin verb sollicitare, meaning "to disturb, agitate, move, or entreat." Forms of this verb were borrowed into Anglo-French, and then Middle English, and have survived in Modern English as solicit.

Abject (AB-jekt)

1 : sunk to or existing in a low state or condition 2 a : cast down in spirit : servile, spiritless b : showing hopelessness or resignation 3 : expressing or offered in a humble and often ingratiating spirit Abject comes from abjectus, the past participle of the Latin verb abicere, meaning "to cast off." Its original meaning in English was "cast off" or "rejected," but it is now used to refer more broadly to things in a low state or condition. Abject shares with mean, ignoble, and sordid the sense of being below the normal standards of human decency and dignity. Abject may imply degradation, debasement, or servility ("abject poverty"). Mean suggests having such repellent characteristics as small-mindedness or ill temper ("mean and petty satire"). Ignoble suggests a loss or lack of some essential high quality of mind or spirit ("an ignoble scramble after material possessions"). Sordid is stronger than all of these in stressing physical or spiritual degradation and lowness ("a sordid story of murder and revenge").

Numinous (NOO-muh-nus)

1 : supernatural, mysterious 2 : filled with a sense of the presence of divinity : holy 3 : appealing to the higher emotions or to the aesthetic sense : spiritual Numinous is from the Latin word numen, meaning "divine will" or "nod" (it suggests a figurative nodding, of assent or of command, of the divine head). English speakers have been using numen for centuries with the meaning "a spiritual force or influence." We began using numinous in the mid-1600s, subsequently endowing it with several senses: "supernatural" or "mysterious" (as in "possessed of a numinous energy force"), "holy" (as in "the numinous atmosphere of the catacombs"), and "appealing to the aesthetic sense" (as in "the numinous nuances of her art"). We also created the nouns numinousness and numinosity, although these are rare.

Myriad (MEER-ee-ud)

1 : ten thousand 2 : a great number In English, the "ten thousand" sense of myriad mostly appears in references to Ancient Greece, such as the following from English historian Connop Thirwall's History of Greece: "4000 men from Peloponnesus had fought at Thermopylae with 300 myriads." More often, English speakers use myriad in the broad sense—both as a singular noun ("a myriad of tiny particles") and a plural noun ("myriads of tiny particles"). Myriad can also serve as an adjective meaning "innumerable" ("myriad particles"). While some usage commentators criticize the noun use, it's been firmly established in English since the 16th century, and in fact is about 200 years older than the adjective. Myriad comes from Greek myrias, which in turn comes from myrioi, meaning "countless" or "ten thousand."

Abrasive (uh-BRAY-siv)

1 : tending to wear away by rubbing 2 : causing irritation Once upon a time, English had two different but similarly derived words meaning "to wear down": abrade and abrase. However, in this fairy tale, only one of the two had a happy ending; while abrade remains a familiar word to modern English speakers, abrase has become quite rare. And yet, abrase lives on in its descendant abrasive, which was formed by combining the verb with the -ive suffix. Both of the verbs, and by extension abrasive, can be traced back to the Latin verb abradere, meaning "to scrape off." Abradere in turn is a combination of ab- and radere, meaning "to scrape."

Iota (eye-OH-tuh)

1 : the 9th letter of the Greek alphabet 2 : an infinitesimal amount : jot The words iota and jot share a lot more than just a common meaning—both ultimately derive from the same word. When Latin scholars transcribed the Greek name of the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet, they spelled it as either iota or jota (the letters i and j were simply variants of each other), and these spellings eventually passed into English as iota and jot. Since the Greek letter iota is the smallest letter of its alphabet, both words eventually came to be used in reference to very small things.

Koine (koy-NAY)

1 : the Greek language commonly spoken and written in eastern Mediterranean countries in the Hellenistic and Roman periods 2 : a dialect or language of a region that has become the common or standard language of a larger area Koine, which means "common" or "shared" in Greek, was the language spoken in the eastern Mediterranean countries from the 4th century B.C.E. until the time of the Byzantine emperor Justinian (mid-6th century C.E.). In linguistics, the word koine is applied to a language developed from contact between dialects of the same language over a large region. Basically, a koine adopts those grammatical and lexical elements from the dialects of the region that are easily recognized by most area speakers and dispenses with those that are not.

Defalcation (dee-fal-KAY-shun)

1 : the act or an instance of embezzling 2 : a failure to meet a promise or an expectation "The tea table shall be set forth every morning with its customary bill of fare, and without any manner of defalcation." No reference to embezzlement there! This line, from a 1712 issue of Spectator magazine, is an example of the earliest, and now archaic, sense of defalcation, which is simply defined as "curtailment." Defalcation is ultimately from the Latin word falx, meaning "sickle," and it has been a part of English since the 1400s. It was used early on of monetary cutbacks (as in "a defalcation in their wages"), and by the 1600s it was used of most any sort of financial reversal (as in "a defalcation of public revenues"). Not till the mid-1800s, however, did defalcation refer to breaches of trust that cause a financial loss, or, specifically, to embezzlement.

Cabal (kuh-BAHL)

1 : the artifices and intrigues of a group of persons secretly united in a plot (as to overturn a government); also : a group engaged in such artifices and intrigues 2 : club, group In A Child's History of England, Charles Dickens associates the word cabal with a group of five ministers in the government of England's King Charles II. The initial letters of the names or titles of those men (Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale) spell cabal, and Dickens dubbed them the "Cabal Ministry." These five men were widely regarded as invidious, secretive plotters and their activities may have encouraged English speakers to associate cabal with high-level government intrigue. But their names are not the source of the word cabal, which was in use decades before Charles II ascended the throne. The term can be traced back through French to cabbala, the Medieval Latin name for the Kabbalah, a traditional system of esoteric Jewish mysticism.

Resilience (rih-ZIL-yunss)

1 : the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress 2 : an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change In physics, resilience is the ability of an elastic material (such as rubber or animal tissue) to absorb energy (such as from a blow) and release that energy as it springs back to its original shape. The recovery that occurs in this phenomenon can be viewed as analogous to a person's ability to bounce back after a jarring setback. Author P. G. Wodehouse took note of this when he wrote: "There is in certain men ... a quality of resilience, a sturdy refusal to acknowledge defeat, which aids them as effectively in affairs of the heart as in encounters of a sterner and more practical kind." The word resilience derives from the present participle of the Latin verb resilire, meaning "to jump back" or "to recoil." The base of resilire is salire, a verb meaning "to leap" that also pops up in the etymologies of such sprightly words as sally and somersault.

Verdure (VER-jer)

1 : the greenness of growing vegetation; also : such vegetation itself 2 : a condition of health and vigor English speakers have had the use of the word verdure since the 14th century, when it made its way into Middle English from Anglo-French. Like the more common verdant, the word traces back to Latin virēre, meaning "to be green." Since the early 16th century, verdure has also been used to refer to a kind of tapestry with a design based on plant forms. The verdure that English speakers sometimes encounter on menus is Italian; in that language verdure refers to green vegetables or to vegetables in general (as in "fettuccine con verdure").

Incumbent (in-KUM-bunt)

1 : the holder of an office or ecclesiastical benefice 2 : one that occupies a particular position or place When incumbent was first used in English in the 15th century, it referred to someone who occupied a benefice—a paid position in a church. This was often a lifetime appointment; the person could only be forced to leave the office in the case of certain specific legal conflicts. In the mid-17th century, incumbent came to refer to anyone holding any office, including elected positions. These days, in the American political system, incumbent generally refers to someone who is the current holder of a position during an election to fill that position. Incumbent came to English through Anglo-French and derives from the Latin incumbere, meaning "to lie down on."

Declension (dih-KLEN-shun)

1 : the inflectional forms of a noun, pronoun, or adjective 2 : a falling off or away : deterioration 3 : descent, slope Declension came into English (via Middle French) in the first half of the 15th century, originating in the Latin verb declinare, meaning "to inflect" or "to turn aside." The word seems to have whiled away its time in the narrow field of grammar until Shakespeare put a new sense of the word in his play Richard III in 1593: "A beauty-waning and distressed widow / ... Seduc'd the pitch and height of his degree / To base declension and loath'd bigamy." This "deterioration" sense led within a few decades to the newest sense of the word still in common use, "descent" or "slope." The 19th century saw still another new sense of the word—meaning "a courteous refusal"—but that sense has remained quite rare.

Usufruct (YOO-zuh-frukt)

1 : the legal right of using and enjoying the fruits or profits of something belonging to another 2 : the right to use or enjoy something Thomas Jefferson said, "The earth belongs in usufruct to the living." He apparently understood that when you hold something in usufruct, you gain something of significant value, but only temporarily. The gains granted by usufruct can be clearly seen in the Latin phrase from which the word developed, usus et fructus, which means "use and enjoyment." Latin speakers condensed that phrase to ususfructus, the term English speakers used as the model for our modern word. Usufruct has been used as a noun for the legal right to use something since the mid-1600s. Any right granted by usufruct ends at a specific point, usually the death of the individual who holds it.

Plinth (PLINTH)

1 : the lowest part of the base of an architectural column 2 : a usually square block serving as a base; broadly : any of various bases or lower parts 3 : a course of stones forming a continuous foundation or base course "These ivy-clad arcades — / These mouldering plinths ... are they all — / All of the famed, and the colossal left...?" In these lines from "The Coliseum," Edgar Allan Poe alludes to a practical feature of classical architecture. The plinth serves the important purpose of raising the base of the column it supports above the ground, thus protecting it from dampness and mold. The humble plinth is usually a mere thick block. It's humbly named, too, for the Greek word plinthos means simply "tile" or "brick." English writers have used plinth, a shortened version of the Latin form plinthus, since the mid-16th century. The word's meaning was later extended to bases for statues, vases, or busts.

Frieze (FREEZ)

1 : the part of an entablature between the architrave and the cornice 2 : a sculptured or richly ornamented band (as on a building or piece of furniture) 3 : a band, line, or series suggesting a frieze Today's word is not the only frieze in English. The other frieze refers to a kind of heavy wool fabric. Both of the frieze homographs derive from French, but each entered that language through a different channel. The woolen homograph is from the Middle Dutch word vriese, which also refers to coarse wool. The frieze that we are featuring as our word today is from the Latin word frisium, meaning "embroidered cloth." That word evolved from phrygium and Phrygia, the name of an ancient country of Asia Minor whose people excelled in metalwork, wood carving, and (unsurprisingly) embroidery. That embroidery lineage influenced the use of frieze for the middle division of an entablature, which commonly has a decorated surface resembling embroidered cloth.

Zenith (ZEE-nith)

1 : the point of the celestial sphere that is directly opposite the nadir and vertically above the observer 2 : the highest point reached in the heavens by a celestial body 3 : culminating point : acme When you reach the zenith, you're at the top, the pinnacle, the summit, the peak. Zenith developed from Arabic terms meaning "the way over one's head," and then traveled through Old Spanish, Medieval Latin, and Middle French before arriving in English. As long ago as the 1300s, English speakers used zenith to name the highest point in the celestial heavens, directly overhead. By the 1600s, zenith was being used for other high points as well. The celestial term is often contrasted with nadir, or the point that is vertically downward from the observer (imagine a line going through the earth from the observer's feet and out the other side into the sky). Figuratively, nadir simply means "the lowest point."

Nadir (NAY-deer)

1 : the point of the celestial sphere that is directly opposite the zenith and vertically downward from the observer 2 : the lowest point Nadir is part of the galaxy of scientific words that have come to us from Arabic, a language that has made important contributions in the vocabulary of mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and chemistry. Nadir derives from an Arabic word meaning "opposite"—the opposite, that is, of the zenith, or the highest point of the celestial sphere, the one vertically above the observer. (The word zenith itself is a modification of another Arabic word that means "the way over one's head.") The English poet John Donne is first on record as having used nadir in the figurative sense of "lowest point" in a sermon he wrote in 1627.

Vicissitude (vuh-SISS-uh-tood)

1 : the quality or state of being changeable : mutability 2 a : a favorable or unfavorable event or situation that occurs by chance : a fluctuation of state or condition b : a difficulty or hardship usually beyond one's control "Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better," wrote British theologian Richard Hooker in the 16th century. That observation may shed some light on vicissitude, a word that can refer simply to the fact of change, or to an instance of it, but that often refers specifically to hardship or difficulty brought about by change. To survive "the vicissitudes of life" is thus to survive life's ups and downs, with special emphasis on the downs. Vicissitude is a descendant of the Latin noun vicis, meaning "change" or "alternation," and it has been a part of the English language since the 16th century. In contemporary usage, it most often occurs in the plural.

Dross (DRAHSS)

1 : the scum that forms on the surface of molten metal 2 : waste or foreign matter : impurity 3 : something that is base, trivial, or inferior Dross has been a part of the English language since Anglo-Saxon times; one 19th-century book on Old English vocabulary dates it back to 1050 A.D. Its Old English ancestors are related to Germanic and Scandinavian words for "dregs" (as in "the dregs of the coffee"), and, like dregs, dross is a word for the less-than-desirable parts of something. Over the years, the relative worthlessness of dross has often been set in contrast to the value of gold, as for example in British poet Christina Rossetti's "The Lowest Room": "Besides, those days were golden days, / Whilst these are days of dross" (1875).

Ablution (uh-BLOO-shun)

1 : the washing of one's body or part of it (as in a religious rite) 2 : the act or action of bathing — used in the plural form Ablution derives via Middle French and Middle English from the Latin verb abluere, meaning "to wash away," formed from the prefix ab- ("away, off") and lavere ("to wash"). Early uses of the word occurred in contexts of alchemy and chemistry. The first known use of ablution to refer to washing as a religious rite occurs in Thomas More's The Apologye Made by Hym (1533). Many religions include some kind of washing of the body in their rituals, usually as a form of purification or dedication. The use of the term to refer to the action of washing one's body without any religious significance did not take hold in English until the mid-18th century. In British English, ablutions can also refer to a building housing bathing and toilet facilities on a military base.

Hoity Toity (hoy-tee-TOY-tee)

1 : thoughtlessly silly or frivolous : flighty 2 : marked by an air of assumed importance : highfalutin Today we most often use hoity-toity as an adjective, but before it was an adjective it was a noun meaning "thoughtless giddy behavior." The noun, which first appeared in print in 1668, was probably created as a singsongy rhyme based on the dialectal English word hoit, meaning "to play the fool." The adjective hoity-toity can stay close to its roots and mean "foolish" ("... as though it were very hoity-toity of me not to know that royal personage." — W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge), but in current use it more often means "pretentious."

Ossify (AH-suh-fye)

1 : to become or change into bone or bony tissue 2 : to become or make hardened or set in one's ways The skeletons of mammals originate as soft cartilage that gradually transforms into hard bone (in humans, the process begins in the womb and continues until late adolescence). English speakers have referred to this bone-building process as ossification since the late 17th century, and the verb ossify appeared at roughly the same time. English speakers had begun to use both ossification and ossify for more figurative types of hardening (such as that of the heart, mind, or soul) by the 19th century. Both words descend from the Latin root os, meaning "bone." Os is also an English word that appears in scientific contexts as a synonym of bone, and the Latin term is an ancestor of the word osseous, which means "consisting of or resembling bone."

Parlay (PAHR-lay)

1 : to bet in a parlay 2 a : to exploit successfully b : to increase or otherwise transform into something of much greater value If you're the gambling type, you may already know that parlay can also be used as a noun describing a series of bets in which a person places a bet, then puts the original stake of money and all of its winnings on new wagers. But you might not know that parlay represents a modified spelling of the French name for such bets: paroli. You might also be unaware that the original French word is still occasionally used in English with the same meaning as the noun parlay. Be careful not to mix up parlay with the similar word parley, meaning "to discuss terms with an enemy." Although the spellings are very close, parley comes from the Latin word for "speech."

Rankle (RANK-ul)

1 : to cause anger, irritation, or deep bitterness in 2 : to feel anger and irritation The history of today's word is something of a sore subject. When rankle was first used in English, it meant "to fester," and that meaning is linked to the word's Old French ancestor—the noun raoncle or draoncle, which meant "festering sore." Etymologists think this Old French word was derived from the Latin dracunculus, a diminutive form of draco, which means "serpent" and which is the source of the English word dragon. The transition from serpents to sores apparently occurred because people thought certain ulcers or tumors looked like small serpents.

Beleaguer (bih-LEE-gur)

1 : to cause distress to : besiege 2 : trouble, harass English speakers created beleaguer from the Dutch word belegeren in the 16th century. "[Military men] will not vouchsafe ... to use our ancient terms belonging to matters of war, but do call a camp by the Dutch name," commented the English soldier and diplomat Sir John Smyth in 1590. The word for "camp" that he was referring to is leaguer. That term in turn comes from Dutch leger, which is one of the building blocks of belegeren (literally, "to camp around"). But neither leaguer nor beleaguer were in fact utterly foreign. Old English leger, the source of our modern lair, is related to the Dutch word. And Old English be- ("about, around"), as seen in besiege and beset, is related to the Dutch prefix be- in belegeren.

Nictitate (NIK-tuh-tayt)

1 : to close and open quickly : to shut one eye briefly : wink 2 : to close and open the eyelids Nictitate didn't just happen in the blink of an eye; it developed over time as an alteration of the older verb nictate, which also means "to wink." Both verbs trace to the Latin word for winking, nictare. The addition of the extra syllable was apparently influenced by Latin verbs ending in -itare, such as palpitare and agitare (which gave us palpitate and agitate, respectively). Today, nictitate has a special use in the animal world. Since the early 18th century, scientists have used nictitating membrane to describe the so-called "third eyelid": the thin, usually transparent membrane in the eyes of birds, fishes, and other vertebrates that helps keep the eyeball moist and clean.

Negotiate (nih-GOH-shee-ayt)

1 : to confer with another so as to arrive at the settlement of some matter; also : to arrange for or bring about by such conferences 2 : to transfer to another by delivery or endorsement in return for equivalent value 3 : to get through, around, or over successfully For the first 250 years of its life, negotiate had meanings that hewed pretty closely to its Latin root, negotiari, meaning "to carry on business." Around the middle of the 19th century, though, it developed the meaning "to successfully travel along or over." Although this sense was criticized in the New York Sun in 1906 as a "barbarism creeping into the language," and Henry Fowler's 1926 A Dictionary of Modern English Usage declared that any writer who used it was "literally a barbarian," it has thrived and is now fully established.

Bamboozle (bam-BOO-zul)

1 : to deceive by underhanded methods : dupe, hoodwink 2 : to confuse, frustrate, or throw off thoroughly or completely In 1710, Irish author Jonathan Swift wrote an article on "the continual Corruption of our English Tongue" in which he complained of "the Choice of certain Words invented by some pretty Fellows." Among the inventions Swift disliked were bamboozle, bubble (a dupe), put (a fool), and sham. (Perhaps he objected to the use of sham as a verb; he himself had used the adjective meaning "false" a couple of years previously.) What all these words appear to have in common is a connection to the underworld as jargon of criminals. Other than that, the origin of bamboozle remains a mystery, but the over-300-year-old word has clearly defied Swift's assertion that "All new affected Modes of Speech . . . are the first perishing Parts in any Language."

Wane (WAYN)

1 : to decrease in size, extent, or degree 2 : to fall gradually from power, prosperity, or influence "Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour / Draws on apace four happy days bring in / Another moon: But oh, methinks how slow / This old moon wanes!" So Theseus describes his eagerness for his wedding night in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. As illustrated by Theseus' words, wane is a word often called upon to describe the seeming decrease in size of the moon in the later phases of the lunar cycle. The traditional opposite of wane is wax, a once common but now infrequently used synonym of grow. Wane and wax have been partnered in reference to the moon since the Middle Ages.

Deliquesce (del-ih-KWESS)

1 : to dissolve or melt away 2 : to become soft or liquid with age or maturity—used of some fungal structures (as the gills of a mushroom) Deliquesce derives from the prefix de- ("from, down, away") and a form of the Latin verb liquēre, meaning "to be fluid." Things that deliquesce, it could be said, turn to mush in more ways than one. In scientific contexts, a substance that deliquesces absorbs moisture from the atmosphere until it dissolves in the absorbed water and forms a solution. When plants and fungi deliquesce, they lose rigidity as they age. When deliquesce is used in non-scientific contexts, it is often in a figurative or humorous way to suggest the act of "melting away" under exhaustion, heat, or idleness, as in "teenagers deliquescing in 90-degree temperatures."

Elicit (ih-LISS-it)

1 : to draw forth or bring out (something latent or potential) 2 : to call forth or draw out (as information or a response) Elicit derives from the past participle of the Latin verb elicere, formed by combining the prefix e- (meaning "away") with the verb lacere, meaning "to entice by charm or attraction." It is not related to its near-homophone, the adjective illicit—that word, meaning "unlawful," traces back to another Latin verb, licēre, meaning "to be permitted." Nor is elicit related to the verb solicit, even though it sounds like it should be. Solicit derives from Latin sollicitare ("to disturb"), formed by combining the adjective sollus, meaning "whole," with the past participle of the verb ciēre, meaning "to move."

Limn (LIM)

1 : to draw or paint on a surface 2 : to outline in clear sharp detail : delineate 3 : describe Allow us to shed some light on the history of limn, a word with lustrous origins. Limn traces to the Anglo-French verb enluminer and ultimately to the Latin illuminare, which means "to illuminate." Its use as an English verb dates from the days of Middle English; at first, limn referred to the action of illuminating (that is, decorating) medieval manuscripts with gold, silver, or brilliant colors. William Shakespeare extended the term to painting in his poem Venus and Adonis: "Look when a painter would surpass the life / In limning out a well-proportioned steed...." Soon after, limn began to be used as a word for illustrating or giving detail without a paintbrush.

Ruminate (ROO-muh-nayt)

1 : to engage in contemplation : meditate 2 : to chew again what has been chewed slightly and swallowed : chew the cud When you ruminate, you chew something over, either literally or figuratively. Literal rumination may seem a little gross to humans, but to cows, chewing your cud (that's partially digested food brought up from the stomach for another chew) is just a natural part of life. Figurative ruminating is much more palatable to humans; that kind of deep, meditative thought is often deemed quite a worthy activity. The verb ruminate has described metaphorical chewing over since the early 1500s and actual chewing since later that same century. Our English word derives from and shares the meanings of the Latin ruminari, which in turn derives from rumen, the Latin name for the first stomach compartment of ruminant animals (that is, creatures like cows that chew their cud).

Exasperate (ig-ZASS-puh-rayt)

1 : to excite the anger of : enrage 2 : to cause irritation or annoyance to Exasperate hangs with a rough crowd. It derives from exasperatus, the past participle of the Latin verb exasperare, which in turn was formed by combining ex- with asper, meaning "rough." Another descendant of asper in English is asperity, which can refer to the roughness of a surface or the roughness of someone's temper. Another relative, albeit a distant one, is the English word spurn, meaning "to reject." Lest you wish to exasperate your readers, you should take care not to confuse exasperate with the similar-sounding exacerbate, another Latin-derived verb that means "to make worse," as in "Their refusal to ask for help only exacerbated the problem."

Ostracize (AH-struh-syze)

1 : to exile by ostracism 2 : to exclude from a group by common consent In ancient Greece, prominent citizens whose power or influence threatened the stability of the state could be exiled by a practice called ostracism. Voters would elect to banish another citizen by writing that citizen's name down on a potsherd. Those receiving enough votes would then be subject to temporary exile from the state (usually for ten years). The English verb ostracize can mean "to exile by the ancient method of ostracism," but these days it usually refers to the general exclusion of one person from a group at the agreement of its members. Ostracism and ostracize derive from the Greek ostrakizein ("to banish by voting with potsherds"). Its ancestor, the Greek ostrakon ("shell" or "potsherd"), also helped to give English the word oyster.

Ideate (EYE-dee-ayt)

1 : to form an idea or conception of (something) 2 : to form an idea Like idea and ideal, ideate comes from the Greek verb idein, which means "to see." The sight-thought connection came courtesy of Plato, the Greek philosopher who based his theory of the ideal on the concept of seeing, claiming that a true philosopher can see the essential nature of things and can recognize their ideal form or state. Early uses of idea, ideal, and ideate in English were associated with Platonic philosophy; idea meant "an archetype" or "a standard of perfection," ideal meant "existing as an archetype," and ideate referred to forming Platonic ideas. But though ideate is tied to ancient philosophy, the word itself is a modern concoction, relatively speaking. It first appeared in English only about 400 years ago.

Glean (GLEEN)

1 : to gather grain or other produce left by reapers 2 a : to gather (as information) bit by bit b : to pick over in search of relevant material 3 : to find out Glean comes from Middle English glenen, which traces to Anglo-French glener, meaning "to glean." The French borrowed their word from Late Latin glennare, which also means "to glean" and is itself of Celtic origin. Both the grain-gathering sense and the collecting-bit-by-bit senses of our glean date back at least to the 14th century. Over the years, and especially in the 20th and 21st centuries, glean has also come to be used frequently with the meaning "to find out, learn, ascertain." This sense has been criticized by folks who think glean should always imply the drudgery involved in the literal grain-gathering sense, but it is well established and perfectly valid.

Feign (FAYN)

1 : to give a false appearance of : to induce as a false impression 2 : to assert as if true : pretend Feign is all about faking it, but that hasn't always been so. In one of its earliest senses, feign meant "to fashion, form, or shape." That meaning is true to the term's Latin ancestor: the verb fingere, which also means "to shape." The current senses of feign still retain the essence of the Latin source, since to feign something, such as surprise or an illness, requires one to fashion an impression or shape an image. Several other English words that trace to the same ancestor refer to things that are shaped with either the hands, as in figure and effigy, or the imagination, as in fiction and figment.

Herald (HAIR-uld)

1 : to give notice of : announce 2 a : to greet especially with enthusiasm : hail b : publicize 3 : to signal the approach of : foreshadow The exact origin of herald is uncertain, but it is thought to derive from Germanic roots. Specifically, etymologists believe that herald developed from an assumed Frankish compound whose first component is akin to the Old High German heri-, meaning "army," and whose second component is akin to the Old High German word waltan, meaning "to rule." When herald first appeared on the scene in the 14th century, it referred to an official at a tournament of arms whose duties included the making of announcements. The verb forms, extending the "announcement" idea, soon followed.

Loll (LAHL)

1 : to hang or let hang loosely : droop 2 : to recline, lean, or move in a lax, lazy, or indolent manner : lounge Loll has origins similar to those of another soothing verb, lull, which means "to cause to rest or sleep." Both words can be traced back to 14th-century Middle English and probably originated as imitations of the soft sounds people make when resting or trying to soothe someone else to sleep. Loll has also been used in English as a noun meaning "the act of lolling" or "a relaxed posture," but that use is now considered archaic. In its "recline" or "lean" sense, loll shares synonyms with a number of "l" verbs, including loaf, lounge, and laze.

Keelhaul (KEEL-hawl)

1 : to haul under the keel of a ship as punishment or torture 2 : to rebuke severely In the mid-1600s, British monarchs were intent on using their powerful navy to expand their empire. Insubordination was not tolerated, and mutinous sailors were disciplined severely to discourage others from similar rebellion. Keelhauling was one of the worst penalties that could befall a renegade mariner. Although they definitely practiced the gruesome punishment, the British did not invent it—the Dutch did. Keelhaul is a translation of the Dutch word kielhalen, which means "to haul under the keel of a ship." Even after the practice was banned on European naval vessels in the mid-1800s, the word keelhaul remained in English as a term for a severe scolding.

Wassail (WAH-sul)

1 : to indulge in riotous drinking : carouse 2 : (dialectal, England) to sing carols from house to house at Christmas 3 : to drink to the health or thriving of The salutation wassail, from the Old Norse toast ves heill ("be well"), has accompanied English toast-making since the 12th century. By the 14th century, wassail was being used for the drink itself, and it eventually came to be used especially of a hot drink (of wine, beer, or cider with spices, sugar, and usually baked apples) drunk around Christmastime. This beverage warmed the stomachs and hearts of many Christmas revelers and was often shared with Christmas carolers. In the 14th century the verb wassail also came to describe the carousing associated with indulgence in the drink; later, it was used of other activities associated with wassail and the holiday season, like caroling. 17th-century farmers added cattle and trees to the wassail tradition by drinking to their health or vitality during wintertime festivities.

Harry (HAIR-ee)

1 : to make a pillaging or destructive raid on : assault 2 : to force to move along by harassing 3 : to torment by or as if by constant attack Was there once a warlike man named Harry who is the source for today's word? One particularly belligerent Harry does come to mind: Shakespeare once described how "famine, sword, and fire" accompanied "the warlike Harry," England's King Henry the Fifth. But neither this king nor any of his namesakes are the source for the verb harry. Rather, harry (or a word resembling it) has been a part of English for as long as there has been anything that could be called English. It took the form hergian in Old English and harien in Middle English, passing through numerous variations before finally settling into its modern spelling. The word's Old English ancestors are related to the Old High German words heriōn ("to lay waste") and heri ("army").

Embellish (im-BELL-ish)

1 : to make beautiful with ornamentation : decorate 2 : to heighten the attractiveness of by adding decorative or fanciful details : enhance Like its synonyms adorn, ornament, and garnish, embellish means to make something beautiful by the addition of a decorative or fanciful feature. Traditionally, the word is used specifically to stress the addition of superfluous or adventitious ornament, as in "The printer embellished the page with a floral border." Embellish differs from its synonyms, however, in that it is sometimes used in a euphemistic way to refer to the inclusion of details that are not necessarily true to make a story sound more appealing. The word derives via Middle English from the Anglo-French verb embelir, from en- and bel ("beautiful").

Attenuate (uh-TEN-yuh-wayt)

1 : to make thin or slender 2 : to make thin in consistency : rarefy 3 : to lessen the amount, force, magnitude, or value of : weaken 4 : to reduce the severity, virulence, or vitality of Attenuate ultimately comes from a combination of the Latin prefix ad-, meaning "to" or "toward," and tenuis, meaning "thin." It has been on the medical scene since the 16th century, when a health treatise recommended eating dried figs to attenuate bodily fluids. That treatment might be outmoded nowadays, but attenuate is still used in medicine to refer to procedures that weaken a pathogen or reduce the severity of a disease. Most often, though, attenuate implies that something has been reduced or weakened by physical or chemical means. You can attenuate wire by drawing it through successively smaller holes, or attenuate gold by hammering it into thin sheets. You can even attenuate the momentum of a play by including too many costume changes.

Gravitate (GRAV-uh-tayt)

1 : to move under the influence of gravitation 2 a : to move toward something b : to be drawn or attracted especially by natural inclination Gravity, gravitation, and gravitate descend from the Latin gravitas, meaning "weight." The first to arrive on the scene was gravity, which appeared in the early 16th century. (Originally meaning "dignity or sobriety of bearing," it quickly came to mean "weight" as well.) Next came gravitation (used to describe the force of gravity) and gravitate—both mid-17th century arrivals. Gravitate once meant "to apply weight or pressure," but that use is now obsolete. In the late 17th century, it was recorded in the sense "to move under the effect of gravitation." It then acquired a more general sense of "to move toward something" (such as toward a specific location), and finally a metaphorical sense of "to be attracted" (as toward a person or a vocation).

Imbue (im-BYOO)

1 : to permeate or influence as if by dyeing 2 : to tinge or dye deeply 3 : to provide with something freely or naturally : endow Like its synonym infuse, imbue implies the introduction of one thing into another so as to affect it throughout. A nation can be imbued with pride, for example, or a photograph might be imbued with a sense of melancholy. In the past imbue has also been used synonymously with imbrue, an obscure word meaning "to drench or stain," but etymologists do not think the two words are related. Imbue derives from the Latin verb imbuere, meaning "to dye, wet, or moisten." Imbrue has been traced back through Anglo-French and Old French to the Latin verb bibere, meaning "to drink."

Hector (HEK-ter)

1 : to play the bully : swagger 2 : to intimidate or harass by bluster or personal pressure Hector wasn't always a bully. In Homer's Iliad, the eldest son of King Priam of Troy was a model soldier, son, father, and friend, the champion of the Trojan army until he was killed by the Greek hero Achilles. How did the name of a Trojan paragon become a generic synonym of bully? That pejorative English use was likely influenced by gangs of rowdy street toughs who roamed London in the 17th century and called themselves "Hectors." They may have thought themselves gallant young blades, but to the general populace they were merely swaggering bullies who intimidated passersby and vandalized property. By 1660, hector was being used as a noun for the sort of blustering braggarts who populated those gangs, and as a verb as well.

Proscribe (proh-SCRYBE)

1 : to publish the name of as condemned to death with the property of the condemned forfeited to the state 2 : to condemn or forbid as harmful or unlawful : prohibit Proscribe and prescribe both have Latin-derived prefixes meaning "before" attached to the verb scribe (from scribere, meaning "to write"). Yet the two words have very distinct, often nearly opposite meanings. Why? In a way, you could say it's the law. In the 15th and 16th centuries both words had legal implications. To proscribe was to publish the name of a person who had been condemned, outlawed, or banished. To prescribe meant "to lay down a rule," including legal rules or orders.

Mulct (MULKT)

1 : to punish by a fine 2 a : to defraud especially of money : swindle b : to obtain by fraud, duress, or theft A fine assessed as a penalty for an infraction is generally considered justifiable. Fraud, on the other hand, is wrong—it's just the sort of thing that deserves a fine. So in mulct we have a unique word, one that means both "to fine" and "to defraud." The "fine" sense came first. Mulct was borrowed from the Latin word for a fine, which is multa or mulcta. The "fine" sense is still in use, mostly in legal contexts ("the court mulcted the defendant for punitive damages"), but these days mulct is more often used for an illegal act. It has been speculated that the use may have come about by association with the verb milk, in its sense "to exploit, to coerce profit from" (as in "she was milked by the lawyers for everything she had"), but that speculation has never been proven.

Venerate (VEN-uh-rayt)

1 : to regard with reverential respect or with admiring deference 2 : to honor (something, such as an icon or a relic) with a ritual act of devotion Venerate, revere, reverence, worship, and adore all mean to honor and admire profoundly and respectfully. Venerate implies a holding as holy or sacrosanct because of character, association, or age. Revere stresses deference and tenderness of feeling ("a professor revered by students"). Reverence presupposes an intrinsic merit and inviolability in the one honored and a similar depth of feeling in the one honoring ("she reverenced the academy's code of honor"). Worship implies homage usually expressed in words or ceremony ("he worships their memory"). Adore implies love and stresses the notion of an individual and personal attachment ("we adored our doctor"). Venerate, incidentally, traces back to the Latin verb venerari, from vener-, meaning "love" or "charm."

Winnow (WIN-oh)

1 : to remove (as chaff) by a current of air; also : to free (as grain) from waste in this manner 2 : to remove, separate, or select as if by winnowing 3 : to narrow or reduce 4 : to blow on or fan Beginning as windwian in Old English, winnow first referred to the removal of chaff from grain by a current of air. This use was soon extended to describe the removal of anything undesirable or unwanted (a current example of this sense would be "winnowing out outdated information"). People then began using the word for the selection of the most desirable elements (as in "winnowing out the true statements from the lies"). The association of winnow with the movement of air led to the meaning "to beat with or as if with wings," but that use is rare enough that it is found only in Merriam-Webster Unabridged. The word's last meaning ("to blow on or fan") blew in at the turn of the 19th century.

Rectify (REK-tuh-fye)

1 : to set right : remedy 2 : to purify (as alcohol) especially by repeated or fractional distillation 3 : to correct by removing errors Which of the following words does not share its ancestry with rectify—direct, regimen, obstruct, correct, or resurrection? Like rectify, four of these words ultimately come from Latin regere, which can mean "to lead straight," "to direct," or "to rule." Correct and direct come from regere via Latin corrigere and dirigere, respectively. Resurrection comes from Latin resurgere, whose stem surgere, meaning "to rise," is a combination of sub- and regere. Regimen is from Latin regimen ("position of authority," "direction," "set of rules"), itself from regere. And rectify is from regere by way of Latin rectus ("right"). Obstruct is the only one of the set that has no relation to rectify. It traces back to Latin struere, meaning "to build" or "to heap up."

Mollify (MAH-luh-fye)

1 : to soothe in temper or disposition : appease 2 : to reduce the rigidity of : soften 3 : to reduce in intensity : assuage, temper Mollify, pacify, appease, and placate all mean "to ease the anger or disturbance of," although each implies a slightly different way of pouring oil on troubled waters. Pacify suggests the restoration of a calm or peaceful state, while appease implies the quieting of insistent demands by making concessions; you can appease appetites and desires as well as persons. Placate is similar to appease, but it often indicates a more complete transformation of bitterness to goodwill. Mollify, with its root in Latin mollis, meaning "soft," implies soothing hurt feelings or anger.

Flounder (FLOUN-der)

1 : to struggle to move or obtain footing : thrash about wildly 2 : to proceed or act clumsily or ineffectually Despite the fact that flounder is a relatively common English verb, its origins in the language remain obscure. It is thought that it may be an alteration of an older verb, founder. To founder is to become disabled, to give way or collapse, or to come to grief or to fail. In the case of a waterborne vessel, to founder is to sink. The oldest of these senses of founder, "to become disabled," was also used, particularly in reference to a horse and its rider, for the act of stumbling violently or collapsing. It may have been this sense of founder that later appeared in altered form as flounder in the sense of "to stumble."

Galvanize (GAL-vuh-nyze)

1 : to subject to the action of an electric current especially for the purpose of stimulating physiologically 2 a : to stimulate or excite as if by an electric shock b : to react as if stimulated by an electric shock 3 : to coat (iron or steel) with zinc; especially : to immerse in molten zinc to produce a coating of zinc-iron alloy Luigi Galvani was an Italian physician and physicist who, in the 1770s, studied the electrical nature of nerve impulses by applying electrical stimulation to frogs' leg muscles, causing them to contract. Although Galvani's theory that animal tissue contained an innate electrical impulse was disproven, the Italian word galvanismo came to describe a current of electricity especially when produced by chemical action. English speakers borrowed the word as galvanism around 1797; the verb galvanize appeared a few years later, in the early 19th century. Charlotte Brontë used the verb figuratively in her 1853 novel Villette: "Her approach always galvanized him to new and spasmodic life." These days, galvanize also means to cover metal with zinc or a zinc alloy to protect it from rust (as in galvanized carpentry nails).

Jettison (JET-uh-sun)

1 : to throw (goods) overboard to lighten a ship or aircraft in distress 2 : discard Jettison comes from the Anglo-French noun geteson, meaning "action of throwing," and is ultimately from the Latin verb jactare, meaning "to throw." The noun jettison ("a voluntary sacrifice of cargo to lighten a ship's load in time of distress") entered English in the 15th century; the verb has been with us since the 19th century. The noun is also the source of the word jetsam ("jettisoned goods"), which is often paired with flotsam ("floating wreckage"). These days you don't have to be on a sinking ship to jettison something. In addition to literally "throwing overboard," jettison means simply "to get rid of." You might jettison some old magazines that are cluttering your house, or you might make a plan but jettison it at the last minute.

Deter (di-TER)

1 : to turn aside, discourage, or prevent from acting 2 : inhibit The word deter is rooted in fear. It was borrowed into English around the mid-16th century from the Latin verb deterrēre, which in turn was formed by combining de-, meaning "from" or "away," with terrēre, meaning "to frighten." Terrēre is also the source of terror, terrible, and even terrific, which originally meant "very bad" or "frightful." These days, you may be deterred by something that frightens you or by something that simply causes you to think about the difficult or unpleasant consequences of continuing. The word can also mean "to inhibit," as in "painting to deter rust."

Parry (PAIR-ee)

1 : to ward off a weapon or blow 2 : to evade especially by an adroit answer Parry (which is used in fencing, among other applications) probably comes from parez, a form of the French verb parer, meaning "to guard or ward off." Its history can be compared with that of two other English words: parapet and parasol. Those two terms go back to an Italian word (parare) that means "to shield or guard." (A parapet shields soldiers and a parasol wards off the sun.) All three—parry, parapet, and parasol—can ultimately be traced to the Latin parare, meaning "to prepare." And they're not alone. Other descendants of the Latin term include apparatus, disparate, emperor, and even prepare.

Moil (MOYL)

1 : to work hard : drudge 2 : to be in continuous agitation : churn, swirl Moil may mean "to work hard" but its origins are the opposite of hard; it ultimately derives from Latin mollis, meaning "soft." (Other English derivatives of mollis are emollient, mollify, and mollusk.) A more immediate ancestor of moil is the Anglo-French verb moiller, meaning "to make wet, dampen," and one of the early meanings of moil in English was "to become wet and muddy." The "work hard" sense of moil appears most frequently in the pairing "toil and moil." Both moil and toil can also be nouns meaning "work." Moil implies work that is drudgery and toil suggests prolonged and fatiguing labor.

Veridical (vuh-RID-ih-kul)

1 : truthful, veracious 2 : not illusory : genuine We'll tell only the truth here: veridical comes from the Latin word veridicus, which itself is from two other Latin words: verus, meaning "true," and dicere, meaning "to say." Verus is an ancestor of several English words, among them verity, verify, and very (which originally meant "true"). The word verdict is related to veridical on both sides of the family: it also traces back to verus and dicere. Veridical itself is the least common of the verus words. You're most likely to encounter it in contexts dealing with psychology and philosophy.

Withy (WITH-ee)

1 : willow; especially : one whose pliable twigs are used for furniture and basketry 2 : a flexible slender twig or branch Withy is a word with several synonyms. In its broadest use, it is simply another word for "willow," but it can also be used for a particular category of willows which are also known by the name osier. Additionally, the word withe can be substituted for the "flexible slender twig or branch" sense of withy. Osier entered English from medieval French, whereas willow, withy, and withe all have their origins in Old English. Willow comes from welig; withy comes from wīthig; and withe comes from withthe, a word indirectly related to wīthig.

Notch (NAHTCH)

1 a : a V-shaped indentation b : a slit made to serve as a record c : a rounded indentation cut into the pages of a book on the edge opposite the spine 2 : a deep close pass : gap 3 : degree, step Occasionally, you might hear a child ask for a "napple," as in "I would like a napple," mistaking the phrase "an apple" for "a napple." A similar error is believed to be behind notch, which may have resulted from a misdivision of "an otch." (Otch is a noun that is assumed to have existed in earlier English as a borrowing of Middle French oche, meaning "an incision made to keep a record.") Notch would not be alone in developing from such a mistake. The words newt and nickname were formed, respectively, from misdivisions of "an ewte" and "an ekename." Going in the other direction, umpire first appears in Middle English as oumpere, a mistaken rendering of "a noumpere."

Yankee (YANG-kee)

1 a : a native or inhabitant of New England b : a native or inhabitant of the northern United States 2 : a native or inhabitant of the United States Many etymologies have been proposed for Yankee, but its origin is still uncertain. What we do know is that in its earliest recorded use Yankee was a pejorative term for American colonials used by the British military. The first evidence we have is in a letter written in 1758 by British General James Wolfe, who had a very low opinion of the New England troops assigned to him. We also have a report of British troops using the term to abuse citizens of Boston. In 1775, however, after the battles of Lexington and Concord had shown the colonials that they could stand up to British regulars, Yankee became suddenly respectable and the colonials adopted the British pejorative in defiance. Ever since then, a derisive and a respectable use of Yankee have existed side by side.

Cavalcade (kav-ul-KAYD)

1 a : a procession of riders or carriages b : a procession of vehicles or ships 2 : a dramatic sequence or procession : series When cavalcade was first used in English, it meant "a horseback ride" or "a march or raid made on horseback." Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, used it this way in his 1647 History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England: "He had with some Troops, made a Cavalcade or two into the West." From there came the "procession of riders" meaning and eventual applications to processions in a broader sense. Cavalcade came to English via French from the Old Italian noun cavalcata, which in turn came from an Old Italian verb, cavalcare, meaning "to go on horseback." Ultimately, these words came from the Latin word caballus, meaning "horse." The combining form -cade also appears in other words describing particular kinds of processions, such as motorcade or the less common aquacade.

Cadence (KAY-dunss)

1 a : a rhythmic sequence or flow of sounds in language b : the beat, time, or measure of rhythmical motion or activity 2 a : a falling inflection of the voice b : a musical chord sequence moving to a harmonic close or rest 3 : the modulated and rhythmic recurrence of a sound especially in nature Falling into the hands of English speakers in the 14th century, cadence derives via Middle English and Old Italian from the Latin verb cadere, meaning "to fall." (Cadere can be found in the history of many common English words, including decay, coincide, and accident.) We most often hear cadence used in contexts pertaining to voice or music—it might refer to the familiar way in which someone speaks, or the rhythms employed by a rap artist, or the rising and falling notes of a bird's call. Cadenza, the Old Italian word that factors into the history of cadence, has its own place in English as well. Cadenza in English usually refers to a brilliant musical flourish played before closing out an aria.

Vestige (VESS-tij)

1 a : a trace, mark, or visible sign left by something (such as an ancient city or a condition or practice) vanished or lost b : the smallest quantity or trace 2 : a bodily part or organ that is small and degenerate or imperfectly developed in comparison to one more fully developed in an earlier stage of the individual, in a past generation, or in closely related forms Vestige is derived via Middle French from the Latin noun vestigium, meaning "footstep, footprint, or track." Like trace and track, vestige can refer to a perceptible sign made by something that has now passed. Of the three words, vestige is the most likely to apply to a tangible reminder, such as a fragment or remnant of what is past and gone. Trace, on the other hand, may suggest any line, mark, or discernible effect ("the snowfield is pockmarked with the traces of caribou"). Track implies a continuous line that can be followed ("the fossilized tracks of dinosaurs").

Sabotage (sa-BOH)

1 a : a wooden shoe worn in various European countries b : a strap across the instep in a shoe especially of the sandal type; also : a shoe having a sabot strap 2 : a thrust-transmitting carrier that positions a missile in a gun barrel or launching tube and that prevents the escape of gas ahead of the missile 3 : a dealing box designed to hold several decks of playing cards The term sabot may have first been introduced into English in a 1607 translation from French: "wooden shoes," readers were informed, are "properly called sabots." The gun-related sense appeared in the mid-1800s with the invention of a wooden gizmo that kept gun shells from shifting in the gun barrel. Apparently, someone thought the device resembled a wooden shoe and named it sabot (with later generations of this device carrying on the name). Another kind of French sabot—a metal "shoe" used to secure rails to railway ties—is said to be the origin of the word sabotage, from workers destroying the sabots during a French railway strike in the early 1900s. The word sabot is probably related to savate, a Middle French word for an old shoe.

Purlieu (PERL-yoo)

1 a : an outlying or adjacent district b : (plural) environs, neighborhood 2 a : a frequently visited place : haunt b : (plural) confines, bounds In medieval England, if you wished to assert the extent of your land, you might hold a ceremony called a perambulation, in which you would walk around and record your property's boundaries in the presence of witnesses. If your land bordered a royal forest, there could be some confusion about where your land started and the royal forest ended. By performing a perambulation, you could gain some degree of ownership over disputed forest tracts, although your use of them would be restricted by forest laws. Such regained forest property was called a purlewe (or as it was later spelled, purlieu), which derives from the Anglo-French word for "perambulation."

Soporific (sah-puh-RIFF-ik)

1 a : causing or tending to cause sleep b : tending to dull awareness or alertness 2 : of, relating to, or marked by sleepiness or lethargy "It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is 'soporific.' I have never felt sleepy after eating lettuces; but then I am not a rabbit." In The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies by Beatrix Potter, the children of Benjamin Bunny were very nearly done in by Mr. McGregor because they ate soporific lettuces that put them into a deep sleep. Their near fate can help you recall the history of soporific. The term traces to the Latin noun sopor, which means "deep sleep." (That root is related to somnus, the Latin word for sleep and the name of the Roman god of sleep.) French speakers used sopor as the basis of soporifique, which was probably the model for the English soporific.

Obfuscate (AHB-fuh-skayt)

1 a : darken b : to make obscure 2 : confuse 3 : to be evasive, unclear, or confusing To obfuscate something means to make it so that it isn't clear or transparent, much like dirty water makes it hard to see to the bottom of a pond. The verb shares its ob- root (meaning "over, completely") with obscure, another word that can refer to the act of concealing something or making it more difficult to see or understand. The rest of obfuscate comes from Latin fuscus, which means "dark brown" and is distantly related to our word dusk.

Sylvan (SILL-vun)

1 a : living or located in the woods or forest b : of, relating to, or characteristic of the woods or forest 2 a : made from wood : wooden b : abounding in woods, groves, or trees : wooded In Latin, sylva means "wood" or "forest," and the related Sylvanus is the name of the Roman god of the woods and fields—a god sometimes identified with the Greek god Pan. These words gave rise to English sylvan in the 16th century. The English word was first used as a noun meaning "a mythological deity of the woods," eventually taking on the broader meaning "one who frequents the woods." The adjective sylvan followed soon after the noun and is now the more common word. Some other offspring of sylva (which can also be spelled silva) include silviculture ("a branch of forestry dealing with the development and care of forests"), sylvatic (a synonym of sylvan that can also mean "occurring in or affecting wild animals"), and the first name Sylvia.

Thew (THOO)

1 a : muscular power or development b : strength, vitality 2 : muscle, sinew — usually used in plural Thew has had a long, difficult past during which it discovered its strengths and weaknesses. In Middle English it carried a number of meanings, referring to a custom, habit, personal quality, or virtue. The word began to tire in the 16th century but was soon revitalized with a new meaning: it began to be used specifically for the quality of physical strength and later for the muscles demonstrating that quality. In time, the word buddied up with sinew in both literal and figurative turns of phrase, as in "the thews and sinews of my body ached" and "their love affair was the thew and sinew of the story."

Obtuse (ahb-TOOSS)

1 a : not pointed or acute : blunt b : exceeding 90 degrees but less than 180 degrees c : having an obtuse angle 2 a : lacking sharpness or quickness of sensibility or intellect : insensitive, stupid b : difficult to comprehend : not clear or precise in thought or expression Obtuse, which comes to us from the Latin word obtusus, meaning "dull" or "blunt," can describe an angle that is not acute or a person who is mentally "dull" or slow of mind. The word has also developed a somewhat controversial sense of "hard to comprehend," probably as a result of confusion with abstruse. This sense of obtuse is well established, and it is now possible to speak of "obtuse language" and "obtuse explanations," as well as "obtuse angles" and "obtuse readers"; however, it may attract some criticism. If you're hesitant about using new meanings of words, you should probably stick with abstruse when you want a word meaning "difficult to understand."

Glaucous (GLAW-kus)

1 a : of a pale yellow-green color b : of a light bluish-gray or bluish-white color 2 : having a powdery or waxy coating that gives a frosted appearance and tends to rub off Glaucous came to English—by way of Latin glaucus—from Greek glaukos, meaning "gleaming" or "gray," and has been used to describe a range of pale colors from a yellow-green to a bluish-gray. The word is often found in horticultural writing describing the pale color of the leaves of various plants as well as the powdery bloom that can be found on some fruits and leaves. The stem glauc- appears in some other English words, the most familiar of which is glaucoma, referring to a disease of the eye that can result in gradual loss of vision. Glauc- also appears in the not-so-familiar glaucope, a word used to describe someone with fair hair and blue eyes (and a companion to cyanope, the term for someone with fair hair and brown eyes).

Genteel (jen-TEEL)

1 a : of or relating to the gentry or upper class b : elegant or graceful in manner, appearance, or shape c : free from vulgarity or rudeness : polite 2 : marked by false delicacy, prudery, or affectation In Roman times, the Latin noun gens was used to refer to a clan, a group of related people. Its plural gentes was used to designate all the people of the world, particularly non-Romans. An adjective form, gentilis, applied to both senses. Over time, the adjective was borrowed and passed through several languages. It came into Old French as gentil, a word that then meant "high-born" (in modern French it means "nice"); that term was carried over into Anglo-French, where English speakers found and borrowed it in the early 17th century.

Nemesis (NEM-uh-siss)

1 a : one that inflicts retribution or vengeance b : a formidable and usually victorious rival or opponent 2 a : an act or effect of retribution b : a source of harm or ruin : curse Nemesis was the Greek goddess of vengeance, a deity who doled out rewards for noble acts and punishment for evil ones. The Greeks believed that Nemesis didn't always punish an offender immediately but might wait generations to avenge a crime. In English, nemesis originally referred to someone who brought a just retribution, but nowadays people are more likely to see animosity than justice in the actions of a nemesis.

Devotion (dih-VOH-shun)

1 a : religious fervor : piety b : a religious exercise or practice for private use 2 : the act of devoting b : the fact or state of being ardently dedicated and loyal When we take a vow, we pledge our devotion—whether to remain true to a partner, to uphold the law, or to honor the word of God. It should be no surprise then that devotion and its related verb devote come from the act of taking a vow. Both words originate from Latin devotus, which is the past participle of devovēre, a union of the prefix de- ("from") and the verb vovēre ("to vow"). Devote was once used as an adjective that could mean either "devout" or "devoted." While devout often connotes faithfulness of a religious nature, the adjective devoted conveys the sense of one's commitment to another through love and loyalty ("a devoted husband and father"; "the singer's devoted fans").

Daedal (DEE-dul)

1 a : skillful, artistic b : intricate 2 : adorned with many things You might know Daedalus as the mythological prisoner who fashioned wings of feathers and wax to escape from the island of Crete with his son Icarus. But it was as architect and sculptor, one said to have designed a labyrinth for King Minos on Crete, that he earned his name. Daedalus (from Greek daidalos) is Latin for "skillfully wrought." The same "skillful" Latin adjective gave English the adjectives daedal (in use since the 16th century) and Daedalian (or Daedalean), a synonym of daedal.

Lucid (LOO-sid)

1 a : suffused with light : luminous b : translucent 2 : having full use of one's faculties : sane 3 : clear to the understanding : intelligible It's easy enough to shed some light on the origins of lucid: it derives—via the Latin adjective lucidus, meaning "shining"—from the Latin verb lucēre, meaning "to shine." Lucid has been used by English speakers since at least the late 16th century. Originally, it meant merely "filled with light" or "shining," but it has since developed extended senses describing someone whose mind is clear or something with a clear meaning. Other shining examples of lucēre descendants include translucent, lucent ("glowing"), and the somewhat rarer relucent ("reflecting light" or "shining"). Even the word light itself derives from the same ancient word that led to lucēre.

Fealty (FEE-ul-tee)

1 a : the fidelity of a vassal or feudal tenant to his lord b : the obligation of such fidelity 2 : intense fidelity In The Use of Law, published posthumously in 1629, Francis Bacon wrote, "Fealty is to take an oath upon a book, that he will be a faithful Tenant to the King." That's a pretty accurate summary of the early meaning of fealty. Early forms of the term were used in Middle English around 1300, when they specifically designated the loyalty of a vassal to a lord. Eventually, the meaning of the word broadened. Fealty can be paid to a country, a principle, or a leader of any kind—though the synonyms fidelity and loyalty are more commonly used. Fealty comes from the Anglo-French word feelté, or fealté, which comes from the Latin fidelitas, meaning "fidelity." These words are ultimately derived from fides, the Latin word for "faith."

Ken (KEN)

1 a : the range of vision b : sight, view 2 : the range of perception, understanding, or knowledge Ken appeared on the English horizon in the 16th century as a term of measurement of the distance bounding the range of ordinary vision at sea—about 20 miles. British author John Lyly used that sense in 1580 when he wrote, "They are safely come within a ken of Dover." Other 16th-century writers used ken to mean "range of vision" ("Out of ken we were ere the Countesse came from the feast." — Thomas Nashe) or "sight" ("'Tis double death to drown in ken of shore." — Shakespeare). Today, however, ken rarely suggests literal sight. Rather, ken nowadays almost always implies a range of perception, understanding, or knowledge.

Dally (DAL-ee)

1 a : to act playfully; especially : to play amorously b : to deal lightly : toy 2 a : to waste time b : linger, dawdle English speakers have been playing with different uses of dally since the 14th century. They first started using the word with the meaning "to chat," which was also the meaning of the Anglo-French word from which it was derived, but that meaning fell into disuse by the end of the 15th century. Next, dalliers were amusing themselves by acting playfully with each other especially in amorous and flirtatious ways. Apparently, some dalliers were also a bit derisive, leading dally to mean "to deal with lightly or in a way that is not serious." It didn't take long for the fuddy-duddies to criticize all this play as a waste of time. By the mid-16th century, dally was weighted down with its "to waste time" and "dawdle" meanings, which, in time, gave way to the word dillydally, a humorous reduplication of dally.

Extirpate (EK-ster-payt)

1 a : to destroy completely : wipe out b : to pull up by the root 2 : to cut out by surgery If we do a little digging, we discover that extirpate finds its roots in, well, roots (and stumps). Early English uses of the word in the 16th century carried the meaning of "to clear of stumps" or "to pull something up by the root." Extirpate grew out of a combination of the Latin prefix ex- and the Latin noun stirps, meaning "trunk" or "root." The word stirp itself remains rooted in our own language as a term meaning "a line descending from a common ancestor."

Fret (FRET)

1 a : to eat or gnaw into : wear, corrode; also : fray b : rub, chafe c : to make by wearing away 2 : to become vexed or worried 3 : agitate, ripple Since its first use centuries ago, fret has referred to an act of eating, especially when done by animals—in particular, small ones. You might speak, for example, of moths fretting your clothing. Like eat, fret also developed figurative senses to describe actions that corrode or wear away. A river could be said to "fret away" at its banks or something might be said to be "fretted out" with time or age. Fret can also be applied to emotional experiences so that something that "eats away at us" might be said to "fret the heart or mind." This use developed into the specific meaning of "vex" or "worry" with which we often use fret today.

Batten (BAT-un)

1 a : to grow or make fat b : to feed gluttonously 2 : to grow prosperous especially at the expense of another — usually used with on The origin of today's word is believed to be the Old Norse verb batna, meaning "to improve." Batna is akin to Old Norse betr and Old English betera, from which we get the modern English word better. Batten entered the English language in the 1500s, with the meaning "to improve," and was especially used in the sense of improving or thriving by feeding. It is not related to the verb batten (3batten) found in expressions such as "batten down the hatches." This latter batten comes from the noun batten, which denotes, among other things, an iron bar used to secure the covering of a hatchway on a ship. This batten has Latinate rather than Germanic origins and can be traced back through Anglo-French batre to the Latin verb battuere ("to beat").

Insinuate (in-SIN-yuh-wayt)

1 a : to introduce (as an idea) gradually or in a subtle, indirect, or covert way b : to impart or suggest in an artful or indirect way : imply 2 : to introduce (as oneself) by stealthy, smooth, or artful means The meaning of insinuate is similar to that of another verb, suggest. Whether you suggest or insinuate something, you are conveying an idea indirectly. But although these two words share the same basic meaning, each gets the idea across in a different way. When you suggest something, you put it into the mind by associating it with other ideas, desires, or thoughts. You might say, for example, that a book's title suggests what the story is about. The word insinuate, on the other hand, usually includes a sense that the idea being conveyed is unpleasant, or that it is being passed along in a sly or underhanded way ("She insinuated that I cheated").

Eternize (ih-TER-nyze)

1 a : to make eternal b : to prolong indefinitely 2 : immortalize Eternize shows up in the works of literary greats, such as John Milton, Edmund Spenser, and Herman Melville, and it sees occasional use in modern-day sources, but it is far from common. The same can be said of its slightly longer and related synonym eternalize. Eternize is the older of the two; our earliest evidence of the word dates to 1566, while evidence of eternalize dates to 1620. But there's a third relative that predates them both, and it's far more common than either of them. That would be eternal, which has been with us since the 14th century. All three words are ultimately rooted in Latin aevum, meaning "age" or "eternity."

Devolve (dih-VAHLV)

1 a : to pass by transmission or succession b : to fall or be passed usually as a responsibility or obligation 2 : to come by or as if by flowing down 3 : to degenerate through a gradual change or evolution Devolve evolved from Latin volvere, a word that means "to roll." The prefix de- means "down." (Other words that revolve around volvere are the five other words containing -vol- found in this paragraph.) Knowing which preposition to use with devolve can seem a bit involved, but it's really not all that convoluted. Responsibility or rights devolve "on," "upon," or "to" someone. When something comes into a present state by flowing down from a source, either literally or figuratively, we say "devolve from," as in "customs that devolve from old beliefs." And when the devolving is a downward evolution to a lower state we say "devolves into" (or sometimes "devolves to"), as in "order devolves into chaos."

Doff (DAHF)

1 a : to remove (an article of wear) from the body b : to take off (the hat) in greeting or as a sign of respect 2 : to rid oneself of : put aside Time was, people talked about doffing and donning articles of wear with about the same frequency. But in the mid-19th century the verb don became significantly more popular and left doff to flounder a bit in linguistic semi-obscurity. Doff and don have been a pair from the start: both date to the 14th century, with doff coming from a phrase meaning "to do off" and don from one meaning "to do on." Shakespeare was first, as far as we know, to use the word as it's defined at sense 2. He put it in Juliet's mouth: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet. / ... Romeo, doff thy name; / And for that name, which is no part of thee, / Take all myself."

Reconcile (REK-un-syle)

1 a : to restore to friendship or harmony b : to settle or resolve (differences) 2 : to make consistent or congruous 3 : to cause to submit to or accept something unpleasant 4 : to check (a financial account) against another for accuracy Adapt, adjust, accommodate, conform, and reconcile all mean to bring one thing into agreement with another. Adapt implies a modification according to changing circumstances ("they adapted to the warmer climate"). Adjust suggests bringing something into a close and exact correspondence or harmony ("we adjusted the budget to allow for inflation"). Accommodate may suggest yielding or compromising to form an agreement ("he accommodated his political beliefs in order to win"). Conform suggests coming into accordance with a pattern, example, or principle ("she refused to conform to society's values"). Reconcile implies the demonstration of the underlying compatibility of things that seem to be incompatible ("I tried to reconcile what he said with what I knew").

Fillip (FIL-up)

1 a : to strike by holding the nail of a finger against the ball of the thumb and then suddenly releasing it from that position b : to make a filliping motion with 2 : to project quickly by or as if by a filliping motion : snap 3 : to urge on : stimulate Like flip and flick, fillip is considered a phonetic imitation of the sharp release of a curled-up finger aimed to strike something. Language history suggests that people were filliping in the 15th-century, well before they were flipping and flicking. Specifically, fillip describes a strike or gesture made by the sudden straightening of a finger curled up against the thumb—a motion commonly referred to as a flick. It didn't take long before the sensational stinging smartness of filliping was extended to figurative use. "I mark this in our old Mogul's wine; it's quite as deadening to some as filliping to others," observes Herman Melville's Dutch sailor of wine's "stimulating" effect in Moby Dick.

Lave (LAYV)

1 a : wash, bathe b : to flow along or against 2 : pour Lave is a simple, monosyllabic word that magically makes the mundane act of washing poetic. Shakespeare used it in The Taming of the Shrew when Gremio assured the father of his beloved Bianca that she would have "basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands." And in Charles Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop, Nell "laved her hands and face, and cooled her feet before setting forth to walk again." The poetry of lave is also heard when describing water washing against the shore, or even the pouring of water. Before washing our hands of lave, we'll tell you that it comes from the same root as our word lavatory: the Latin verb lavare, meaning "to wash."

Welter (WEL-ter)

1 a : writhe, toss; also : wallow b : to rise and fall or toss about in or with waves 2 : to become deeply sunk, soaked, or involved 3 : to be in turmoil Welter can be used both as a noun (meaning "turmoil" or "chaos") and a verb. The verb is the older of the two; it has been part of English since at least the 1300s, while the earliest uses of the noun date from the late 1590s. Both noun and verb have roots related to Dutch and Germanic terms meaning "to roll," and both have found a place in historical English literature. The verb helps demonstrate extreme despair in the early Arthurian legend Morte Arthure ("He welterys, he wristeles, he wrynges hys handes!"), and in 1837 Thomas Carlyle used the noun in The French Revolution ("I leave the whole business in a frightful welter: ... not one of them understands anything of government").

Jacquerie (zhah-kuh-REE)

: (often capitalized Jacquerie) a peasants' revolt The first jacquerie was an insurrection of peasants against the nobility in northeastern France in 1358, so-named from the nobles' habit of referring contemptuously to any peasant as "Jacques," or "Jacques Bonhomme" (in French bonhomme means "fellow"). It took some time—150 years—for the name of the first jacquerie to become a generalized term for other revolts. The term is also occasionally used to refer to the peasant class, as when Madame Defarge in Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities tells her husband to "consider the faces of all the world that we know, consider the rage and discontent to which the Jacquerie addresses itself with more and more of certainty every hour."

Kapellmeister (kuh-PELL-mye-ster)

: (often capitalized Kapellmeister) the director of a choir or orchestra As you may have guessed, Kapellmeister originated as a German word—and in fact, even in English it is often (though not always) used for the director of a German choir. Kapelle once meant "choir" in German, and Meister is the German word for "master." The Latin magister is an ancestor of both Meister and master, as well as of our maestro, meaning "an eminent composer or conductor." Kapelle comes from cappella, the Medieval Latin word for "chapel." As it happens, we also borrowed Kapelle into English, first to refer to the choir or orchestra of a royal or papal chapel, and later to describe any orchestra. Kapellmeister is used somewhat more frequently than Kapelle in current English, though neither word is especially common.

Zeitgeist (TSYTE-gyste)

: (often capitalized Zeitgeist) the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era Scholars have long maintained that each era has a unique spirit, a nature or climate that sets it apart from all other epochs. In German, such a spirit is known as Zeitgeist, from the German words Zeit, meaning "time," and Geist, meaning "spirit" or "ghost." Some writers and artists assert that the true zeitgeist of an era cannot be known until it is over, and several have declared that only artists or philosophers can adequately explain it. We don't know if that's true, but we do know that zeitgeist has been a useful addition to the English language since at least 1835.

Astrolabe (A-struh-layb)

: a compact instrument used to observe and calculate the position of celestial bodies before the invention of the sextant "Thyn Astrolabie hath a ring to putten on the thombe of thi right hond in taking the height of thinges." Thus begins a description of the astrolabe in A Treatise on the Astrolabe, a medieval user's guide penned by an amateur astronomer by the name of Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer is best known for his Middle English poetic masterpiece The Canterbury Tales, but when his nose wasn't buried in his writing, Chaucer was stargazing, and some of his passion for the heavens rubbed off on his son Lewis, who had displayed a special "abilite to lerne sciences touching nombres and proporciouns." Chaucer dedicated his treatise to the 10-year-old boy, setting his instructions not in the usual Latin, but in "naked wordes in Englissh" so that little Lewis could understand. When he got older, Lewis may have learned that the word astrolabe traces to the Greek name for the instrument.

Tranche (TRAHNSH)

: a division or portion of a pool or whole In French, tranche means "slice." Cutting deeper into the word's etymology, we find the Old French word trancer, meaning "to cut." Tranche emerged in the English language in the late 19th century to describe financial appropriations. Today, it is often used specifically of an issue of bonds that is differentiated from other issues by such factors as maturity or rate of return. Another use of the French word tranche is in the French phrase une tranche de vie, meaning "a cross section of life." That phrase was coined by the dramatist Jean Jullien (1854-1919), who advocated naturalism in the theater.

Meshuggener (muh-SHUG-uh-ner)

: a foolish or crazy person From bagel and chutzpah to shtick and yenta, Yiddish has given English many a colorful term over the years. Meshuggener is another example of what happens when English interprets that rich Jewish language. Meshuggener comes from the Yiddish meshugener, which in turn derives from meshuge, an adjective that is synonymous with crazy or foolish. English speakers have used the adjective form, meshuga or meshugge, to mean "foolish" since the late 1800s; we've dubbed foolish folk meshuggeners since at least 1900.

Objurgation (ahb-jer-GAY-shun)

: a harsh rebuke Objurgation traces to the Latin objurgare ("to scold or blame"), which was formed from ob- ("against") and jurgare ("to quarrel" or, literally, "to take to law"—in other words, "to bring a lawsuit"). Jur- in Latin means "law," and there are several English words related to objurgation that have legal implications, including perjury, abjure, jurisprudence, and even injury. But despite its etymological connection to the law, the word objurgation carries no legal weight. It refers to nothing more than an unusually harsh or severe scolding.

Gallimaufry (gal-uh-MAW-free)

: a heterogeneous mixture : jumble If the word gallimaufry doesn't make your mouth water, it may be because you don't know its history. In the 16th century, Middle-French speaking cooks made a meat stew called galimafree. It must have been a varied dish because English speakers chose its name for any mix or jumble of things. If gallimaufry isn't to your taste, season your speech with one of its synonyms: hash (which can be a muddle of chopped meat and potatoes), hotchpotch (a stew or a hodgepodge), or potpourri (another stew turned medley).

Passel (PASS-ul)

: a large number or amount The loss of the sound of "r" after a vowel and before another consonant in the middle of a word is common in spoken English. This linguistic idiosyncrasy has given our language a few new words, such as cuss from curse, bust from burst, and our featured word passel from parcel. The spelling passel originated in the 15th century, but the word's use as a collective noun for an indefinite number is a 19th-century Americanism. It was common primarily in local-color writing before getting a boost in the 1940s, when it began appearing in popular weekly magazines such as Time, Newsweek, and Saturday Review.

Oenophile (EE-nuh-fyle)

: a lover or connoisseur of wine "It has become quite a common proverb that in wine there is truth," wrote the 1st-century A.D. Roman scholar, Pliny the Elder. The truth about the word wine is that it goes back to Latin vinum, but it is also a distant relative of the Greek word for wine, which is oinos. Indeed, Latin borrowed from the Greek to create a combining form that means "wine," oeno-. Modern French speakers combined oeno- with -phile (Greek for "lover of") to create oenophile before we adopted it from them in the mid-1800s. Oenophiles are sure to know oenology (now more often spelled enology) as the science of wine making and oenologist (now more often enologist) for one versed in oenology.

Myrmidon (MER-muh-dahn)

: a loyal follower; especially : a subordinate who executes orders unquestioningly or unscrupulously The Myrmidons, legendary inhabitants of Thessaly in Greece, were known for their fierce devotion to Achilles, the king who led them in the Trojan War. Myrmex means "ant" in Greek, an image that evokes small and insignificant workers mindlessly fulfilling their duties. Whether the original Myrmidons were given their name for that reason is open to question. The "ant" association is strong, however. Some say the name is from a legendary ancestor who once had the form of an ant; others say the Myrmidons were actually transformed from ants. In any case, since the 1400s, we've employed myrmidon in its not-always-complimentary, ant-evoking, figurative sense.

Raconteur (ra-kahn-TER)

: a person who excels in telling anecdotes The story of raconteur is a tale of telling and counting. English speakers borrowed the word from French, where it traces back to the Old French verb raconter, meaning "to tell." Raconter in turn was formed from another Old French verb, aconter or acompter, meaning "to tell" or "to count," which is ultimately from Latin computare, meaning "to count." Computare is also the source of our words count and account. Raconteur has been part of the English vocabulary since at least 1828.

Misanthrope (MISS-un-throhp)

: a person who hates or distrusts humankind The word misanthrope is human to the core—literally. One of its parents is the Greek noun anthrōpos, meaning "human being." Its other parent is the Greek verb misein, meaning "to hate." Misein also gave English misogamy ("a hatred of marriage"), misogyny ("hatred of women"), misology ("a hatred of argument, reasoning, or enlightenment"), and misoneism ("a hatred, fear, or intolerance of innovation or change"). Anthrōpos also joined forces with phil- (a combining form meaning "loving") to form the Greek ancestor of philanthropy ("active effort to help other people"). We also find anthrōpos when we delve into the foundations of the word anthropology.

Eclogue (ECK-log)

: a poem in which shepherds converse Although the eclogue appears in the Idylls of the Greek poet Theocritus, it was the 10 Eclogues (or Bucolics) of the Roman poet Virgil that gave us the word eclogue. (The Latin title Eclogae literally means "selections.") The eclogue was popular in the Renaissance and through the 17th century, when less formal eclogues were written. The poems traditionally depicted rural life as free from the complexity and corruption of more citified realms. The eclogue fell out of favor when the poets of the Romantic period rebelled against the artificiality of the pastoral. In more modern times, though, the term eclogue has been applied to pastoral poems involving the conversations of people other than shepherds, often with heavy doses of irony.

Jeremiad (jair-uh-MYE-ud)

: a prolonged lamentation or complaint; also : a cautionary or angry harangue Jeremiah was a Jewish prophet who lived from about 650 to 570 BC. He spent his days lambasting the Hebrews for their false worship and social injustice and denouncing the king for his selfishness, materialism, and inequities. When not calling on his people to quit their wicked ways, he was lamenting his own lot; a portion of the Bible's Book of Jeremiah is devoted to his "confessions," a series of lamentations on the hardships endured by a prophet with an unpopular message. Nowadays, English speakers use Jeremiah for a pessimistic person and jeremiad for the way these Jeremiahs carry on. The word jeremiad was actually borrowed from the French, who coined it as jérémiade.

Bully pulpit (BULL-ee-PULL-pit)

: a prominent public position (as a political office) that provides an opportunity for expounding one's views; also : such an opportunity Bully pulpit comes from the 26th U.S. President, Theodore Roosevelt, who observed that the White House was a bully pulpit. For Roosevelt, bully was an adjective meaning "excellent" or "first-rate"—not the noun bully ("a blustering, browbeating person") that's so common today. Roosevelt understood the modern presidency's power of persuasion and recognized that it gave the incumbent the opportunity to exhort, instruct, or inspire. He took full advantage of his bully pulpit, speaking out about the danger of monopolies, the nation's growing role as a world power, and other issues important to him. Since the 1970s, bully pulpit has been used as a term for an office—especially a political office—that provides one with the opportunity to share one's views.

Annus Mirabilis (ann-us-muh-RAH-buh-lus)

: a remarkable or notable year To British poet John Dryden, the "year of wonders" was 1666. That was the year of a great British naval victory over the Dutch, as well as the date of the great London fire. When he titled his 1667 poetic review of 1666 and its events Annus Mirabilis, Dryden became one of the first writers to use that Latinate phrase in an otherwise English context. Annus mirabilis is a direct translation from New Latin, the form of Latin that has been used since the end of the medieval period (especially for scientific descriptions and classification). The phrase is not extremely common, but it is used by writers and historians to denote any particularly remarkable year.

Macadam (muh-KAD-um)

: a roadway or pavement of small closely packed broken stone In 1783, inventor John Loudon McAdam returned to his native Scotland after amassing a fortune in New York City. He became the road trustee for his district and quickly set his inventiveness to remedying the terrible condition of local roads. After numerous experiments, he created a new road surfacing material made of bits of stone that became compressed into a solid mass as traffic passed over them. His invention revolutionized road construction and transportation, and engineers and the public alike honored him by using his name (respelled macadam) as a generic term for the material or pavement made from it. He is further immortalized in the verb macadamize, which names the process of installing macadam on a road.

Pidgin (PIJ-in)

: a simplified speech used for communication between people with different languages The history of pidgin begins in the early 19th century in the South China city of Guangzhou. Chinese merchants interacting with English speakers on the docks in this port adopted and modified the word business in a way that, by century's end, had become pidgin. The word itself then became the descriptor of the unique communication used by people who speak different languages. Pidgins generally consist of small vocabularies (Chinese Pidgin English has only 700 words), but some have grown to become a group's native language. Examples include Sea Island Creole (spoken in South Carolina's Sea Islands), Haitian Creole, and Louisiana Creole. The word pidgin also gave us one particular meaning of pigeon—the one defined as "an object of special concern" or "accepted business or interest," as in "Tennis is not my pigeon."

Peccadillo (pek-uh-DIL-oh)

: a slight offense "The world loves a spice of wickedness." That observation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow may explain why people are so willing to forgive peccadilloes as youthful foolishness or lapses of judgment. The willingness to overlook petty faults and minor offenses existed long before English speakers borrowed a modified version of the Spanish pecadillo at the end of the 16th century. Spanish speakers distinguished the pecadillo, or "little sin," from the more serious pecado, their term for a sin of magnitude. And these Spanish terms can be traced back still further, to the Latin verb peccare, meaning "to sin."

Camaraderie (kahm-RAH-duh-ree)

: a spirit of friendly good-fellowship Camaraderie made its first appearance in English in the middle of the 19th century. It comes from camarade, the French word whose Middle French ancestor was also the source for our word comrade. In Middle French, camarade was used to mean "roommate," "companion," or "a group sleeping in one room." It derived by way of Old Spanish from the Late Latin camera, or camara, meaning "chamber." We also have the word comradery, which means the same thing as camaraderie but did not take the same etymological route as its synonym. That word, formed by attaching the -ry suffix (as found in wizardry and citizenry) to comrade, didn't appear in English until almost 40 years after camaraderie.

Belvedere (BEL-vuh-deer)

: a structure (such as a cupola or summerhouse) designed to command a view It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder—and someone with a belvedere will likely have a great deal of beauty to behold. Given the origins of the word, belvedere is the ideal term for a building (or part of a building) with a view; it derives from two Italian words, bel, which means "beautiful," and vedere, which means "view." The term has been used in English since the 1570s.

Jactitation (jak-tuh-TAY-shun)

: a tossing to and fro or jerking and twitching of the body In the 17th century, lawyers began tossing around the word jactitation, which can be traced back to the Latin verb jactare, meaning "to throw." Originally, jactitation was used as a word for a false claim or assertion being publicly thrown about to the detriment of another person. Run-of-the-mill slander and false claims of being married to someone were two common types of jactitation brought to court. Before long, jactitation had jumped over to the medical profession, where it continues to serve as a word for restless, jerky, or twitchy body movements. In 1761, British writer Laurence Sterne threw jactitation into his novel Tristram Shandy as a substitute for discussion, but that meaning never caught on.

Zwieback (SWEE-back)

: a usually sweetened bread enriched with eggs that is baked and then sliced and toasted until dry and crisp In ages past, keeping food fresh for any length of time required a lot of ingenuity, especially when one needed to carry comestibles on a long journey. One of the solutions people came up with for keeping bread edible for traveling was to bake it twice, thereby drying it and slowing the spoiling process. The etymology of zwieback reflects this baker's trick; it was borrowed from a German word that literally means "twice baked." Nowadays, zwieback is not just used as a foodstuff—the texture of the dried bread makes zwieback a suitable teething device for infants. Incidentally, other twice-baked goods whose origins reflect that fact include biscuit and biscotti, both of which come from phrases meaning "twice-cooked bread."

Subpoena (suh-PEE-nuh)

: a writ commanding a person designated in it to appear in court under a penalty for failure If you think you recognize the sub- in subpoena as the prefix meaning "under, beneath, below," you're on target. Subpoena arrived in Modern English (via the Middle English suppena) from the Latin sub poena, a combination of sub and poena, meaning "penalty." Other poena descendants in English include impunity ("freedom from penalty"), penal ("of or relating to punishment"), and even punish. There is also the verb subpoena, as in "Defense lawyers have subpoenaed several witnesses to the crime."

Nosocomial (nah-suh-KOH-mee-ul)

: acquired or occurring in a hospital Nosocomial is a word that usually occurs in formal medical contexts—specifically, in reference to hospital-acquired sickness. We hope you never encounter nosocomial as part of your own medical diagnosis, but if you do, you might want to remember that the term descends from nosocomium, the Late Latin word for "hospital." Nosocomium in turn traces to the Greek nosos, meaning "disease." That root has given English other words as well, including zoonosis ("a disease communicable from animals to humans under natural conditions") and nosology ("a classification or list of diseases" or "a branch of medical science that deals with classification of diseases").

Qui vive (kee-VEEV)

: alert, lookout — used in the phrase on the qui vive When a sentinel guarding a French castle in days of yore cried, "Qui vive?," your life depended upon your answer. The question the sentinel was asking was "Long live who?" The correct answer was usually something like "Long live the king!" Visitors not answering the question this way were regarded as suspect, and so to be "on the qui vive" meant to be on the alert or lookout, and qui vive came to mean "alert" or "lookout" soon afterward. Nowadays, the term is most often used in the phrase "on the qui vive," meaning "on the lookout."

Kwanzaa (KWAHN-zuh)

: an African-American cultural festival held from December 26 to January 1 In 1966, Maulana Karenga, a Black Studies professor at California State University at Long Beach, created a new holiday patterned after traditional African harvest festivals. He called it Kwanzaa, a name he took from a Swahili term that means "first fruits." The holiday, which takes place from December 26th to January 1st, was originally intended as a nonreligious celebration of family and social values. Each day of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of seven principles: unity, self-determination, collective responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith.

Ziggurat (ZIG-uh-rat)

: an ancient Mesopotamian temple tower consisting of a lofty pyramidal structure built in successive stages with outside staircases and a shrine at the top; also : a structure or object of similar form French professor of archaeology François Lenormant spent a great deal of time poring over ancient Assyrian texts. In those cuneiform inscriptions, he recognized a new language, now known as Akkadian, which proved valuable to the understanding of ancient Mesopotamian civilization. Through his studies, he became familiar with the Akkadian word for the towering Mesopotamian temples: ziqqurratu. In 1877 he came out with Chaldean Magic, a scholarly exposition on the mythology of the Chaldeans, an ancient people who lived in what is now Iraq. In his work, which was immediately translated into English, he introduced the word ziggurat to the modern world in his description of the ziggurat of the Iraqi palace of Khorsabad.

Mithridate (MITH-ruh-dayt)

: an antidote against poison; especially : a confection held to be effective against poison Mithridates the Great was the tyrannical king of Pontus (an ancient kingdom in Northeast Asia Minor) from 120 to 63 B.C.E. He was killed by a Gallic mercenary whose services he himself engaged after failing to poison himself following an insurrection by his troops. Supposedly, his suicide was unsuccessful because he had made himself immune to poison by taking small doses of it since childhood in an attempt to avoid the fate of assassination by poison. The story of Mithridates' tolerance is behind the English word mithridate, which dates to the early 16th century, as well as the word mithridatism, defined as "tolerance to a poison acquired by taking gradually increased doses of it."

Quincunx (KWIN-kunks)

: an arrangement of five things in a square or rectangle with one at each corner and one in the middle In ancient Rome, a quincunx was a coin with a weight equal to five twelfths of a libra, a unit of weight similar to our pound. The coin's name comes from the Latin roots quinque, meaning "five," and uncia, meaning "one twelfth." The ancients used a pattern of five dots arranged like the pips on a die as a symbol for the coin, and English speakers applied the word to arrangements similar to that distinctive five-dot mark.

Vagary (VAY-guh-ree)

: an erratic, unpredictable, or extravagant manifestation, action, or notion In the 16th century, if you "made a vagary" you took a wandering journey, or you figuratively wandered from a correct path by committing some minor offense. If you spoke or wrote vagaries, you wandered from a main subject. These senses hadn't strayed far from their origin, as vagary is probably based on Latin vagari, meaning "to wander." Indeed, in the 16th and 17th centuries there was even an English verb vagary that meant "to wander." Nowadays, the noun vagary is mostly used in its plural form, and vagaries have more to do with unpredictability than with wandering.

Mash (MASH)

: an intense and usually passing infatuation; also : the object of infatuation Those shot by Cupid's arrow know that love can spur a desire to hold one's beloved tightly and never let go. Perhaps that embracing feeling of love is why mash, originally a word for an act of squeezing and crushing, became a term for an intense infatuation, or the object of it, in 1870. The more popular crush showed its loving side in 1884, and main squeeze had begun crossing the lips of sweethearts by 1926. Mash itself is not widely used today, but the compound mash note, referring to a love letter, has enjoyed many happy years since its union in 1890.

MacGuffin (muh-GUFF-in)

: an object, event, or character in a film or story that serves to set and keep the plot in motion despite usually lacking intrinsic importance The first person to use MacGuffin as a word for a plot device was Alfred Hitchcock. He borrowed it from an old shaggy-dog story in which some passengers on a train interrogate a fellow passenger carrying a large, strange-looking package. The fellow says the package contains a "MacGuffin," which, he explains, is used to catch tigers in the Scottish Highlands. When the group protests that there are no tigers in the Highlands, the passenger replies, "Well, then, this must not be a MacGuffin." Hitchcock apparently appreciated the way the mysterious package holds the audience's attention and builds suspense. He recognized that an audience anticipating a solution to a mystery will continue to follow the story even if the initial interest-grabber turns out to be irrelevant.

Propensity (pruh-PENN-suh-tee)

: an often intense natural inclination or preference When it comes to synonyms of propensity, the letter "p" predominates. Proclivity, preference, penchant, and predilection all share with propensity the essential meaning of "a strong instinct or liking." Not every word that is similar in meaning to propensity begins with "p," however. Propensity comes from Latin propensus, the past participle of propendēre, a verb meaning "to incline" or "to hang forward or down." Thus leaning and inclination are as good synonyms of propensity as any of those "p"-words.

Odious (OH-dee-us)

: arousing or deserving hatred or repugnance : hateful Odious has been with us since the days of Middle English. We borrowed it from Anglo-French, which in turn had taken it from Latin odiosus. The Latin adjective came from the noun odium, meaning "hatred." Odium is also an ancestor of the English verb annoy (another word that came to Middle English via Anglo-French). And, at the beginning of the 17th century, odium entered English in its unaltered form, giving us a noun meaning "hatred" or "disgrace" (as in "ideas that have incurred much odium").

Tantivy (tan-TIV-ee)

: at a gallop Tantivy is an adverb as well as a noun that refers to a rapid gallop. Although its precise origin isn't known, one theory has it that tantivy represents the sound of a galloping horse's hooves. The noun does double duty as a word meaning "the blare of a trumpet or horn." This is probably due to confusion with tantara, a word for the sound of a trumpet that came about as an imitation of that sound. Both tantivy and tantara were used during foxhunts; in the heat of the chase, people may have jumbled the two.

Obnubilate (ahb-NOO-buh-layt)

: becloud, obscure The meaning of obnubilate becomes clearer when you know that its ancestors are the Latin terms ob- (meaning "in the way") and nubes ("cloud"). It's a high-flown sounding word, which may be why it often turns up in texts by and about politicians. This has been true for a long time. In fact, when the U.S. Constitution was up for ratification, 18th-century Pennsylvania statesman James Wilson used obnubilate to calm fears that the president would have too much power: "Our first executive magistrate is not obnubilated behind the mysterious obscurity of counsellors.... He is the dignified, but accountable magistrate of a free and great people."

Zeroth (ZEE-rohth)

: being numbered zero in a series; also : of, relating to, or being a zero You don't have to be a rocket scientist to use zeroth, but the word, which was coined by physicists 120 years ago, does often show up in scientific contexts. (It comes from zero, which is itself from Arabic ṣifr.) These days zeroth is frequently used to suggest a level of importance that is even higher than first. Renowned Soviet physicist Lev Landau used zeroth this way when he classified all the famous physicists according to the relative value of their contributions to science. He put Niels Bohr and Max Planck, for example, right up there in the first class, and lesser-rated physicists in the second through fifth classes. Where did he think Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton belonged? They were unmatched, he felt, so they went in his zeroth class.

Inchoate (in-KOH-ut)

: being only partly in existence or operation : incipient; especially : imperfectly formed or formulated : formless, incoherent Inchoate derives from inchoare, which means "to start work on" in Latin but translates literally as "to hitch up." Inchoare was formed from the prefix in- and the noun cohum, which refers to the part of a yoke to which the beam of a plow is fitted. The concept of implementing this initial step toward the larger task of plowing a field can help provide a clearer understanding of inchoate, an adjective used to describe the imperfect form of something (such as a plan or idea) in its early stages of development. Perhaps because it looks a little like the word chaos (although the two aren't closely related), inchoate now not only implies the formlessness that often marks beginnings but also the confusion caused by chaos.

Panoptic (pan-OP-tik)

: being or presenting a comprehensive or panoramic view The establishment of panoptic in the English language can be attributed to two inventions known as panopticons. The more well-known panopticon was conceived by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in 1787. Bentham's panopticon was a circular prison with cells arranged around a central tower from which guards could see the inmates at all times. The other panopticon, also created in the 18th century, was a device containing pictures of attractions, such as European capitals, that people viewed through an opening. Considering the views that both inventions gave, it is not hard to see why panoptic (a word derived from Greek panoptēs, meaning "all-seeing") was being used by the early 19th century.

Dolorous (DOH-luh-rus)

: causing, marked by, or expressing misery or grief "No medicine may prevail ... till the same dolorous tooth be ... plucked up by the roots." When dolorous first appeared around 1400, it was linked to physical pain—and appropriately so, since the word is a descendant of the Latin word dolor, meaning "pain" as well as "grief." (Today, dolor is also an English word meaning "sorrow.") When the British surgeon John Banister wrote the above quotation in 1578, dolorous could mean either "causing pain" or "distressful, sorrowful." "The death of the earl [was] dolorous to all Englishmen," the English historian Edward Hall had written a few decades earlier. The "causing pain" sense of dolorous coexisted with the "sorrowful" sense for centuries, but nowadays its use is rare.

Amicable (AM-ih-kuh-bul)

: characterized by friendly goodwill : peaceable Amicable, which derives from Late Latin amicabilis, meaning "friendly," is one of a set of English words used to suggest cordial relationships. Amicable, neighborly, companionable, and friendly all mean marked by or exhibiting goodwill and an absence of antagonism. Amicable implies a state of peace and a desire on the part of the parties not to quarrel ("they maintained amicable relations"; "the amicable process of bargaining"). Neighborly implies a disposition to live on good terms with others, particularly those who are nearby, and to be helpful on principle ("neighborly concern"). Companionable suggests sociability and companionship ("a companionable dinner with friends"). Friendly stresses cordiality and often warmth or intimacy of personal relations ("a friendly correspondence").

Deasil (DEE-zil)

: clockwise According to an old custom, you can bring someone good fortune by walking around the person clockwise three times while carrying a torch or candle. In Scottish Gaelic, the word deiseil is used for the direction one walks in such a luck-bringing ritual. English speakers modified the spelling to deasil, and have used the word to describe clockwise motion in a variety of rituals.

Licit (LISS-it)

: conforming to the requirements of the law : not forbidden by law : permissible Licit is far less common than its antonym illicit, but you probably won't be surprised to learn that the former is the older of the two. Not by much, though: the first known use of licit in print is from 1483, whereas illicit shows up in print for the first time in 1506. For some reason illicit took off while licit just plodded along. When licit appears these days, it often modifies drugs or crops. Meanwhile, illicit shows up before words like thrill and passion (as well as gambling, relationship, activities, and, of course, drugs and crops.) The Latin word licitus, meaning "lawful," is the root of the pair; licitus itself is from licēre, meaning "to be permitted."

Farraginous (fuh-RAJ-uh-nus)

: consisting of a confused mixture : formed of various materials in no fixed order or arrangement Farraginous is the adjective connected with farrago. In Latin, the stem farragin- and the noun farrago both mean "mixture" and, more specifically, "a mixture of grains for cattle feed." They derive from far, the Latin name for spelt, a type of grain. In the 1600s, English speakers began using farrago as a noun meaning "hodgepodge" and farraginous as an adjective meaning "consisting of a mixture." The creation of the adjective was simply a matter of adding the adjectival suffix -ous to farragin- (although at least one writer had previously experimented with farraginary, employing a different adjectival suffix).

Collude (kuh-LOOD)

: conspire, plot Our English "lude" words (allude, collude, delude, elude, and prelude) are based on the Latin verb ludere, meaning "to play." Collude dates back to 1525 and combines ludere and the prefix col-, meaning "with" or "together." The verb is younger than the related noun collusion, which appeared sometime in the 14th century with the specific meaning "secret agreement or cooperation." Despite their playful history, collude and collusion have always suggested deceit or trickery rather than good-natured fun.

Auriferous (aw-RIF-uh-russ)

: containing gold Students in chemistry class learn that the chemical symbol for gold is Au. That symbol is based on aurum, the Latin word for the element. In the 17th century, English speakers coined auriferous by appending the -ous ending to the Latin adjective aurifer, an offspring of aurum that means "containing gold" or "producing gold." (The -fer is from ferre, a Latin verb meaning "to produce" or "to bear.") Not surprisingly, auriferous is a term that shows up in geological contexts. Some other descendants of aurum include aureate ("of a golden color" or "marked by grandiloquent style"), auric ("of, relating to, or derived from gold"), and the noun or ("the heraldic color gold or yellow").

Consigliere (kohn-sil-YEH-reh)

: counselor, adviser If you're a fan of The Godfather series of movies, the character Tom Hagen may have already come to mind. Hagen, the Corleones' family lawyer, is famously dismissed by the Don's successor and son Michael Corleone because he is not a "wartime consigliere." The word consigliere comes from Italian and has been a part our language since the 17th century; it was originally used of someone who served on a council in Italy. Currently, it is most commonly used to designate advisers to the Mafia—a use that first appeared in English in a document from a 1963 session of the U.S. Senate. It is also often used generally of a political or financial adviser, or any other trusted adviser for that matter.

Tribulation (trib-yuh-LAY-shun)

: distress or suffering resulting from oppression or persecution; also : a trying experience The writer and Christian scholar Thomas More, in his 1534 work A dialoge of comforte against tribulation, defined the title word as "euery such thing as troubleth and greueth [grieveth] a man either in bodye or mynde." These days, however, the word tribulation is typically used as a plural noun, paired with its alliterative partner trial, and relates less to oppression and more to any kind of uphill struggle. Tribulation derives via Middle English and Old French from the Latin verb tribulare ("to oppress or afflict"), which is related to tribulum, a noun meaning "threshing board."

Challah (HAH-luh)

: egg-rich yeast-leavened bread that is usually braided or twisted before baking and is traditionally eaten by Jews on the Sabbath and holidays When English speakers first borrowed challah from Yiddish, they couldn't quite settle on a single spelling, so the word showed up in several forms; challah, challa, hallah, and the plural forms challoth, challot, halloth, and hallot were all common enough to merit inclusion in Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged when it was released in 1961. Today, challah and the anglicized plural challahs are the variants that are usually encountered by English speakers. The initial ch of challah is frequently pronounced as a velar fricative, like the ch in the German Buch or the Scottish English loch.

Hubris (HYOO-bris)

: exaggerated pride or self-confidence English picked up both the concept of hubris and the term for that particular brand of cockiness from the ancient Greeks, who considered hubris a dangerous character flaw capable of provoking the wrath of the gods. In classical Greek tragedy, hubris was often a fatal shortcoming that brought about the fall of the tragic hero. Typically, overconfidence led the hero to attempt to overstep the boundaries of human limitations and assume a godlike status, and the gods inevitably humbled the offender with a sharp reminder of his or her

Sumptuous (SUMP-shuh-wus)

: extremely costly, rich, luxurious, or magnificent The word sumptuous can be used to describe both lush surroundings and rich desserts, and it has an equally rich history. The word, which appeared in English in the 15th century, derives via Middle English from the Latin noun sumptus, meaning "expense." Sumptus is related to the Latin verb sumere, which means "to take" or "to spend" and from which we get a treasure trove of useful verbs: consume ("to use up or spend"), subsume ("to include or place in something larger"), resume ("to take up again"), presume ("to take to be true without proof"), and assume ("to take upon oneself"). Another sumere descendant is our adjective sumptuary, which commonly precedes law to describe legislation designed to regulate extravagant expenditures or habits.

Kith (KITH)

: familiar friends, neighbors, or relatives Kith has had many meanings over the years. In its earliest uses it referred to knowledge of something, but that meaning died out in the 1400s. Another sense, "one's native land," had come and gone by the early 1500s. The sense "friends, fellow countrymen, or neighbors" developed before the 12th century and was sometimes used as a synonym of kinsfolk. That last sense got kith into hot water after people began using the word in the alliterative phrase "kith and kin." Over the years, usage commentators have complained that kith means the same thing as kin, so "kith and kin" is redundant. Clearly, they have overlooked some other historical definitions, but if you want to avoid redundancy charges, be sure to include friends as well as relatives among your "kith and kin."

Kismet (KIZZ-met)

: fate Is it your fate to tie macramé while drinking coffee and eating sherbet in a minaret? That would be an unusual destiny, but if it turns out to be your kismet, you will owe much to Turkish and Arabic. We borrowed kismet from Turkish in the 1800s, but it ultimately derives from the Arabic qisma, meaning "portion" or "lot." Several other terms in our bizarre opening question (namely, macramé, coffee, sherbet, and minaret) have roots in those languages too. In the case of macramé and minaret, there is a little French influence as well. Coffee and macramé also have Italian relations, and sherbet has an ancestor in a Persian name for a type of cold drink.

Nefarious (nih-FAIR-ee-us)

: flagrantly wicked or impious : evil Vicious and villainous are two wicked synonyms of nefarious, and, like nefarious, both mean "highly reprehensible or offensive in character, nature, or conduct." But these synonyms are not used in exactly the same way in all situations. Vicious may imply moral depravity or it may connote malignancy, cruelty, or destructive violence. Villainous applies to any evil, depraved, or vile conduct or characteristic, while nefarious (which derives from the Latin noun nefas, meaning "crime") suggests flagrant breaching of time-honored laws and traditions of conduct.

Whilom (WYE-lum)

: former Whilom shares an ancestor with the word while. Both trace back to the Old English word hwil, meaning "time" or "while." In Old English hwilum was an adverb meaning "at times." This use passed into Middle English (with a variety of spellings, one of which was whilom), and in the 12th century the word acquired the meaning "formerly." The adverb's usage dwindled toward the end of the 19th century, and it has since been labeled archaic. The adjective first appeared on the scene in the 15th century, with the now-obsolete meaning "deceased," and by the 19th century it was being used with the meaning "former." It's a relatively uncommon word, but it does see occasional use.

Hale (HAIL)

: free from defect, disease, or infirmity : sound; also : retaining exceptional health and vigor When you need a word to describe someone or something in good health, you might pick hale or a synonym such as healthy, sound, or robust. Of those terms, healthy is the most general, implying full strength and vigor or simply freedom from signs of disease. Sound generally emphasizes the complete absence of defects of mind or body. Robust implies the opposite of all that is delicate or sickly and usually suggests muscular strength as well as the ability to work or play long and hard. Hale applies especially to robustness in later life. The phrase "hale and hearty" is often used to describe an older person who retains the physical qualities of youth.

Amity (AM-uh-tee)

: friendship; especially : friendly relations between nations Amity has been used in English to describe friendship or friendliness for well over 500 years. It is derived from the Latin word for "friend," amicus, and has come to be used especially for relationships between political leaders and nations in which goodwill is shown despite differences that might exist between the two parties. Amicus is also the root of the adjectives amiable and amicable. Amiable implies having qualities that make one liked and easy to deal with—for example, "The owners of the bed-and-breakfast were very amiable." Amicable is closer in meaning to amity: it implies friendliness and politeness with the desire to avoid disagreement and argument. A relationship between coworkers might be described as amicable. Other family members of amicus are the Spanish borrowing amigo ("friend") and the antonymous enemy, which developed from the Latin combination of the prefix in- ("not") with amicus.

Ab initio (ab-ih-NISH-ee-oh)

: from the beginning We'll tell you right from the beginning where ab initio comes from. This adverb was adopted at the beginning of the 17th century directly from Latin, where it translates as "from the beginning." (Initio is a form of the noun initium, meaning "beginning," which gave rise to such English words as initial, initiate, and initiative.) Ab initio most frequently appears in legal contexts, but it is not surprising to find it used outside of the courtroom. The phrase is also used as an adjective meaning "starting from or based on first principles" (as in "predicted from ab initio calculations").

Zaftig (ZAHF-tig)

: having a full rounded figure : pleasingly plump Over the centuries, some women have been approvingly described as full-figured, shapely, womanly, curvy, curvaceous, voluptuous, and statuesque. Such women are, in a word, zaftig. Zaftig has been juicing up our language since the 1930s (the same decade that gave us Yiddish-derived futz, hoo-ha, and schmaltz, not to mention lox). It comes from the Yiddish zaftik, which means "juicy" or "succulent" and which in turn derives from zaft, meaning "juice" or "sap."

Ruthless (ROOTH-lus)

: having no pity : merciless, cruel Ruthless can be defined as "without ruth" or "having no ruth." So what, then, is ruth? The noun ruth, which is now considerably less common than ruthless, means "compassion for the misery of another," "sorrow for one's own faults," or "remorse." And, just as it is possible for one to be without ruth, it is also possible to be full of ruth. The antonym of ruthless is ruthful, meaning "full of ruth" or "tender." Ruthful can also mean "full of sorrow" or "causing sorrow." Ruth can be traced back to the Middle English noun ruthe, itself from ruen, meaning "to rue" or "to feel regret, remorse, or sorrow."

Stolid (STAH-lid)

: having or expressing little or no sensibility : unemotional Stolid derives from stolidus, a word that means "dull" or "stupid" in Latin. It is also distantly related to the word stultify, meaning "to cause to appear or be stupid, foolish, or absurdly illogical." The earliest examples of usage for stolid, dating back to the early 17th century, indicate that it too was originally associated with a lack of smarts; it was used to describe people who were considered dull or stupid because they didn't wear their emotions on their sleeves. By the 1800s, however, stolid was frequently appearing without the connotation of foolishness, and it continues to be free of such overtones today.

Gadarene (GAD-uh-reen)

: headlong, precipitate Gadara, in Biblical times, was a town just southeast of the Sea of Galilee. In the account given in the book of Matthew (8:28), Jesus, on a visit there, exorcised the demons from two possessed people and sent the demons into some nearby swine. The possessed swine ran in a mad dash down a steep bank into the Sea and drowned. Gadarene, an adjective used to describe a headlong rush (and often capitalized in recognition of its origin), made its first known plunge into our lexicon in the 1920s. The swine sometimes make an appearance as well, as when an imprudently hasty act is compared to "the rush of the Gadarene swine."

Ululate (ULL-yuh-layt)

: howl, wail "When other birds are still, the screech owls take up the strain, like mourning women their ancient u-lu-lu." When Henry David Thoreau used "u-lu-lu" to imitate the cry of screech owls and mourning women in that particular passage from Walden, he was re-enacting the etymology of ululate (a word he likely knew). Ululate descends from the Latin verb ululare. That Latin root carried the same meaning as our modern English word, and it likely originated in the echoes of the rhythmic wailing sound associated with it. Even today, ululate often refers to ritualistic or expressive wailing performed at times of mourning or celebration or used to show approval.

Sub rosa (sub-ROH-zuh)

: in confidence : secretly Sub rosa literally means "under the rose" in New Latin. Since ancient times, the rose has often been associated with secrecy. In ancient mythology, Cupid gave a rose to Harpocrates, the god of silence, to keep him from telling about the indiscretions of Venus. Ceilings of dining rooms have been decorated with carvings of roses, reportedly to remind guests that what was said at the table should be kept confidential. Roses have also been placed over confessionals as a symbol of the confidentiality of confession. Sub rosa entered the English language in the 17th century, and even before then, people were using the English version, "under the rose." Earlier still, unter der Rose was apparently used in Germany, where the phrase is thought to have originated.

Qua (KWAH)

: in the capacity or character of : as Which way? Who? No, we're not paraphrasing lines from the old Abbott and Costello routine "Who's on First?" We're referring to the etymology of qua, a term that comes to us from Latin. It can be translated as "which way" or "as," and it is a derivative of the Latin qui, meaning "who." Qua has been serving English in the capacity of a preposition since the 17th century. It's a learned but handy little word that led one 20th-century usage writer to comment: "Qua is sometimes thought affected or pretentious, but it does convey meaning economically."

Verbatim (ver-BAY-tim)

: in the exact words : word for word Latin has a phrase for "exactly as written": verbatim ac litteratim, which literally means "word for word and letter for letter." Like the verbatim in that Latin phrase, the English verbatim means "word for word." As you may have noticed, there's a verb in verbatim—and that's no mere coincidence. Both verb and verbatim are derived from the Latin word for "word," which is verbum. Other common English words that share this root include adverb, proverb, and verbose. Even the word word itself is related. Verbatim can also be an adjective meaning "being in or following the exact words" (as in "a verbatim report") and a rarer noun referring to an account, translation, or report that follows the original word for word.

Invincible (in-VIN-suh-bul)

: incapable of being conquered, overcome, or subdued The origins of invincible are easily subdued. The word derives, via Middle French, from Late Latin invincibilis—a combination of the negative prefix in- with vincibilis, an adjective meaning "conquerable," from the Latin verb vincere, "to conquer." Other descendants of vincere in English include convince, evince, vanquish, and even victor. Vincere also gave English vincible, meaning (unsurprisingly) "capable of being overcome or subdued," though it is significantly less common than invincible.

Gust (GUST)

: keen delight You're no doubt familiar with the simple gust that means "a brief burst of wind." At least a century and a half before that word first appeared in print in the late 16th century, however, a differently derived homograph came on the scene. The windy gust is probably derived from an Old Norse word gustr, whereas our older featured word (which is now considerably rarer than its look-alike) comes to us through Middle English from gustus, the Latin word for "taste." Gustus gave English another word as well. Gusto (which now usually means "zest" but can also mean "an individual or specific taste") comes to us from gustus by way of Italian.

Osculate (AHSS-kyuh-layt)

: kiss Osculate comes from the Latin noun osculum, meaning "kiss" or "little mouth." It was included in a dictionary of "hard" words in 1656, but we have no evidence that anyone actually used it until the 19th century—except for scientists who used it differently to mean "to have contact with." Today, osculate is used in geometry for the action of a pair of curves or surfaces that touch so that they have a common tangent at the point of contact. When osculate is used to mean "kiss," the context is typically humorous.

Nescience (NESH-ee-unss)

: lack of knowledge or awareness : ignorance Eighteenth-century British poet, essayist, and lexicographer Samuel Johnson once said, "There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable that I would not rather know it than not know it." He probably knew a thing or two about the history of the word nescience, which evolved from a combination of the Latin prefix ne-, meaning "not," and scire, a verb meaning "to know." And he may also have known that scire is an ancestor of science, a word whose original meaning in English was "knowledge."

Callow (KAL-oh)

: lacking adult sophistication : immature You might not expect a relationship between the word callow and baldness, but that connection does in fact exist. Callow comes from calu, a word that meant "bald" in Middle English and Old English. By the 17th century, callow had come to mean "without feathers" and was applied to young birds not yet ready for flight. The term was also used for those who hadn't yet spread their wings in a figurative sense. Callow continues to mean "inexperienced" or "unsophisticated" today.

Flippant (FLIP-unt)

: lacking proper respect or seriousness Flippant did something of a flip-flop shortly after it appeared in English in the late 16th century. The word was probably created from the verb flip, which in turn may have originated as an imitation of the sound of something flipping. The earliest senses of the adjective were "nimble" and "limber." One could be flippant not only on one's feet, but also in speech—that is, someone flippant might have a capacity for easy, flowing speech. Such flippancy was considered a good thing at first. But people who speak freely and easily can sometimes seem too talkative, and even impertinent. By the end of the 18th century, the positive sense of flippant had slipped from use, and the "disrespectful" sense had taken its place.

Nidifugous (nye-DIFF-yuh-gus)

: leaving the nest soon after hatching Nidifugous hatched from the Latin words nidus, meaning "nest," and fugere, meaning "to flee." Its contrasting word nidicolous, meaning "reared for a time in a nest," combines nidus with the English combining form -colous ("living or growing in or on"). Another relevant term is precocial. A precocial bird is capable of a high degree of independent activity as soon as it emerges from the egg. While all nidifugous birds are also necessarily precocial, some nidicolous birds are also precocial—that is, they are capable of leaving the nest soon after hatching, but instead they stick around. Other nidicolous birds are altricial, which is to say they are hatched in a very immature and helpless condition and require care for some time.

Jocund (JAH-kund)

: marked by or suggestive of high spirits and lively mirthfulness Don't let the etymology of jocund play tricks on you. The word comes from jucundus, a Latin word meaning "agreeable" or "delightful," and ultimately from the Latin verb juvare, meaning "to help." But jucundus looks and sounds a bit like jocus, the Latin word for "joke." These two roots took a lively romp through many centuries together and along the way the lighthearted jocus influenced the spelling and meaning of jucundus, an interaction that eventually produced our Modern English word jocund in the 14th century.

Decorous (DECK-er-us)

: marked by propriety and good taste : correct The current meaning of decorous dates from the mid-17th century. One of the word's earliest recorded uses appears in a book titled The Rules of Civility (1673): "It is not decorous to look in the Glass, to comb, brush, or do any thing of that nature to ourselves, whilst the said person be in the Room." Decorous for a time had another meaning as well—"fitting or appropriate"—but that now-obsolete sense seems to have existed for only a few decades in the 17th century. Decorous derives from the Latin word decorus, an adjective created from the noun decor, meaning "beauty" or "grace." Decor is akin to the Latin verb decēre ("to be fitting"), which is the source of our adjective decent. It is only fitting, then, that decent can be a synonym of decorous.

Temerarious (tem-uh-RAIR-ee-us)

: marked by temerity : rashly or presumptuously daring If you have guessed that temerarious may be related to the somewhat more common word temerity, you are correct. Temerarious was borrowed into English in the early 16th century from Latin temerarius, which in turn derives from Latin temere, meaning "blindly" or "recklessly." Temerity, which arrived in English over a century earlier, also derives from temere; another descendant is the rare word intemerate,meaning "pure" or "undefiled." Temere itself is akin to Old High German demar, Latin tenebrae, and Sanskrit tamas, all of which have associations with darkness.

Implacable (im-PLAK-uh-bul)

: not placable : not capable of being appeased, significantly changed, or mitigated Implacable is based on the Latin verb placare, meaning "to calm" or "to soothe." It joins the negative im- to the root to describe something that cannot be calmed or soothed or altered. The root placare also gave us placate. You may ask, what about the similar-looking words placid and placebo? These words are related to implacable and placate, but not as closely as you might suspect. They come from the Latin verb placēre, a relative of placare that means "to please."

Urbane (er-BAYN)

: notably polite or polished in manner City slickers and country folk have long debated whether life is better in town or in the wide open spaces, and urbane is a term that springs from the throes of that debate. The word traces back to Latin urbs, meaning "city," and in its earliest English uses urbane was synonymous with its close relative urban ("of, relating to, characteristic of, or constituting a city"). Urbane developed its modern sense of savoir faire from the belief (no doubt fostered by city dwellers) that living in the city made one more suave and polished than did leading a rural life.

Epistemic (ep-uh-STEE-mik)

: of or relating to knowledge or knowing : cognitive Epistemic has shifted from the arcane worlds of philosophy, linguistics, and rhetoric to the practical realms of business and marketing; for example, a 2007 Letter to Shareholders from the asset management firm Legg Mason referred to investors who "have a high epistemic threshold and do exhaustive analysis to create near certainty, or at least very high conviction, about their investments." Wherever it is used, epistemic traces back to the knowledge of the Greeks. It comes from epistēmē, Greek for "knowledge." That Greek word is from the verb epistanai, meaning "to know or understand," a word formed from the prefix epi- (meaning "upon" or "attached to") and histanai (meaning "to cause to stand"). The study of the nature and grounds of knowledge is called epistemology, and one who engages in such study is an epistemologist.

Crackerjack (CRACK-er-jack)

: of striking ability or excellence The late 19th-century pairing of crack and jack to form crackerjack topped off a long history for those words. Cracker is an elongation of crack, an adjective meaning "expert" or "superior" that dates from the 18th century. Prior to that, crack was a noun meaning "something superior" and a verb meaning "to boast." (The verb use evolved from the expression "to crack a boast," which came from the sense of crack meaning "to make a loud sharp sound.") Jack has been used for "man" since the mid-1500s, as in "jack-of-all-trades." Crackerjack entered English first as a noun referring to "a person or thing of marked excellence," then as an adjective. You may also know Cracker Jack as a snack of candied popcorn and peanuts. That trademarked name dates from the 1890s.

Noetic (noh-ET-ik)

: of, relating to, or based on the intellect Noetic derives from the Greek adjective noētikos, meaning "intellectual," from the verb noein ("to think") and ultimately from the noun nous, meaning "mind." (Nous also gave English the word paranoia by joining with a prefix meaning "faulty" or "abnormal.") Noetic is related to noesis, a rare noun that turns up in the field of philosophy and refers to the action of perceiving or thinking. The most notable use of noetic might be in the name of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, a research organization based in California that is devoted to studies of consciousness and the mind.

Uxorial (uk-SOR-ee-ul)

: of, relating to, or characteristic of a wife With help from -ial, -ious, and -icide, the Latin word uxor, meaning "wife," has given us the English words uxorial, uxorious (meaning "excessively fond of or submissive to a wife"), and uxoricide ("murder of a wife by her husband" or "a wife murderer"). Do we have equivalent "husband" words? Well, sort of. Maritus means "husband" in Latin, so marital can mean "of or relating to a husband and his role in marriage" (although maritus also means "married," and the "of or relating to marriage or the married state" sense of marital is far more common). And while mariticide is "spouse killing," it can also be specifically "husband-killing."

Littoral (LIT-uh-rul)

: of, relating to, or situated or growing on or near a shore especially of the sea You're most likely to encounter littoral in contexts relating to the military and marine sciences. A littoral combat ship is a fast and easily maneuverable combat ship built for use in coastal waters. And in marine ecology, the littoral zone is a coastal zone characterized by abundant dissolved oxygen, sunlight, nutrients, and generally high wave energies and water motion. Littoral can also be found as a noun referring to a coastal region or, more technically, to the shore zone between the high tide and low tide points. The adjective is the older of the two, dating from the mid-17th century; the noun dates from the early 19th century. The word comes to English from Latin litoralis, itself from litor- or litus, meaning "seashore."

Kafkaesque (kahf-kuh-ESK)

: of, relating to, or suggestive of Franz Kafka or his writings; especially : having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was a Czech-born German-language writer whose surreal fiction vividly expressed the anxiety, alienation, and powerlessness of the individual in the 20th century. Kafka's work is characterized by nightmarish settings in which characters are crushed by nonsensical, blind authority. Thus, the word Kafkaesque is often applied to bizarre and impersonal administrative situations where the individual feels powerless to understand or control what is happening.

Marmoreal (mahr-MOR-ee-ul)

: of, relating to, or suggestive of marble or a marble statue especially in coldness or aloofness Most marble-related words in English were chiseled from the Latin noun marmor, meaning "marble." Marmor gave our language the word marble itself in the 12th century. It is also the parent of marmoreal, which has been used in English since the mid-1600s. Marbleize, another marmor descendant, came later, making its print debut around 1854. The obscure adjective marmorate, meaning "veined like marble," dates to the 16th century and hasn't seen much use since.

Hors de combat (or-duh-kohng-BAH)

: out of combat : disabled We picked up hors de combat directly from French back in the mid-18th century. Benjamin Franklin put the term to use in a 1776 letter, observing that an "arrow sticking in any part of a man puts him hors du [sic] combat till it is extracted." But you don't have to use the word as literally as Franklin did. Combat can refer to any fight or contest, not just fighting in a war. A politician who's out of the running in a political race could be declared "hors de combat," for example. But the adjective (or adverb) need not refer only to humans or animals: if you own a car, chances are your vehicle has been hors de combat at least once.

Pulchritude (PUHL-kruh-tood)

: physical comeliness If English poet John Keats was right when he wrote that "a thing of beauty is a joy forever," then pulchritude should bring bliss for many years to come. That word has already served English handsomely for centuries; it has been used since the 1400s. It's a descendant of the Latin adjective pulcher, which means "beautiful." Pulcher hasn't exactly been a wellspring of English terms, but it did give us both pulchritude and pulchritudinous, an adjective meaning "attractive" or "beautiful." The verb pulchrify (a synonym of beautify), the noun pulchritudeness (same meaning as pulchritude), and the adjective pulchrous (meaning "fair or beautiful") are other pulcher offspring, but those terms have proved that, in at least some linguistic cases, beauty is fleeting.

Vatic (VAT-ik)

: prophetic, oracular Some people say only thin lines separate poetry, prophecy, and madness. We don't know if that's generally true, but it is in the case of vatic. The adjective derives directly from the Latin word vates, meaning "seer" or "prophet." But that Latin root is, in turn, distantly related to the Old English wōth, meaning "poetry," the Old High German wuot, meaning "madness," and the Old Irish fáith, meaning both "seer" and "poet."

Rapscallion (rap-SKAL-yun)

: rascal, ne'er-do-well The word rascal has been part of English since the 15th century, but on its own it apparently didn't quite capture the disagreeable nature of the wily knaves of yore. By the 17th century, English speakers had modified rascal to create rascallion. But it seems that even that term didn't sound quite mischievous enough. By the century's end, rascallion had been further altered to create rapscallion. Today, rapscallion is still commonly used as a synonym for blackguard, scoundrel, and miscreant. Rascallion is still around as well, but it's very rare.

Banausic (buh-NAW-sik)

: relating to or concerned with earning a living — used pejoratively; also : utilitarian, practical The ancient Greeks held intellectual pursuits in the highest esteem, and they considered ideal a leisurely life of contemplation. A large population of slaves enabled many Greek citizens to adopt that preferred lifestyle. Those who had others to do the heavy lifting for them tended to regard professional labor with contempt. Their prejudice against the need to toil to earn a living is reflected in the Greek adjective banausikos (the root of banausic), which not only means "of an artisan" (from the word for "artisan," banausos) but "nonintellectual" as well.

Semelparous (seh-MEL-puh-rus)

: reproducing or breeding only once in a lifetime The combining form -parous was first used in English by the 17th-century physician and writer Sir Thomas Browne, who wrote about organisms that were multiparous ("producing more than one at a birth"), oviparous ("producing eggs that develop outside the maternal body"), and viviparous ("producing living young instead of eggs from within the body"). The suffix is based on the Latin verb parere, meaning "to give birth to," which is also a relative of the word that gave us parent. Semelparous, the youngest offspring of -parous, was born in 1954. Its other parent is semel, the Latin word for "once."

Guerdon (GUR-dun)

: reward, recompense Guerdon dates back to the 14th century, when Geoffrey Chaucer used it in The Romaunt of the Rose (ca. 1366): "He quitte him wel his guerdon there." It derives from Anglo-French and is thought to be related to the Old High German widarlōn, meaning "reward." Shakespeare used guerdon a couple of times in his plays. In Love's Labour's Lost, for example, Berowne, attendant to King Ferdinand, sends the clown Costard to deliver a letter to Rosaline, attendant to the princess of France, handing him a shilling with the line, "There's thy guerdon; go." Guerdon is a rare word today, but contemporary writers do use it on occasion for poetic effect.

Quid pro quo (kwid-proh-KWOH)

: something given or received for something else; also : a deal arranging such an exchange In the early 16th century, a quid pro quo was something obtained from an apothecary. That's because when quid pro quo (New Latin for "something for something") was first used in English, it referred to the process of substituting one medicine for another—whether intentionally (and sometimes fraudulently) or accidentally. The meaning of the phrase was quickly extended, however, and within several decades it was being used for more general equivalent exchanges. These days, it often occurs in legal contexts.

Kibosh (KYE-bahsh)

: something that serves as a check or stop For almost two centuries, kibosh has taxed the ingenuity of etymologists. It was prominent enough in lower-class London speech to attract the attention of Charles Dickens, who used it in 1836 in an early sketch, but little else is certain. Claims were once made that it was Yiddish, despite the absence of a plausible Yiddish source. Another hypothesis points to Gaelic caidhp bháis—pronounced similarly to, and meaning, "coif of death"—explained as headgear a judge put on when pronouncing a death sentence, or as a covering pulled over the face of a corpse when a coffin was closed. But evidence for any metaphorical use of this phrase in Irish is lacking, and kibosh is not recorded as spoken in Ireland until decades after Dickens' use.

Cabbage (KAB-ij)

: steal, filch Does the "filching" meaning of cabbage bring to mind an image of thieves sneaking out of farm fields with armloads of pilfered produce? If so, you're in for a surprise. Today's featured word has nothing to do with the leafy vegetable. It originally referred to the practice among tailors of pocketing part of the cloth given to them to make garments. The verb was cut from the same cloth as an older British noun cabbage, which meant "pieces of cloth left in cutting out garments and traditionally kept by tailors as perquisites." Both of those ethically questionable cabbages probably derived from cabas, the Middle French word for "cheating or theft." The cabbage found in coleslaw, on the other hand, comes from Middle English caboche, which meant "head."

Heliolatry (hee-lee-AH-luh-tree)

: sun worship The first half of heliolatry derives from hēlios, the Greek word for "sun." In Greek mythology, Hēlios was the god of the sun, imagined as "driving" the sun as a chariot across the sky. From hēlios we also get the word helium, referring to the very light gas that is used in balloons and airships, and heliocentric, meaning "having or relating to the sun as center," as in "a heliocentric orbit." The suffix -latry, meaning "worship," derives via Late Latin and French from the Greek latreia, and can be found in such words as bardolatry ("worship of Shakespeare") and zoolatry ("animal worship"). A person who worships the sun is called a heliolater.

Evanescent (ev-uh-NESS-unt)

: tending to vanish like vapor The fragile, airy quality of things evanescent reflects the etymology of the word evanescent itself. It derives from a form of the Latin verb evanescere, which means "to evaporate" or "to vanish." Given the similarity in spelling between the two words, you might expect evaporate to come from the same Latin root, but it actually grew out of another steamy Latin root, evaporare. Evanescere did give us vanish, however, by way of Anglo-French and Vulgar Latin.

Lavation (lay-VAY-shun)

: the act or an instance of washing or cleansing It sounds logical that you would perform a lavation in a lavatory, doesn't it? And it is logical: both words come from Latin lavare, meaning, appropriately, "to wash." English picked up a few other words from this root as well. In medicine, the therapeutic washing out of an organ is lavage. There is also lavabo (in Latin, literally, "I shall wash"), which in English can refer to a ceremony at Mass in which the celebrant washes his hands, to the basin used in this religious ceremony, or to other kinds of basins. Even the word lavish, via a Middle French word for a downpour of rain, comes to us from lavare.

Ultima (UL-tuh-muh)

: the last syllable of a word In Latin, ultima is the feminine form of the adjective ultimus ("farthest or last"), the superlative form of ulter, meaning "situated beyond." The ultima is the last syllable of a word; the second-to-last syllable in a word is called the penult or penultima (literally, "that which is almost last"); and the third-to-last syllable is called the antepenult or antepenultima ("that which comes before what is almost last"). The related word ultimate, while known to most people as meaning "the best or most extreme of its kind" (as in "surfers finding the ultimate wave"), has an original meaning referring to the last of something in a series.

Restaurateur (res-tuh-ruh-TER)

: the operator or proprietor of a restaurant Restaurateur and restaurant were borrowed directly from related French words, and both ultimately derive from the Latin word restaurare ("to restore"). Restaurateur is the older of the two; our earliest evidence dates it to 1793. Restaurant is only slightly newer; it dates to 1806. Of the two words, restaurant is of course significantly more common—a fact that may have influenced the development of the variant spelling restauranteur for restaurateur. Restauranteur first appeared a mere 44 years after restaurateur, but it is considered by many to be an error. It is, however, a standard variant, albeit one that continues to be used less frequently than restaurateur.

Zeugma (ZOOG-muh)

: the use of a word to modify or govern two or more words in such a way that it applies to each in a different sense or makes sense with only one (as in "opened the door and her heart to the homeless boy") "Zeugma, like the pun, is economical: it contracts two sentences into one . . .; it links unrelated terms—mental with moral, abstract with physical, high with low—and thus generates surprise," wrote Walter Redfern in Puns (1984). Zeugma, which has been a part of the English language since the 15th century, comes from Greek, where it literally means "joining." The Greek word has another connection to English as well. In the early 1970s, a chemistry professor named Paul Lauterbur developed a technique for producing images of internal organs. He called it zeugmatography because it involved the joining of magnetic fields. Lauterbur was awarded a Nobel Prize, but the name he chose didn't stick. The technique is known today as magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI.

Trepidation (trep-uh-DAY-shun)

: timorous uncertain agitation : apprehension If you've ever trembled with fright, you know something of both the sensation and etymology of trepidation. The word comes from the Latin verb trepidare, which means "to tremble." When it first appeared in English in the early 1600s, it meant "tremulous motion" or "tremor." Around the same time, English speakers also started using the "nervous agitation" sense of trepidation that we use today.

Eminently (EM-uh-nunt-lee)

: to a high degree : very When British physician Tobias Venner wrote in 1620 of houses "somewhat eminently situated," he used eminently in a way that now seems unusual. Venner meant that the houses were literally located in a high place, but that lofty use of eminently has since slipped into obsolescence. The term also formerly had the meaning "conspicuously," a use that reflects its Latin root, eminēre, which means "to stand out." That meaning, like the elevated one, is now obsolete. The figurative sense that is still prominent today also began appearing in English texts in the 1600s.

Hobnob (HAHB-nahb)

: to associate familiarly Hob and nob first came together in print in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, when Sir Toby Belch warns Viola (who is disguised as a man) that Sir Andrew wants to duel. "Hob, nob is his word," says Sir Toby, using hob and nob to mean something like "hit or miss." Sir Toby's words are probably from the term habnab (also styled as a phrase: hab or nab), which meant "in one way or another" or "however it may turn out." After Shakespeare's day, hob and nob became established in the phrase to drink hobnob (also styled as to drink hob or nob), which meant "to drink alternately to each other." Since "drinking hobnob" was generally done among friends, hobnob came to refer to congenial social interaction.

Kvell (KVEL)

: to be extraordinarily proud : rejoice We are pleased to inform you that the word kvell is derived from Yiddish kveln, meaning "to be delighted," which, in turn, comes from the Middle High German word quellen, meaning "to well, gush, or swell." Yiddish has been a wellspring of creativity for English, giving us such delightful words as meister ("one who is knowledgeable about something"), maven ("expert"), and shtick ("one's special activity"), just to name a few. The date for the appearance of kvell in the English language is tricky to pinpoint exactly. The earliest known printed evidence for the word in an English source is found in a 1952 handbook of Jewish words and expressions, but actual usage evidence before that date remains unseen.

Nonplus (nahn-PLUS)

: to cause to be at a loss as to what to say, think, or do : perplex Does nonplus perplex you? You aren't alone. Some people believe the "non" in nonplus means "not" and assume that to be nonplussed is to be calm and poised when just the opposite is true. If you are among the baffled, the word's history may clarify things. In Latin, non plus means "no more." In the earliest known uses, which date to the 16th century, it was used as a noun synonymous with quandary. Someone brought to a nonplus had reached an impasse in an argument and could say no more. Within a few decades of the first known use of the noun, people began using nonplus as a verb, and today it is often used in participial form with the meaning "perplexed" (as in "Joellen's nasty remark left us utterly nonplussed").

Vamoose (vuh-MOOSS)

: to depart quickly In the 1820s and '30s, the American Southwest was rough-and-tumble territory—the true Wild West. English-speaking cowboys, Texas Rangers, and gold prospectors regularly rubbed elbows with Spanish-speaking vaqueros in the local saloons, and a certain amount of linguistic intermixing was inevitable. One Spanish term that caught on with English speakers was vamos, which means "let's go." Cowpokes and dudes alike adopted the word, at first using a range of spellings and pronunciations that varied considerably in their proximity to the original Spanish form. But when the dust settled, the version most American English speakers were using was vamoose.

Tog (TAHG)

: to dress especially in fine clothing — usually used with up or out The history of tog is a true rags-to-riches tale that begins with the slang of vagabonds and thieves—specifically, with the noun togeman, an old (and now obsolete) slang word meaning "cloak." By the early 18th century, the noun tog, a shortened form of togeman, was being used as a slang word for "coat," and before the century's end the plural form togs was being used to mean "clothing." The verb tog debuted shortly after togs and was immediately in style as a word for dressing up. You may be wondering if there's a connection between tog and toga, and if so, you are right on track. Togeman is believed to be derived in part from toga, which means "cloak" or "mantle" in Latin.

Quaff (KWAHF)

: to drink deeply Nowadays, quaff has an old-fashioned, literary sound to it. For more contemporary words that suggest drinking a lot of something, especially in big gulps and in large quantity, you might try drain, pound, or slug. If you are a daintier drinker, you might say that you prefer to sip, imbibe or partake in the beverage of your choice. Quaff is by no means the oldest of these terms—earliest evidence of it in use is from the early 1500s, whereas sip dates to the 14th century—but it is the only one with the mysterious "origin unknown" etymology.

Gormandize (GOR-mun-dyze)

: to eat greedily, gluttonously, or ravenously Gormandize entered English in the mid-1500s as a modification of gourmand, a term borrowed from the French that served as a synonym of glutton. The meaning of gourmand softened over time, developing in the mid-18th century a sense referring to one who is "heartily interested in good food and drink." It wasn't until the early 19th century that the wholly positive gourmet became established. Whether that now-common word encouraged the adoption of or was influenced by the softer meaning of gourmand is unknown. Gormandize, too, has softened over time, but only slightly: it can now also imply that a big eater has a discriminating palate as well as a generous appetite.

Canoodle (kuh-NOO-dul)

: to engage in amorous embracing, caressing, and kissing The origins of canoodle are obscure. Our best guess is that it may come from an English dialect noun of the same spelling meaning "donkey," "fool," or "foolish lover," which itself may be an alteration of the word noodle, meaning "a foolish person." That noodle, in turn, may come from noddle, a word for the head. The guess seems reasonable given that, since its appearance in the language around the mid-19th century, canoodle has been most often used jocularly for playful public displays of affection by couples who are head over heels in love.

Roister (ROY-ster)

: to engage in noisy revelry : carouse As British writer Hugo Williams asserted in The Times Literary Supplement (November 15, 1991), roistering tends to be "funnier, sillier and less harmful than standard hooliganism, being based on nonsense rather than violence." Boisterous roisterers might be chagrined to learn that the word roister derives from a Middle French word that means "lout" or "boor," rustre. Ultimately, however, it is from the fairly neutral Latin word rusticus, meaning "rural." In the 16th century, the original English verb was simply roist, and one who roisted was a roister. Later, we changed the verb to roister and the corresponding noun to roisterer.

Jeopardize (JEP-er-dyze)

: to expose to danger or risk : imperil It may be hard to believe that jeopardize was once controversial, but in 1870 a grammarian called it "a foolish and intolerable word," a view shared by many 19th-century critics. The preferred word was jeopard, which first appeared in print in the 14th century. (The upstart jeopardize turned up in 1582.) In 1828, Noah Webster himself declared jeopardize to be "a modern word, used by respectable writers in America, but synonymous with 'jeopard,' and therefore useless." Unfortunately for the champions of jeopard, jeopardize is now much more popular.

Hoke (HOHK)

: to give a contrived, falsely impressive, or hokey quality to — usually used with up Hoke is a back-formation of hokum, which was probably created as a blend of hocus-pocus and bunkum. Hokum is a word for the theatrical devices used to evoke a desired audience response. The verb hoke appeared in the early 20th century and was originally used (as it still can be today) when actors performed in an exaggerated or overly sentimental way. Today, it is often used adjectivally in the form hoked-up, as in "hoked-up dialogue." The related word hokey was coined soon after hoke to describe things that are corny or phony.

Hare (HAIR)

: to go swiftly : tear No doubt you've heard Aesop's fable about the speedy hare and the plodding tortoise. The hare may have lost that race due to a tactical error (stopping to take a nap before reaching the finish line), but the long-eared mammal's overall reputation for swiftness remains intact. It's no surprise, then, that hare is used as a verb meaning "to move quickly." The noun hare (which refers, in its most specific zoological sense, to a member of the genus Lepus, whose young are usually able to hop a few minutes after birth) is a very old word. It first appeared as hara in a Latin-Old English glossary around the year 700. The verb was in use by the end of the 19th century, and people have been "haring off" and "haring about" ever since.

Edify (ED-uh-fye)

: to instruct and improve especially in moral and religious knowledge : uplift; also : enlighten, inform The Latin noun aedes, meaning "house" or "temple," is the root of aedificare, a verb meaning "to erect a house." Generations of speakers built on that meaning, and by the Late Latin period, the verb had gained the figurative sense of "to instruct or improve spiritually." The word eventually passed through Anglo-French before Middle English speakers adopted it as edify during the 14th century. Two of its early meanings, "to build" and "to establish," are now considered archaic; the only current sense of edify is essentially the same as that figurative meaning in Late Latin, "to instruct and improve in moral and religious knowledge."

Glower (GLOUR)

: to look or stare with sullen annoyance or anger Do words of uncertain origin make you scowl? If so, glower may put a frown on your face because only part of its history can be validated. The well-established part of its story leads us to Scotland, where glower (or glowren, to use the older Scottish form of the word) has been used since the late Middle Ages. Originally, the word meant simply "to look intently" or "to stare in amazement," but by the late 1700s, glowering stares were being associated with anger instead of astonishment. Beyond that, however, the history of the word is murky. The most we can say is that glower is a distant relative of Middle Low German glūren, which means "to be overcast," and of Middle Dutch gloeren, meaning "to leer."

Titivate (TIH-tuh-vayt)

: to make or become smart or spruce Titivate, spruce, smarten, and spiff all mean "to make a person or thing neater or more attractive." Titivate often refers to making small additions or alterations in attire ("titivate the costume with sequins and other accessories"), but it can also be used figuratively (as in "titivating the script for Broadway"). Spruce up is sometimes used for cosmetic changes or renovations that give the appearance of newness ("spruce up the house with new shutters and fresh paint before trying to sell it"). Smarten up and spiff up both mean to improve in appearance often by making more neat or stylish ("the tailor smartened up the suit with minor alterations"; "he needed some time to spiff himself up for the party"). The origins of titivate are uncertain, but it may have been formed from the English words tidy and renovate.

Tousle (TOW-zul)

: to make untidy : dishevel, rumple Tousle is a word that has been through what linguists call a "functional shift." That's a fancy way of saying it was originally one part of speech, then gradually came to have an additional function. Tousle started out as a verb back in the 15th century. By the late 19th century, it was also being used as a noun meaning "a tangled mass (as of hair)." Etymologists connect the word to an Old High German word meaning "to pull to pieces."

Foozle (FOO-zul)

: to manage or play awkwardly : bungle Foozle dates only to the late 19th century, but its origins are obscure. The German dialect verb fuseln ("to work carelessly") could figure in its history, but that speculation has never been proven. Not particularly common today, foozle still holds a special place in the hearts, minds, and vocabularies of many golfers. In golf, to foozle a shot is to bungle it and a foozle is a bungled shot. In a Century magazine piece from 1899 called "Two Players and their Play," Beatrice Hanscom reveals more of golf's specialized vocabulary: She tops her ball; then divots fly; / In bunkers long she stays; / She foozles all along the course / In most astounding ways: / In sooth, it is an eery thing / The way Priscilla plays.

Hoick (HOIK)

: to move or pull abruptly : yank Etymologists suspect that hoick is an alteration of the verb hike, which is itself akin to hitch. According to the evidence, hike entered the language during the first decade of the 19th century, whereas hoick appeared near that century's close. The word hoick can be used for any type of abrupt pulling movement but is commonly used for the sudden pulling back on the joystick of an airplane; a rough, jerky movement when rowing; and a jerky, elevated shot in cricket. In fox hunting, the word hoicks is used to call attention to a hound that has picked up the scent and to bring the pack together.

Quash (KWAHSH)

: to nullify especially by judicial action There are two quash verbs in English, and although their meanings are vaguely similar, they have entirely different origins. Both essentially mean to get rid of something—you can quash a rumor, for example, or you can quash a judicial order. The legal term quash (defined above) comes from an Anglo-French word, casser, meaning "to annul," and ultimately from Latin cassus, meaning "void." The other quash means "to suppress or extinguish summarily and completely." It derives from the Middle English word quashen, meaning "to smash," and ultimately from a form of the Latin verb quatere, meaning "to shake."

Juxtapose (JUK-stuh-pohz)

: to place side by side (as to compare or contrast) A back-formation is a word that has come about through the removal of a prefix or a suffix from a longer word. Etymologists think juxtapose is a back-formation that was created when people trimmed down the noun juxtaposition. Historical evidence supports the idea: juxtaposition was showing up in English documents as early as 1654, but juxtapose didn't appear until 1851. Juxtaposition is itself thought to be a combination of Latin juxta, meaning "near," and English position.

Gruntle (GRUN-tul)

: to put in a good humor The verb disgruntle, which has been around since 1682, means "to make ill-humored or discontented." The prefix dis- often means "to do the opposite of," so people might naturally assume that if there is a disgruntle, there must have first been a gruntle with exactly the opposite meaning. But dis- doesn't always work that way; in some rare cases it functions instead as an intensifier. Disgruntle developed from this intensifying sense of dis- plus gruntle, an old word (now used only in British dialect) meaning "to grumble." In the 1920s, a writer humorously used gruntle to mean "to make happy"—in other words, as an antonym of disgruntle. The use caught on. At first gruntle was used only in humorous ways, but people eventually began to use it seriously as well.

Jubilate (JOO-buh-layt)

: to rejoice When things are going your way, you may want to shout for joy. Jubilate testifies to the fact that people have had the urge to give (loud) voice to their happiness for centuries. Although jubilate first appeared in print around the middle of the 17th century, its connection to vocal joy goes back much farther; it is derived from the Latin verb jubilare, which means "to shout for joy." Jubilare has also played a role in the development of a few other closely related joyful English words, including jubilant (the earliest meaning was "making a joyful noise," though it is now most often used to mean simply "exultant") and jubilation ("an act of rejoicing").

Truncate (TRUNG-kayt)

: to shorten by or as if by cutting off Truncate descends from the Latin verb truncare, meaning "to shorten," which in turn can be traced back to the Latin word for the trunk of a tree, which is truncus. Incidentally, if you've guessed that truncus is also the ancestor of the English word trunk, you are correct. Truncus also gave us truncheon, which is the name for a police officer's billy club, and the obscure word obtruncate, meaning "to cut the head or top from."

Litotes (LYE-tuh-teez)

: understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary Even if you've never heard the word litotes, chances are you've encountered this figure of speech. If you've ever approved of a job well done by exclaiming "Not bad!" or told someone that you are "not unhappy" when you are ecstatic, you've even used it yourself. In fact, you might say that it would be "no mean feat" to avoid this common feature of our language! And litotes isn't only common; it's also simple—etymologically speaking, that is. Litotes evolved from a Greek word meaning "simple," and perhaps ultimately from another Greek word meaning "linen cloth."

Vulnerary (VUL-nuh-rair-ee)

: used for or useful in healing wounds In Latin, vulnus means "wound." You might think, then, that the English adjective vulnerary would mean "wounding" or "causing a wound"—and, indeed, vulnerary has been used that way, along with two obsolete adjectives, vulnerative and vulnific. But for the lasting and current use of vulnerary, we took our cue from the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder. In his Natural History, he used the Latin adjective vulnerarius to describe a plaster, or dressing, for healing wounds. And that's fine—the suffix -ary merely indicates that there is a connection, which, in this case, is to wounds. (As you may have already suspected, vulnerable is related; it comes from the Latin verb vulnerare, which means "to wound.")

A cappella (ah-kuh-PEL-uh)

: without instrumental accompaniment A cappella arrived in English from Italian sometime around the late-18th century. In Italian, a cappella means "in chapel or choir style." Cappella is the Italian word for "chapel"; the English word chapel is ultimately (if independently) derived from the Medieval Latin word cappella, which is the source of the Italian cappella as well. Scholars once thought all "chapel style" music written before the 1600s was performed a cappella, but modern research has revealed that instruments might have doubled or substituted for some voices back then. Today a cappella describes a purely vocal performance.

Zest (ZEST)

1 : a piece of the peel of a citrus fruit (such as an orange or lemon) used as flavoring 2 : an enjoyably exciting quality : piquancy 3 : keen enjoyment : relish, gusto Zest can spice up your life—fitting for a word that we learned from the world of cooking. We borrowed the term from a source that has given English speakers many culinary delights: French cuisine. The French used the form zest (nowadays they spell it zeste) to refer to orange or lemon peel used to flavor food or drinks. English speakers developed a taste for the fruit flavoring and adopted the term zest in the late 1600s. By the early 1700s, they had started using the word to refer to any quality that adds enjoyment to something in the same way that the zest of an orange or lemon adds flavor to food.

Invective (in-VEK-tiv)

1 : an abusive expression or speech 2 : insulting or abusive language : vituperation Invective originated in the 15th century as an adjective meaning "of, relating to, or characterized by insult or abuse." In the early 16th century, it appeared in print as a noun meaning "an example of abusive speech." Eventually, the noun developed a second sense applying to abusive language as a whole. Invective comes to us from the Middle French word invectif, which in turn derives from Latin invectivus, meaning "reproachful, abusive." (Invectivus comes from Latin invectus, past participle of the verb invehere, one form of which means "to assail with words.") Invective is similar to abuse, but it tends to suggest not only anger and vehemence but verbal and rhetorical skill. It sometimes implies public denunciation, as in "blistering political invective."

Tocsin (TOCK-sin)

1 : an alarm bell or the ringing of it 2 : a warning signal Although it has occasionally been spelled like its homonym toxin, tocsin has nothing to do with poison. Rather, it is derived from the Middle French toquassen, which in turn comes from the Old Occitan tocasenh, and ultimately from the assumed Vulgar Latin verb toccare ("to ring a bell") and the Latin signum ("mark, sign"), which have given us, respectively, the English words touch and signal. Tocsin long referred to the ringing of church bells to signal events of importance to local villagers, including dangerous events such as attacks. Its use was eventually broadened to cover anything that signals danger or trouble.

Methuselah (muh-THOO-zuh-luh)

1 : an ancestor of Noah held to have lived 969 years 2 : an oversize wine bottle holding about six liters What do Jeroboam, Methuselah, Salmanazar, Balthazar, and Nebuchadnezzar have in common? Larger-than-life biblical figures all, yes (four kings and a venerable patriarch), but they're all also names of oversized wine bottles. A Jeroboam is usually the equivalent of about four 750-milliliter bottles (about 3 liters). One Methuselah holds about eight standard bottles' worth, a Salmanazar 12, a Balthazar 16, and a Nebuchadnezzar a whopping 20. (Each of these terms is also sometimes styled lowercase.) No one knows who decided to use those names for bottles, but we do know that by the 1800s Jeroboam was being used for large goblets or "enormous bottles of fabulous content." It wasn't until sometime early in the 20th century that Methuselah and all the other names were chosen for specific bottle sizes.

Guttural (GUTT-uh-rul)

1 : articulated in the throat 2 : velar 3 : being or marked by utterance that is strange, unpleasant, or disagreeable Though it is now used to describe many sounds or utterances which strike the listener as harsh or disagreeable, the adjective guttural was originally applied only to sounds and utterances produced in the throat. This is reflected in the word's Latin root—guttur, meaning "throat." Despite the similarity in sound, guttural is not related to the English word gutter, which comes (by way of Anglo-French) from Latin gutta, meaning "drop."

Bogart (BOH-gahrt)

1 : bully, intimidate 2 : to use or consume without sharing The legendary film actor Humphrey Bogart was known for playing a range of tough characters in a series of films throughout the 1940s and 1950s, including The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The African Queen, and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The men he portrayed often possessed a cool, hardened exterior that occasionally let forth a suggestion of romantic or idealistic sentimentality. Bogart also had a unique method of smoking cigarettes in these pictures—letting the butt dangle from his mouth without removing it until it was almost entirely consumed. Some believe that this habit inspired the current meaning of bogart, which was once limited to the phrase "Don't bogart that joint [marijuana cigarette]," as popularized by a song on the soundtrack to the film Easy Rider, among other things. Today bogart can be applied to hogging almost anything.

Consummate (KAHN-suh-mut)

1 : complete in every detail : perfect 2 : extremely skilled and accomplished 3 : of the highest degree Consummate, which derives from the Latin verb consummare (meaning "to sum up" or "to finish"), has been used as an adjective in English since the 15th century. Some usage commentators feel the word is overused and others think it should be limited to the "perfect" sense (as in "a consummate little model of a clipper ship"), but neither of those positions is more than an opinion. All of the senses of the word are well-established and have served careful writers well for many, many years.

Eloquent (EL-uh-kwunt)

1 : marked by forceful and fluent expression 2 : vividly or movingly expressive or revealing Since eloquent can have something to do with speaking, it makes sense that it comes from the Latin verb loqui, which means "to speak." Loqui is the parent of many "talkative" offspring in English. Loquacious, which means "given to fluent or excessive talk," also arose from loqui. Another loqui relative is circumlocution, a word that means someone is talking around a subject to avoid making a direct statement (circum- means "around"). And a ventriloquist is someone who makes his or her voice sound like it's coming from another source.

Sedentary (SED-un-tair-ee)

1 : not migratory : settled 2 a : doing or requiring much sitting b : not physically active 3 : permanently attached English speakers borrowed sedentary in the late 16th century from Middle French sedentaire, which in turn derives from Latin sedentarius. Sedentarius, which means "of one that sits," is from the present participle of the verb sedēre, meaning "to sit." Other descendants of sedēre in English include dissident, insidious, preside, reside, and subsidy. Sedēre is also the base of the rare word sedens, a noun meaning "a person who remains a resident of the place or region of his birth."

Lexical (LEK-sih-kul)

1 : of or relating to words or the vocabulary of a language as distinguished from its grammar and construction 2 : of or relating to a lexicon or to lexicography The word lexicon can be used as a synonym of dictionary, and the word lexicography refers to the practice of dictionary making. Both of these words, as well as lexical, derive from the Greek word lexis, meaning "word" or "speech." A fourth descendant of lexis is lexiphanic, an archaic adjective describing one who uses pretentious words for effect. Lexis should not be confused with the Latin lex, or "law," which is used in legal phrases such as lex non scripta, meaning "unwritten law."

Beatific (bee-uh-TIFF-ik)

1 : of, possessing, or imparting a state of utmost bliss 2 : having a blissful appearance Beatific—which derives from Latin beatificus, meaning "making happy"—has graced the English language as a word describing things that impart consummate bliss since the 17th century. In theology, the phrase "beatific vision" gained meaning as an allusion to the direct sight of God enjoyed by the blessed in heaven. Today, the word more frequently describes a blissful look or appearance. A closely related word is beatitude, which can refer to a state of utmost bliss or to any of the declarations made by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

Tactile (TAK-tul)

1 : perceptible by touch : tangible 2 : of, relating to, or being the sense of touch Tangible is related to tactile, and so are intact, tact, contingent, tangent, and even entire. There's also the uncommon noun taction, meaning "the act of touching." Like tactile, all of these words can be traced back to the Latin verb tangere, meaning "to touch." Tactile was adopted by English speakers in the early 17th century (possibly by way of the French tactile) from the Latin adjective tactilis ("tangible"). Tactilis comes from tactus, a past participle of tangere.

Waggish (WAG-ish)

1 : resembling or characteristic of a wag : displaying good-humored mischief 2 : done or made for sport : humorous One who is waggish acts like a wag. What, then, is a wag? Etymologists think wag probably came from waghalter, a word that was once used for a gallows bird (that is, a person who was going to be, or deserved to be, hanged). Waghalter was apparently shortened to wag and used jokingly or affectionately for mischievous pranksters or youths. Hence a wag is a joker, and waggery is merriment or practical joking. Waggish can describe the prank itself as well as the prankster type; the class clown might be said to have a "waggish disposition" or be prone to "waggish antics."

Auspicious (aw-SPISH-us)

1 : showing or suggesting that future success is likely : propitious 2 : attended by good fortune : prosperous Auspicious comes from Latin auspex, which literally means "bird seer" (from the words avis, meaning "bird," and specere, meaning "to look at"). In ancient Rome, these "bird seers" were priests, or augurs, who studied the flight and feeding patterns of birds, then delivered prophecies based on their observations. The right combination of bird behavior indicated favorable conditions, but the wrong patterns spelled trouble. The English noun auspice, which originally referred to this practice of observing birds to discover omens, also comes from Latin auspex. Today, the plural form auspices is often used with the meaning "kindly patronage and guidance."

Asperse (uh-SPURSS)

1 : sprinkle; especially : to sprinkle with holy water 2 : to attack with evil reports or false or injurious charges You may be more familiar with the idea of "casting aspersions" than with aspersing, although they mean essentially the same thing; the word aspersion can mean "a sprinkling with water" or, more commonly, "a false or misleading charge meant to harm someone's reputation." Both asperse and aspersion are descendants of the Latin verb aspergere, meaning "to sprinkle." Asperse is the older word, dating to at least 1490; aspersion is known to have first appeared in print in English in the latter half of the 1500s.

Hie (HYE)

1 : to go quickly : hasten 2 : to cause (oneself) to go quickly Hie has been part of English since the 12th century, and it stems from the even hoarier hīgian, an Old English word meaning "to strive" or "to hasten." Hie enjoyed a high popularity period from the 16th to the 19th centuries, and you're sure to encounter it in the literature of those times—writers from Shakespeare to Twain penned it into their prose. But don't get the idea that hie is just a word of the past; it regularly pops up in current publications as well—often, though not always, in contexts in which the author is wanting to approximate an old-timey way of communicating.

Impute (im-PYOOT)

1 : to lay the responsibility or blame for often falsely or unjustly 2 : to credit to a person or a cause Impute is a somewhat formal word that is used to suggest that someone or something has done or is guilty of something. It is similar in meaning to such words as ascribe and attribute, though it is more likely to suggest an association with something that brings discredit. When we impute something, we typically impute it to someone or something. You may also encounter the related noun imputation, which appears in such contexts as "I deny all your imputations of blame." Another sense of impute means "to calculate as a value or cost (as for taxation)," as in "impute a benefit from the use of the car."

Expatiate (ek-SPAY-shee-ayt)

1 : to move about freely or at will : wander 2 : to speak or write at length or in detail The Latin antecedent of expatiate is exspatiari, which combines the prefix ex- ("out of") with spatiari ("to take a walk"), itself from spatium ("space" or "course"). Exspatiari means "to wander from a course" and, in a figurative sense, "to digress." But when English speakers began using expatiate in the mid-16th century, we took "wander" to mean simply "to move about freely." In a similar digression from the original Latin, we began using expatiate in a figurative sense of "to speak at length." That's the sense of the word most often used these days, usually in combination with on or upon.

Procrastinate (pruh-KRASS-tuh-nayt)

1 : to put off intentionally and habitually 2 : to put off intentionally the doing of something that should be done We won't put off telling you about the origins of procrastinate. English speakers borrowed the word in the 16th century from Latin procrastinatus, which itself evolved from the prefix pro-, meaning "forward," and crastinus, meaning "of tomorrow." Like its synonyms delay, lag, loiter, dawdle, and dally, procrastinate means to move or act slowly so as to fall behind. It typically implies blameworthy delay especially through laziness or apathy.

Exonerate (ig-ZAH-nuh-rayt)

1 : to relieve of a responsibility, obligation, or hardship 2 : to clear from accusation or blame We won't blame you if you don't know the origins of today's word. Exonerate derives via Middle English from the past participle of the Latin verb exonerare, meaning "to unburden," formed by combining the prefix ex- with onus, meaning "load" or "burden" (onus itself lives on with that meaning in English). In its earliest uses, dating from the 16th century, exonerate was used in the context of physical burdens—a ship, for example, could be exonerated of its cargo when it was unloaded. Later it was used in reference to any kind of burden, until a more specific sense developed, meaning "to relieve (someone) of blame."

Felicitous (fih-LISS-uh-tus)

1 : very well suited or expressed : apt 2 : pleasant, delightful The adjective felicitous has been a part of our language since the late 18th century, but felicity, the noun meaning "great happiness," and later, "aptness," was around even in Middle English (as felicite, a borrowing from Anglo-French). Both words ultimately derive from the Latin adjective felix, meaning "fruitful" or "happy." The connection between happy and felicitous continues today in that both words can mean "notably fitting, effective, or well adapted." Happy typically suggests what is effectively or successfully appropriate (as in "a happy choice of words"), and felicitous often implies an aptness that is opportune, telling, or graceful (as in "a felicitous phrase").

Unctuous (UNK-chuh-wus)

1 a : fatty, oily b : smooth and greasy in texture or appearance 2 : plastic 3 : insincerely smooth in speech and manner Nowadays, unctuous usually has a negative connotation, but it originated as a term describing a positive act, that of healing. The word comes from the Latin verb unguere ("to anoint"), a root that also gave rise to the words unguent ("a soothing or healing salve") and ointment. The oily nature of ointments may have led to the application of unctuous to describe things marked by an artificial gloss of sentimentality. An unctuous individual may mean well, but his or her insincere earnestness can leave an unwelcome residue with others, much like some ointments.

Mettle (MET-ul)

1 a : vigor and strength of spirit or temperament b : staying quality : stamina 2 : quality of temperament or disposition Originally, mettle was simply a variant spelling of the word metal (which dates to at least the 13th century), and it was used in all of the same senses as its metallic relative. Over time, however, mettle came to be used mainly in figurative senses referring to the quality of someone's character. It eventually became a distinct English word in its own right, losing its literal sense altogether. Metal remained a term primarily used for those hard, shiny substances such as steel or iron, but it also acquired a figurative use. Today, both words can mean "vigor and strength of spirit or temperament," but only metal is used of metallic substances.

Kerfuffle (ker-FUFF-ul)

: (chiefly British) disturbance, fuss Fuffle was first used in Scottish English, as early as the 16th century, as a verb meaning "to dishevel." The addition of the prefix car- (possibly derived from a Scottish Gaelic word meaning "wrong" or "awkward") didn't change the meaning of the word considerably. In the 19th century carfuffle, with its variant curfuffle, became a noun, and in the 20th century it was embraced by a broader population of English speakers and standardized to kerfuffle. There is some dispute among language historians over how the altered spelling came to be favored. One theory holds that it might have been influenced by imitative words like kerplunk, where the syllable ker- is simply added for emphasis.

Milquetoast (MILK-tohst)

: a timid, meek, or unassertive person Caspar Milquetoast was a comic strip character created in 1924 by the American cartoonist Harold T. Webster. The strip, called "The Timid Soul," ran every Sunday in the New York Herald Tribune for many years. Webster, who claimed that Milquetoast was a self-portrait, summed up the character as "the man who speaks softly and gets hit with a big stick." The earliest examples for Milquetoast used as a generic synonym for "timid person" date from the mid-1930s. Caspar's last name might remind you of "milk toast," a bland concoction of buttered toast served in a dish of warm milk.

Lout (LOUT)

: an awkward brutish person Lout belongs to the large group of words we use to indicate an undesirable person, a boor, a bumpkin, a dolt, a clod. We've used lout in this way since the mid-1500s. As early as the 800s, however, lout functioned as a verb with the meaning "to bow in respect." No one is quite sure how the verb sense developed into a noun meaning "a brutish person." Perhaps the awkward posture of one bowing down led over time to the idea that the person was personally low and awkward as well.

Natant (NAY-tunt)

: swimming or floating in water Natant and the smattering of other words birthed in the waters of Latin natare, meaning "to swim," can sound overly formal in many contexts. Rather than use the word natatorium, for example, we're more likely to refer simply to an indoor swimming pool. Similarly, instead of complimenting a friend's skills in natation, you're probably more apt to tell her she's a good swimmer. The common German-derived word swimming suits most of us just fine. Science, though, often prefers Latin, which is why you're most likely to encounter natare words in scientific contexts.

Dicker (DIK-er)

: to bargain Etymologists aren't exactly sure of the origins of the verb dicker; however, there is a probability that it arose from the bartering of animal hides on the American frontier. The basis of that theory is founded on the noun dicker, which in English can refer to a quantity of ten hides. That word is derived from decuria, the Latin word for a bundle of ten hides, and ultimately from Latin decem, meaning "ten" (to learn why the month December comes from the Latin word decem, click here). In ancient Rome, a decuria became a unit of bartering. The word entered Middle English as dyker and eventually evolved to dicker. It has been posited that the verb emerged from the bargaining between traders over dickers of hides, but not all etymologists are sold on that idea.

Adroit (uh-DROYT)

Adroit means "having or showing skill, cleverness, or resourcefulness in handling situations." // The CEO has been praised for his adroit management of the company's financial recovery. "[Dominic Raab] has proved adroit in the past at defusing potentially difficult select committee sessions, notably over overseas aid cuts." — Patrick Wintour, The Guardian (UK), 31 Aug. 2021 Adroit goes back to an Old French word meaning "handsome or elegant" as well as "skilled in combat." The adjective is still used to imply skillfulness, but usually not of the physical kind. Adroit most often describes cleverness that achieves one's purpose in spite of difficulties.

Fossick (FAH-sik)

1 : (Australia & New Zealand) to search about especially for gold or gemstones 2 : (chiefly Australia & New Zealand) to search about : rummage The first people to fossick (in the oldest and still-current meaning of the word), back in the 1850s, were picking over abandoned mining excavations in Australia and New Zealand in search of gold or gemstones. But within a few decades fossick was being used more generally to mean "to search about" or "to rummage." Fossick, as we know it, is a native of Down Under, but it may have its origins in a word known to immigrants from the United Kingdom: the dialect term fussock, meaning "to bustle about" or "to fidget."

Bogus (BOH-gus)

: not genuine : counterfeit, sham You may know bogus as a slang word meaning "uncool" or simply "no good," but did you know that bogus has actually been a part of English since the early 1800s? Not only was the word coined then, it was actually doing some coining of its own, so to speak. Back then, a bogus was a machine used to make counterfeit coins. No one knows for sure how this coin-copying contraption got its name, but before long bogus had also become a popular noun for funny money itself or for a fraudulent imitation of any kind. The more general "phony" adjective began being used about the same time.

Woebegone (WOH-bih-gahn)

1 : strongly afflicted with woe : woeful2 a : exhibiting great woe, sorrow, or miseryb : being in a sorry state At first glance, woebegone looks like a word that has its meaning backwards; after all, if begone means "to go away," shouldn't woebegone mean "devoid of woe," or "happy"? Not exactly. The word derives from the Middle English phrase wo begon. The wo in this phrase simply means "woe," but begon (deriving from Old English began) is a past participle meaning "beset." Someone who is woebegone, therefore, is beset with woe. Since the early 19th century, the word has also been used to describe things that appear to express sadness, as in "a woebegone face."

Caesura (sih-ZYUR-uh)

1 : a break in the flow of sound usually in the middle of a line of verse 2 : break, interruption 3 : a pause marking a rhythmic point of division in a melody Caesuras (or caesurae) are those slight pauses one makes as one reads verse. While it may seem that their most obvious role is to emphasize the metrical construction of the verse, more often we need these little stops (which may be, but are not necessarily, set off by punctuation) to introduce the cadence and phrasing of natural speech into the metrical scheme. The word caesura, borrowed from Late Latin, is ultimately from Latin caedere meaning "to cut." Nearly as old as the 450-year-old poetry senses is the general meaning of "a break or interruption."

Simulacrum (sim-yuh-LAK-rum)

1 : image, representation 2 : an insubstantial form or semblance of something : trace It's not a figment of your imagination; there is a similarity between simulacrum and simulate. Both of those English words derive from simulare, a Latin verb meaning "to copy, represent, or feign." In its earliest English uses, simulacrum named something that provided an image or representation (as, for instance, a portrait, marble statue, or wax figure representing a person). Perhaps because a simulacrum, no matter how skillfully done, is not the real thing, the word gained an extended sense emphasizing the superficiality or insubstantiality of a thing.

Gravid (GRAV-id)

1 : pregnant 2 : distended with or full of eggs Gravid comes from Latin gravis, meaning "heavy." It can refer to a female who is literally pregnant, and it also has the figurative meanings of pregnant: "full or teeming" and "meaningful." Thus, a writer may be gravid with ideas as she sits down to write; a cloud may be gravid with rain; or a speaker may make a gravid pause before announcing his remarkable findings.

Twee (TWEE)

: (chiefly British) affectedly or excessively dainty, delicate, cute, or quaint Most adults wouldn't be caught dead saying, "Oh, look at the twee little birdie!" but they probably wouldn't be averse to saying: "He went fishing with his dad," "She works as a nanny," or "Hey, buddy, how's it going?" Anyone who uses dad, nanny, or buddy owes a debt to "baby talk," a term used for both the childish speech adults adopt when addressing youngsters and for the speech of small children who are just learning to talk. Twee also originated in baby talk as an alteration of sweet. In the early 1900s, it was a term of affection, but nowadays British speakers and writers—and, increasingly, Americans as well—use twee for things that have passed beyond agreeable and into the realm of cloying.

Wisenheimer (WYE-zun-hye-mer)

: smart aleck We wouldn't joke around about the origin of this witty word. In the early 20th century, someone had the smart idea to combine the adjective wise (one sense of which means "insolent, smart-alecky, or fresh") with -enheimer, playing on the pattern of family names such as Oppenheimer and Guggenheimer. Of course, wisenheimer isn't the only "wise-" word for someone who jokes around. There's also wiseacre, wisecracker, and wise guy. All of these jokesters are fond of making wisecracks.

Alacrity (uh-LAK-ruh-tee)

: promptness in response : cheerful readiness "I have not that alacrity of spirit / Nor cheer of mind that I was wont to have," says Shakespeare's King Richard III in the play that bears his name. When Shakespeare penned those words, over 400 years ago, alacrity was at least 137 years old. Our English word derives from the Latin word alacer, which means "lively." It denotes physical quickness coupled with eagerness or enthusiasm. Are there any other words in English from Latin alacer? Yes—allegro, which is used as a direction in music with the meaning "at a brisk lively tempo." It came to us via Italian (where it can mean "merry") and is ultimately from alacer.

Berate (bih-RAYT)

: to scold or condemn vehemently and at length Berate and rate can both mean "to scold angrily or violently." This sense of rate was first recorded in the 14th century, roughly two centuries before the now more familiar (and etymologically unrelated) rate meaning "to estimate the value of." We know that berate was probably formed by combining be and the older rate, but the origins of this particular rate itself are somewhat more obscure. We can trace the word back to the Middle English form raten, but beyond that things get a little murky. It's possible that rate, and by extension berate, derives from the same ancient word that led to the Swedish rata (meaning "to find blame, despise") and earlier the Old Norse hrata ("to fall, stagger"), but this is uncertain.

Muckrake (MUCK-rayk)

: to search out and publicly expose real or apparent misconduct of a prominent individual or business The noun muckrake (literally, a rake for muck, i.e., manure) rose out of the dung heap and into the realm of literary metaphor in 1684. That's when John Bunyan used it in Pilgrim's Progress to represent man's preoccupation with earthly things. "The Man with the Muckrake," he wrote, "could look no way but downward." In a 1906 speech, President Teddy Roosevelt recalled Bunyan's words while railing against journalists he thought focused too much on exposing corruption in business and government. Roosevelt called them "the men with the muck-rakes" and implied that they needed to learn "when to stop raking the muck, and to look upward." Investigative reporters weren't insulted; they adopted the term muckraker as a badge of honor. And soon English speakers were using the verb muckrake for the practice of exposing misconduct.