limerence

A quote from Lynn Willmott’s 2012 book, Love and Limerence: Harness the Limbicbrain, describeslimerence as ”an involuntary potentially inspiring state of adoration and attachment to a limerent object (LO) involving intrusive and obsessive thoughts, feelings and behaviors from euphoria to despair, contingent on perceived emotional reciprocation.”

The term was coined by psychologist Dorothy Tennov to concisely point to a concept she had discovered during some of her studies in 1960s. She used it first in a book written in 1979 entitled Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love. 

Limerence differs from love by being a state of unhealthy obsession, a “compulsory longing for another person,” as put by Albert Wakin at Sacred Heart University. 

I was hoping to find some etymology on the word, but it looks like it was arbitrarily created by Tennov. The morphemic ending -encedenotes the word as describing a state of being, although limer-doesn’t have any historical meaning of its own. 

Still, I think it’s an interesting word. 

euouae

Euouae’sclaim to fame is as the longest word in the English language which is composed entirely of vowels. 

It actually came to be as a mneumonic device in medieval music. There is a portion of the Gloria Patri which is “Seculorum Amen,” and it occurs frequently in the hymn. If you notice, euouaeis the string of vowels pulled directly out of the words: SeculorumAmen. 

Instead of writing out the entire phrase every time, music writers would leave euouaeunderneath the notes to indicate to the choir what they were expected to sing. 

As described in A General History of the Science and Practice of Music by John Hawkins in 1853: "a word, or rather a compages of letters, that requires but little explanation, being nothing more than the vowels contained in the words Seculorum Amen; and which whenever it occurs, as it does almost in every page of the antiphonary, is meant as a direction for singing those words to the notes of the Euouae.“

ladybug

I wasn’t quite intending for this post to be so involved, but I happened upon an article which said that in Welsh, you can call ladybugs buwch goch cwta, which translates to English as “little red cow,” which I think is absolutely adorable. 

buwch: from the Middle Welsh buchmeaning cow, ultimately a derivative of the Proto-Indo-European root gwou-, meaning cattle

goch: a mutation of the adjective coch,from the Latin coccummeaning “scarlet, berry, dye or dyed red,” from the Ancient Greek term κόκκος kokkos, which is a “grain, seed or the color scarlet”

cwta(I’ve also seen it spelled gota), means “short or little,” and is supposedly borrowed from a Middle English term which meant “to cut down”

It turns out, though, that the name for these beetles is actually quite complicated in a lot of European based languages. 

First, to look at the taxonomic family name coccinellidae.This comes from the Latin coccineusmeaning “coloured scarlet,” a term which you can also see in the Welsh, it is the same root from which we get coccumand eventually goch.There are a few other descendants of this term in nearby languages as well, like the French coccinelleand the Italian coccinella.

However, obviously, that’s not where we get the English name ladybug.In Old English, they were called lady cows (again a nod to the Welsh), in which cowwas a comment on it’s spotted wings and ladywas in reference to the Virgin Mary. The seven black dots displayed on its back were believed to have been symbolic of her seven sorrows as are described in Christian scripture. 

Although English uses the more ambiguous lady, many languages have retained the Mary portion in the modern name, like Catalan marieta, Danish mariehøne(literally “Mary chicken”) and German Marienkäfer(literally “Mary beetle.”)

I have absolutely no idea what chickens have to do with anything, but good job Danish, I like it. 

melancholy

I’m not quite sure why, but I tend to use this word quite frequently. I feel as though sadisn’t quite broad enough to encompass the “dispirited depression” I find in melancholy.In Old English, the word more exclusively referred to an illness associated with too much black bile in one’s body, a substance which was believed to have been secreted by the spleen. 

The contemporary emotional meaning appeared in the Middle English as melancolie,a direct borrowing from the Old French, which was adopted from the Ancient Greek melankholía.This word is a compound of the two terms μέλας melas “black, dark, murky,” and χολή khole“bile.” 

Interestingly, although this literal translation for the Greek is “black bile,” which we can see resurfaces in the English traditions, it was used more closely to the way we use melancholynow, as “atrabilious, gloomy.” 

To circle back to a previous note, we can trace back μέλας a little further to the Proto-Indo-European root mel,meaning “to grind, hit,” but also “dark, dirty.” The other half, χολή, can be attributed to ghel, meaning “gold, flourish, pale green, shine.” Although it has this seemingly pleasant definition, it is cited as being the ancestor for many languages’ terms for “bile, gall, fury, rage, disease, etc.” 

fancy

Fancy,in the adjective sense of pressed linens, champagne and marble, feels less interesting than the verb varieties: “to believe, to visualize or interpret as,” and my favorite, “to like or have a fancy.” I think the sound of fancyingsomeone is sweet, like you consider them as being of a special elegance and loveliness. 

What I quite like about this word is that it is apparently a contraction of the word fantasy.Around the 15th century, it was originally spelled fantsy, specifically adopting the meanings of “whim, inclination.” Our current definitions of “fine, elegant,” appeared later. 

The Middle English fantasy (also spelled fantasye), came from the Old French fantasie,from the Latin phantasia, meaning “a notion, phantasm, appearance, perception.” The root Greek was the term φαντασία phantasía,a derivative of the verb φαίνω phaínō,which is “to make visible, to bring to light, to cause to appear.” You might notice its similarities to the related word for “light,” φῶς phôs,from which we get other English words like photograph,photon, etc. 

Ultimately, these are all attributed to the Proto-Indo-European root bheh-or sometimes bha-,meaning “to shine.”

aurora

“A luminous phenomenon that consists of streamers or arches of light appearing in the upper atmosphere of a planet’s magnetic polar regions and is caused by the emission of light from atoms excited by electrons accelerated along the planet’s magnetic field lines” - Merriam Webster Dictionary

I’m sure to someone with a different degree, this makes sense, but I interpret aurorato mean exclusively, “pretty northern lights.” 

The English comes from the Latin word Aurora,the name of the Roman goddess of dawn. She is called the daughter of Hyperion and Euryphaessa, who assisted in bringing the sun to shine in the mornings. 

The Proto-Indo-European root is au̯es-, meaning “to shine, gold, morning, etc.” Interestingly, this also birthed the Greek word Ἠώς Ēṓs,a parallel of the Latin word, and the Greek name for the same deity. From ἠώς, we have eastandEaster,both of which make sense. The dawn rises in the east, and the word Easter is a derivative of a Germanic goddess of the dawn. 

The Moirai, or Fates, are the three goddesses of the Greek pantheon who determine the path of human destiny. With such a role, they are considered both goddesses of birth and of death, arriving when a person is born to assign them their fate, and again when they die to end it. 

The oldest stories called them one collective power of Fate, namely Aisa:

Aisa -  Αἶσα, the abstract concept of “fate,”  related to the verb αἰτέω aitéō, which is “to ask, crave, demand, beg for”

However, in later accounts the three individual deities were separated, each performing a certain function, to form the trio of the Moirai:

Moirai -  Μοῖρα, from the Ancient Greek μοῖρα moîra, “part, portion, destiny,” the verb form is μείρομαι meíromai, which means “to receive as your portion, to accept fate,” possibly from the Proto-Indo-European root smer-meaning alternately, “to remember, care for” and “allotment or assignment”

In Theogeny of Hesiod, they’re called both the children of Zeus and Themis, but also daughters of Nyx, the night:

“Also she [Nyx] bare the Destinies and ruthless avenging Fates, Clotho and Lachesis and Atropos, who give men at their birth both evil and good to have, and they pursue the transgressions of men and of gods: and these goddesses never cease from their dread anger until they punish the sinner with a sore penalty.”

Clotho -  Κλωθώ, from the Ancient Greek verb κλώθω klótho,which is literally “to spin (as in wool or cotton), twist by spinning;” the youngest fate and the spinner of the thread of life

Lachesis -  Λάχεσις, related to the Ancient Greek verb  λαγχάνω lankhánō,which means “I obtain, receive by drawing lots, assigned to a post by lot,” the root for which may be the noun λάχος lákhos,“lot, destiny, fate;” the second fate, measurer of the thread of life

Atropos -  Ἄτροπος, literally meaning “unchangeable,” compounds the prefix  ἀ- a-(”gives it’s host the opposite of the usual definition, similar to English un-, as in wisetounwise”) and the verb τρέπω trépō,which is “I turn,” likely from the Proto-Indo-European root trep-, “to turn or bow one’s head (possibly out of shame);” the eldest fate, bearing the sharp shears which sever the threads of life, also known as “inevitable”

efflorescence

I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I love words ending in -escence. It makes the whole thing feel ethereal and oddly immaterial. 

For example, we have the word efflorescence,meaning “blooming, apt to effloresce, being in flower.” It’s borrowed in its entirety from the French, which is itself from the Latin efflorescere, “to bloom, flourish.” The Latin is a compound of the prefix ex- “out of” andflorescere “to blossom,” from the Latin noun flos, “flower.” 

The Proto-Indo-European root for flosis apparently *bhel, which means “to thrive or bloom.” Interestingly, it may be a variant of another form with the same spelling meaning “to blow or swell.” Regardless, this seems to be the ancestor whence such words as flora, flourish, bloom etc, as well as Irish bláth “flower,” and Old English blowan “flower.” 

caricia

Although we have the Englishcaress, I personally like the sound of the Spanishcaricia much better. It feels more intimate somehow? 

The romantic root for both of these is the Italiancarezza (interestingly, the English is a layer removed, coming through the Frenchcaresse).Carezza, meaning “caress or pet” is from the Italian nouncaro, which is “dear, beloved, precious, sweetheart” or alternately, “expensive.” The -ezza is a sort of nominalizing suffix. The Latin predecessor iscarus of the same meaning. 

Depending on the source, the Proto-Indo-European root is written as either-kehor-ka, “to desire or to wish.”Cherish is another sweet word from the same PIE. 

aisling

Aisling is in my opinion, a beautiful word which exists in both English and its native Irish. In English (IPA: ˈæʃlɪŋ, aehsh - ling),aisling refers to a poem which includes a dramatic illustration of a dream or vision. More specifically, it refers to a form of Irish poetry which was sometimes used for political ends in the 17th and 18th centuries.

It is a direct borrowing from the Irish aisling(IPA: aʃlʲɪɲ),which more broadly translates to “dream or vision.”  This comes from the old Irishformaislinge of the same definition. 

Another version of the word I really like is the nounaislingeach, which is a combination of the verb form ofaisling meaning “to see in a dream or vision, and the nominal suffix -ach, which comes together to create “visionary or daydreamer.” 

Although the word is spelled in many different ways (púca, pooka, pwwka, etc), I’ll look specifically at the púca form. In Irish folklore, a púca is a shapeshifting goblin which can choose it’s form as it pleases. Some of the more famous stories involve them appearing as a black horse with glowing, golden eyes. However, they might also be seen in the shape of a dog, rabbit, or perhaps an elderly man. They’re particularly mischievous creatures and are usually encountered at night. 

Púca comes from the Old Irish púca, which means “goblin or sprite.” This is probably from the Old English pūca, “spirit or demon.” A proposed Proto-Germanic root is pūkô, from the Proto-Indo-European spāug-, meaning “brilliance, spectre.”

Another theory ties it to the Indo-European root beuwhich relates to “puffing, swelling.” This evolved into terms for “swelling, growths, blisters, mucus,” and from here into Old English for “demons, parasites, bugs.” 

Despite being now quite archaic, there is an English cognate for púca, which ispuck, a clear derivative of the Old English.Puck is used as “a mischievous fairy or sprite;” you might recognize it also as the name of Shakespeare’s infamous A Midsummer Night’s Dreamcharacter. 

amatorculist

It is listed in A New Universal Technical Etymological and Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language by John Craig, 1854 as: 

AMATORCULIST, a-ma-tor'ku-list, s. (amatorculus, Lat.) A little pitiful insignificant lover; a pretender to affection.

As stated, it’s a close borrowing from the Latindiminutive phrase amatorculus, which means literally “little lover.” A Latin Dictionary by Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short adds the note, “a little, sorry lover.” It is a compound of the nounamator “lover, someone who loves,” and the suffix -culus, which creates the diminutive sense, like a familiar or pet name. 

Amator is the noun actor of the verbamare, which means “to love.” Interestingly, this is actually also the word we borrowed both the French and English cognatesamateur from. Although we sometimes useamateur in English in a sort of derogatory way, the original meaning is purely taken from the Latin: “a lover of something, someone who does something for the sake of enjoyment.”

I’ve just about never been able to spell this word correctly, I always want to put ana in place of the finale. The word comes from the Middle English forms simeterie,cymytory, and cimitere, which began to be spelled with cem- around the 15th century. The words came through French from the Latin coemeterium, which originated the meaning of “burial ground for the dead.” 

The Greek κοιμητήριον koimētḗrion, was more or less free of the sense of mortality and meant simply “sleeping chamber” or “dorm.” Interestingly, it derived from two verbs, κοιμάω koimáōand κεῖμαι keîmai. The first meant “to put to sleep,” while the second meant “to lie.” The morbid connotation seems to have been stronger in this second verb κεῖμαι, which had a variety of interpretations including, “to lie asleep, idle,” “to lie sick or wounded,” “to lie dead, “ and “to lie neglected or unburied.” 

Before this particular linguistic thread arrived in English, though, the Old English word for burial ground was licburg, a construction using the noun lic, which meant “corpse, dead body.” They may have also used lictun, which comprised of lic “corpse” + tun “enclosure, yard.” 

cordial

An adjective meaning “characterized by pleasantness, friendliness, sincerity, or comfort, reviving.” The original, but now obsolete definition was “something relating to the heart;” this has since been transferred onto the word cardiac, leavingcordial with the specifically figurative and whimsical sentiments. 

Both the English cordial, and its identical French cognate come from the Latincordialis, which is itself from the Latincor, meaning “heart or soul/spirit.” The possible Proto-Indo-European root is *kerd, “heart,” from which we get many modern words like French cœur and Spanish corazón.

Another English definition forcordial is the less common noun version referring to “a liqueur or sweet tasting medicine.” This is from the 1600s, which I think makes some sense relating to its adjective form as something that revives, invigorates or comforts. 

ineffable

Perhaps at the moment best associated with Good Omens,ineffable is an adjective first used in the 14th century meaning “unspeakable, incapable of being expressed with words.” It comes from the Latinineffabilis, which comprises the morphemesin “not” + effort “to utter, say” + bilis “able to be or do.” The Latin was a little less grandiose in meaning, and described things which were “unutterable or unpronounceable.” 

Interestingly, the Latin verbeffort which appears inineffabilis is actually a compound of the prefixex meaning “out, away, through or up,” andfor which is the word for “to say, talk, speak.” 

kiss

Though Middle English had the meaning of a reciprocal kiss, the Old English wordcyssanwas defined as a “touch of the lips, in reverence or respect.” The English likely comes from the Proto-Germanic *kussijanaor*kussjan, a word compiled of*kussaz, meaning “kiss,” and the suffix *jana. Cognates include the Swedishkyssa, the German küssen and the Gothickukjan. 

Although beyond this there is not an agreed upon root for Indo-European languages, there is typically a supposedly onomatopoeic *ku sound, which exists in Greek and Sanskrit as well. This is not always the case though, as in the instance of Latin suāviārī (meaning “to kiss,” but related to suāvis meaning “sweet, pleasant, delicious,”) and bāsium, (ancestor of Spanishbesar, and meaning “kiss, particularly of the hand”). 

Koios - Κοῖος, possibly from the Ancient Greek ποῖος poios, an interrogative adjective for “of what kind, which;” the titan of intelligence and the north pole

Kreios - Κρεῖος, the Greek word for ram, relating him to the constellation Aries; the titan of the south

Kronos - Κρόνος, said to be the same as χρόνοςkhronos, which was both the Ancient Greek for “time, period, term,” and the name of the personified deity of time in Greek mythology; the titan who destroyed his father Ouranos and came to rule during the so named Golden Age of the cosmos, Cicero explained the story of Kronos consuming his children after their birth to be allegorical to the manner in which time devours the years and matter of ages past

Hyperion - Ὑπερίων, a compound of the Ancient Greek ὑπέρhuper, meaning “above, over, across,” and -ῑ́ων -ion, a masculine patronymic suffix. ὑπέρmay have come from the Proto-Indo-European root upér of the same definition, the interpretation being: “him who goes to or regards from above;” the titan of heavenly light, fathered Eos the dawn, Helios the sun and Selene the moon, associated with the east

Iapetos - Ἰαπετός, from the Ancient Greek for the piercer or wounder, meaning “javelin” in modern Greek; the titan of mortality and mortal life, associated with the west

Mnemosyne - Mνημοσύνη, probably another form of μνήμη mneme, meaning “memory,” from the verb μνάομαι mnaomai, which is “to be mindful of, to remember,” derived from the PIE *men-, “to think;” the titan of memory and remembrance, the mother of the muses

Oceanos - Ὠκεανός, possibly of a non-Indo-European, pre-Greek linguistic origin; the eldest titan, represented the river, ocean, and heavens which were believed to have risen and set into his waters

Phoebe - Φοίβη, the feminine form of the masculine ΦοῖβοςPhoibos, a name meaning “pure, bright, radiant,” possibly from the PIE root *bʰeigʷ-, meaning “ to shine, clear;” the titan of prophetic radiance, often either confused with or connected to Artemis and Selene

Rhea - Ῥέα, of uncertain etymology, possibly connected to ἔρα éra, meaning “earth, ground,” which might connect the name to the PIE root *er, also “earth.” sometimes connected to the Ancient Greek ῥόα rhóa, the word for “pomegranate” or ῥέωrheo, which is “to flow;” the titan of fertility and motherhood, mother of the gods

Tethys - Τηθύς, possibly from the Ancient Greek τήθη thethe, meaning “grandmother;” the titan of fresh water, mother of the oceanids

Theia - Θεία, probably meaning “aunt,” though she is also called Euryphaessa, a compound of the words εὐρύς eurus, “wide,” and φάος phaos, meaning light as both literal “daylight or shine,” and the metaphoric “light of joy, delight, victory, etc;” the titan of shining light, metal or jewels, mother of the sun, moon and dawn

Themis - Θέμις, the Ancient Greek word for “law, order, custom,” possibly connected to the PIE root*dheh, meaning “to do, put or place;” the titan of divine law and order, the mother of the moirai and horae, or the fates and seasons 

Wretch derives from the Old English nounwræcca, meaning “stranger, exile,” not unrelated to the verbwreccan, “to drive out, punish.” The Germanic root whence it came,*wrakjan, “someone pursued, exile,” is interestingly also related to the Old Saxonwrekkio and to the Old High Germanreccho, “person banished, adventurer.” From this branch, we get the modern GermanRecke, which has the much more powerful and positive connotation of “warrior.” 

Also related to (but not directly derived from) the Old English wreccan is the modern Englishwreak, as in, to wreak havoc. Oddly enough, the two wordswreakandwretch semantically make some sense together: their respective Proto-Germanic roots mean “to drive out or pursue” (*wrekanan)  and “one pursued” (*wrakjan). 

An aside: I had the idea to research this word after I recently reread Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, where it occurs 66 times. I suppose that’s not overmuch, but it definitely wormed its way into my brain. 

elf

Elves are fun because there are so many vastly different interpretations. Everything from Santa’s toymakers to Elrond and his court qualify into our concept of elven forms.

Generally speaking, we might define elfas being a “spirit, sprite, fairy or goblin; some kind of usually mischievous supernatural creature.” This same definition existed for the Middle English term elf,alternately recorded as alfeorelfe.In Old English, the word was ælf,still retaining its meaning of “sprite, incubus or fairy,” but specifically with a masculine connotation. The feminine version of the word was ælfen, which interestingly is the predecessor to our modern adjectival form elven.

The word branches out of the Germanic family, and we can point to some other connected words in Old High German, like alp which meant “nightmare.” There is actually an Old English cognate which is ælfádl, also meaning “nightmare,” but more literally, “elf-disease.” Another interesting elf-induced sickness was though to be hiccups, which is reflected in the OE translation ælfsogoða.

Beyond this era of the Old English and German there is some debate about where the words originally sprouted from. The trail may be related to albusoralphoúsἀλφούς, the Latin and Ancient Greek terms for “white” respectively. The cultural theory implies that elves were considered beings of light, brightness and beauty, and thus as this concept evolved from those ideas, so did the English form out of the adjectives.

romantic

Somethingromanticis “marked by the imaginative or emotional appeal of what is heroic, adventurous, remote, mysterious, or idealized,” noted “by expressions of love or affection,” or else is possibly “impractical in conception and plan.” I still somehow find even the less “charming” definitions to be oddly “adventurous;” it reminds me of Bilbo setting off on a grand, romantic adventure with little preparation or readiness for what he was about to find out across the mountains.

The English is a cognate to the French romantique,and although there is some debate about which of the modern variants came first, the Middle English rommantdefinitely came from the Old French romaunt.

Interestingly, a less evolved linguistic descendent is still present in English as romaunt,which is an archaic term meaning “a romantic story told in verse,” or more simply, “a romance.” The Old French romanzis at the root of these words, referring to “stories, songs” and the Old French language itself, which at that time was an emerging variety of the Latin spoken in the region. This makes it even easier to tie the French to the Latin romanus,meaning “Roman” more broadly.

mizzle

This word is actually very funny to me, because it did not remotely go where I expected.

The word this week is mizzle, which is a rather lovely way of describing a light, drizzly rainfall. This comes from the Middle English misellen, of the same meaning, “to rain gently.” The question of borrowing is a little fuzzy, but it likely was adopted from either an Old Dutch or Low German variation, both meaning something more akin to “mist.” At this point, though, any inquiry further back relates to words meaning “urine, or to urinate.” This root exists in a lot of Germanic languages, and they are likely additionally connected to the Latin mēiō, which means, quoted from the 1890 Charlton T Lewis, An Elementary Latin Dictionary entry: “to make water.”  

Part two of random dinosaur names I’m not sure why I know, but I do? Titanophoneusis a mouthful, but it very specifically means “giant murderer…”

So, in the first half of this compound we have titan,which in our modern English means “large, grand,” but with the connotation of “something or someone gigantic in power or size, greatness of achievement.” This is from the Ancient Greek Τιτάν titan,which refers to the race of mythical, pre-Olympian giants. There is no real consensus I could find on pre-Greek roots for the word, but some possible origins include Ancient Greek τίτο tito,meaning “sun, day,” τίσις tisis “retribution,” or the Ionic Greek τίτης títēs, “avenger, punisher.”

In the second half we have phoneus,from the Greek φονεύς phoneus which is literally just “murderer.” This is a derivative of the term θείνω theínō, “to strike or wound,” itself from the PIE root gʷhen, “to hit.” 

What makes this whole thing funny is that apparently when the fossils of titanophoneusare compared with other dinosaurs, they were not exactly the biggest or fiercest which have been discovered. Tyrannasaurus Rex fossils are supposedly much more intimidating, though admittedly these and other competitors for scariest dino lived at different periods. Still, I like the fact that an archaeologist felt the need to spice up their findings by describing some bones as belonging to a “giant murderer,” like they’d uncovered an ancient crime scene, but it was just a fairly average dinosaur trying to make its way in the world. 

Ferrets are very cute. This is a scientific fact. They are a long, furry, domesticated subtype of the European polecat. They have a look on their face like they are ever so slightly irritated at having been recently woke up, and I love them very dearly. 

Anyways, the Middle English feret (also documented as fyrette), was borrowed from the Old French firet, which is a derivative of the Latin fūr,meaning “thief.” This is also a cognate to the Ancient Greek φώρ phṓr,also “thief.” 

What I find fun about the Ancient Greek, is that it also can be used to refer to a bee, specifically a “robber bee.” I absolutely love the fact that both the Latin and Greek chose to refer to tiny animals as being the perpetrators of some thievery, namely that they “carry things away,” from the Proto-Indo-European bher- meaning “carry.” 

I also particularly enjoy the fact that this Latin also gave us furtive, “done in a sneaking, secretive way,”more specifically from fūrtīvus,“stolen.”  

I found this word in a YA fantasy book I was reading recently (because… yeah), and it took me a bit by surprise; it sounded a little out of place. So, I thought I’d find out what place it occupies exactly and tell you all about it. 

Copseis actually a contraction of an older word coppice, meaning “a thicket of small trees or shrubs,” which emerged probably in the late 1500s. The English is a borrowing from the French copeiz, which has the same definition, but an additional connotation of “an overcut forest,” relating to a commercial, farming idea. This is present in some readings of the English. 

Admittedly I had some trouble tracking down the Old French version, and there were hints of it existing as possibly copeiz,coupizin the 1770s, and either couppeizorcopeisin some other places. 

Nevertheless, the French was the bridge between the modern English and it’s Latin predecessor, colaphus, a noun meaning a “blow or cuff, perhaps a smack on the ear.” Although the “forest” meaning is lost here, this is where we can pick up the submeaning of “cutting down trees” which died out as the word evolved. This particular Latin word is also related to others in the language meaning “cutting,” or “being cut,” a nod to the Ancient Greek cognate κόλαφος kolaphos, which is “a blow or buffet.” 

Syzygy is a funky looking word for sure, but I quite like it. There are a lot of definitions for it depending on what sort of academic interests you have, ranging from mathematics and science to philosophy and psychology, but the thing they typically have in common is a pairing of opposites of some kind. The traditional definition comes from astronomy, where it refers to three celestial bodies aligning into a straight line. In our solar system, we might observe this during either a solar or lunar eclipse, where the three bodies in question are the earth, sun and moon. 

The word is likely an English adoption from about 1847, coming through Latin from the Greek term συζυγία suzugia, or “paired, yoked together, union.” This is a form of the noun σύζυγος suzugos which is defined with “yokefellow” (an interesting word by itself) and “spouse, couple (as in married pair as a couple)." 

The credited Proto-Indo-European root is yewgori̯eu alternately, both meaning "to tie together or yoke." One source I looked at remarked upon this being similar to a few other roots including "to keep separate” and “right or justice,” both of which are interesting to think about. 

sonrisa

This has always been one of my favorite words in Spanish; sonrisa, meaning “smile.” I particularly liked it because it reminded me of the English word sunrise, purely I think due to the phonetic similarities but the analogy was still very nice: a smile like a sunrise, which lights up a face in the way the sun lends light to the horizon.

The Spanish is actually a derivation of the Latin term subrisa, a conjugation of the word subrideo. This comes from two parts, the first being sub, or “under,” and the second being rideo, which is “to laugh.” The verb encompasses both the nicer meanings of “a happy chuckle,” and the more perjorative “ridicule or mock.”

Interestingly, the Latin rideois also the root for another Spanish word, reír, meaning “to laugh.” Thus, although risaandreírare not quite the same words in Spanish, they come from the same place in Latin.

I find myself running into interesting Irish words very frequently, and one I found recently I quite liked was plobaireacht, meaning “blubbering, spluttering or babbling, particularly trying to speak, but being unable to while crying.” 

I couldn’t come up with much of an etymology, but this looks a lot like another word piobaireachd,(which is a Scottish Gaelic term that has also been adopted into English), meaning “bagpipe music.” I don’t think the two are related in the slightest, but I suppose bagpipes might also make you difficult to understand whilst trying to speak.  

leed

Apparently this is a more dialectally isolated term, but in some dialects of Scottish English (among others), this means “a song or poem, a strain of a song or a repeated verse,” which I quite like.

Anyways, there is an Old English term for “poems or song” which is alternately recorded as either leoþorléoð.Within the language at that point, there were several nice compounds such as léoðcræft,“poetry, the craft of song” andléoðorún“wise counsel or advice sent through song or poems” (which was apparently a thing they needed a word for?)

This is most often attributed to the PIE root leu-, an onomatopoeic root for expressives and interjections. Interestingly, this is also the base for the Latin term laudāre, which through a separate linguistic thread gives us the modern English term laud, “praise, glory, reknown, etc.”

brontosaurus

I’m not a dinosaur person, but for some reason I know a lot about etymologies of dinosaur names. I don’t really know how this happened, but I like sharing tidbits of it whenever it comes up. Regardless, one I find particularly interesting, is brontosaurus, which comes from the Ancient Greek βροντή bronte, meaning “thunder.” It’s other related words have additional senses of “shouting, rumbling.” So basically, a brontosaurusis really just a thunder lizard.

ameliorate

I looked this word up a few years ago to use in an essay, and it has since become one of my favorite words. It has a lovely meaning (”to improve, perfect or enhance”), and it just feels nice to say. 

It arrived in English around the 1650s as a backformation of the French améliorer, from the Old French meillor, which you might recognize as being related to the modern French meilleur “better.” 

The Latin root melior,of the same meaning, was influenced by the Ancient Greek term μάλα mala, a term imparting an adverbial meaning of “very much, exceedingly.” Ultimately, it likely came from the reconstructed PIE mel-, “big and strong.” 

There is no real “shortest word in the English language.” We have at least two single letter words, (depending of course on how you define word, but that argument aside…) Ianda.There are also several two letter words, (again, some like weandanmay be disqualified, but we’re not arguing that specifically right now). 

So, I will instead phrase an introduction to this word as “one of the shortest words in the English language,” which is the noun borrowed from the Hawaiian ʻaʻā.In English, it is written aa,and it refers to a specific type of Hawaiian lava of a basaltic composition, and jagged, stony appearance. 

The Hawaiian can also be used as a verb to describe something as glowing, which I quite like. 

dandelion

I absolutely never noticed this, but now that I’ve seen it, I cannot believe it never occurred to me. Dandelion, the flower of my childhood, is a borrowing from the French name dent de lion, which is literally “lion’s teeth.” 

I think this is the most adorable thing and I love it very much. 

The French came through the Middle English, spelled alternately as dantdelyonordendelyoun.This phrase has also popped up in related languages, such as the Welsh dant y llew, and the Spanish diente de léon.

At the very base of it is the Latin dens leonis, which translates pretty much the same as its linguistic descendants. 

Interestingly, in looking around some dictionaries, I found this entry from an anthology of plants written in 1578: 

The great Groundlwel, hath rough whitish leaves, deeply jagged and knawen upo both sides, like to the leaves of the white Mustard or lenuie. The stalke is two foote high or more: at the top where-of growe smal knoppes, which do open into smal yellow flowers the which are lodenly gone, changed into downie blowbawles like to the heades of Dantdelyon, and are blowen away with the winde.

I’m not sure I transcribed that right, but I really like the last bit: “changed into downie blowbawles like to the heades of Dantdelyon, and are blowen away with the winde.” 

Before I explain some of the really cool history of this word, I’ll divvy it up into its etymological parts: 

Firstly,disasteras a whole was borrowed from the Italian diasastro,a compound of two halves: the prefix diswhich is similar to its English cognate and simply means “not, undo, against,” while astromeans “star,” from the Latin astrumof the same meaning. The Greek basis for the Latin, ᾰ̓́στρον astron,had a broader definition coming from the synonymous ᾰ̓στήρ aster,and could refer to the stars or planets, constellations, the sun and celestial bodies more generally. 

ᾰ̓στήρ is also interesting because it is also noted as being able to mean “songbirds, starfish, flame or light, honorable persons” and possibly “blue daisies.” 

At the root of all this is the Proto-Indo-European reconstructed root for star, ster, which is also connected to the Greek term for “lightning.”

Hopefully with this background, the semantics might make a little more sense. Although we tend to use the modern dictionary definition, which is “a sudden calamity or misfortune,” the older sense the word is derived from is “an unfavorable aspect of the planets or stars” in the astrological sense. Before the advent of astronomy as a science, the purpose of the practice of astrology was more so focused on looking for guidance and predictions regarding human life and activities. If the stars appeared to point to a negative outcome, it could be called a disaster,  a dis- (negative, poor, undone) aster(position of the stars). 

We also have a few other English and Latin terms which pull on these same ideas, but appeared through other layers of morphological construction. Namely, we have “lucky star,” “ill-starred,” and “star-crossed” as well as “astrum sinistrum,” which literally means “unfortunate star or misfortune.” 

This is an interesting doublet because it is a great example of how English absorbs all sorts of lexical items from other languages even when it basically already has one in the same color. Also, it’s been barely a week and I miss Halloween. 

Spirit: “The soul of a person or another creature.” We can trace this back to the Middle English spirit, of several different additional meanings, including “vital breath, animation, divine, indescribable, immaterial creature.” English borrowed this from the Old French espirit,from the Latin spiritus.This Latin term was a derivative of another Latin word, spiro,meaning “I breathe, respire, live or blow.” 

Ultimately, the word is probably from the Proto-Indo-European root peisorspeis, “to blow.” 

Ghost: “The spirit, soul or animation of a man, the shadowy mirror image.” The modern English evolved from the Old English term gast, “breath, good or bad spirits, angels, demons.” Interestingly, in older translations of the Bible, since the English language had yet to adopt the Latin derived term spirit,any instances of spiritus were translated asgast,which is why most old Christian writing uses Holy Ghost. 

The Old English also has an additional meaning branch as well, which is “afraid, terrified,” related to the verb gaestan, “to frighten, afflict or torment.” We likely pulled this through Proto-Germanic from the Proto-Indo-European term gheis,meaning “shocked, agitated.” 

Spiritand ghostare now somewhat interchangeable, and we usually use them to refer to both the “souls of the deceased,” and “supernatural creatures.” I also find other languages’ ways of describing souls or spirits interesting: French revenant(literally “returning (from another world)”), Old English scinn(related to scinan, “to shine, illuminate”), Greek φάντασμα phantasma,(related to words for “light, sight, vision”), and French spectre (from the Latin spectrum,which is related to other Latin terms for “to see, appearance”). 

I am the first to admit I know next to nothing about German, but I keep stumbling into fascinating words and etymologies within it. Hence, this post for waldeinsamkeit,a German word meaning “woodland solitude, the feeling of being alone in a forest.” 

Waldeinsamkeitis primarily a compound of two halves, being waldandeinsamkeit. Wald comes from the Old High German wald,which is related to the Old English weald,both meaning “a forest, wood, grove, foliage.” Ultimately, possible from a Proto-Indo-European root u̯el,being “wool, grass, forest.” 

Einsamkeitis broadly translated as “loneliness, solitude,” but it can be broken into three smaller chunks:

Ein: meaning one. 

Sam: a suffix which is added to other lexical items to create adjectives, describing something as being of the quality of the attached word. In this case, creating the word “lonely, lone, solitary, single” out of its attachment to the word one, having the sense of “oneness, being of one.”  

Keit: an alternative form of the suffix -heit, which makes an adjective into a noun or a concrete noun into an abstract one, thus transforming our previous word of “lonely,” into “loneliness.” “Solitary,” into “solitude.” You can see it is similar to the English suffix -hood, we create childhoodthe same way German uses it to create Kindheit. 

Vespertineis a beautiful word meaning “of or related to the evening.” It is an old word, from the Middle English vespertyne,which is “belonging to evening, evening dew.” 

The Latin form from whence the English comes, was vespertinus,meaning strictly “evening.” This is an adjective version of the noun vesper,which was used to either describe “evening” or “the evening star,” an entity we now recognize as the planet Venus. The Latin was a cognate to the Ancient Greek ἕσπερος hesperos,of the same definition, which is visually a little closer to the Indo-European root, u̯esperos, “evening.” 

Interestingly,vesperwas also adopted into English apart from it’s descriptive form, and has been used to refer to the “evening star” as well as “church services held during the evening.”