This is one I’ve never thought to look up the meaning of before! But it appeared in my son’s vocabulary book, so I’ll happily soak up the knowledge. 😉
Opportunity comes to us via French, directly from Latin. It means, in all those languages “fitness, convenience, suitableness, favorable time.” But what I didn’t realize was that it’s actually a combination of three Latin words: ob portum veniens. Literally, “coming toward a port.”
According to the vocab book, sailors identified “coming toward a port” as when they’d have the chance/time/be able to do the things they couldn’t do at sea. It may also have to do with the fact that they had to await the tides and weather to be able to come into port, so that “favorable” circumstance was kind of built into it already.
Who knew it was so nautical?
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.