My best friend Stephanie put in a word of the week request, so today’s dedicated to her. 😉 Today’s word of the week is . . .

Adorable.

And Stephanie brings it up for a good reason. As modern parents, we use the word adorable a lot. And usually for our cute little kids. If I were to define “adorable” off the top of my head, it would mean something like “cute, a delight.” But when you look at the word . . . “adore”? Hmm . . . so maybe add “lovable” to the definition?

I looked this one up in three different sources to try to get an idea of how it’s evolved. Here’s what I found. At its origins, “adorable” meant “worthy of divine worship” just like one might think. So really, only God was called adorable. But as time went on, it became applied to others and took on the meaning of “worthy of passionate attachment.” From there it softened still more to “very attractive or delightful; charming.”

So there you have it. From only applied to God to mostly applied to kids and puppies (do a Google image search for the word, LOL), adorable has softened over the years from something divine to something delightful. Not a total change of meaning, but definitely a noteworthy shift. Thanks, Stephanie, for bringing it up. =)

Anybody else have a word you’d like me to look into for ya? Leave a comment and I’ll add it to the roster. =)