The other day as my daughter and I were watching her pre-cal lesson, the presenter (talking about the velocity of falling objects) said, “Now, in the second second, the object will be moving at…”

Xoe looked over at me and said, “Why is it called that, anyway? Why is second the word for a measure of time?”

Being the word nerd that I am, I immediately jotted it down and looked it up as soon as the lesson was over, to see why these two very different words–one and ordinal number (first, second, third) and one a measure of time–were the same.

Sometimes things like this come from different roots or very different meanings of the same root, but in this case, the relationship is very deliberate!

Second comes from the Latin secondus, meaning “following, next in time or order.”

Well, that explains the ordinal number…but what about the measure of time? Well, as it turns out, it’s because it’s “the second division of an hour into a sixtieth.” The minute is the first division (originally called the “prime minute”), and the second is the second minute (as in, small part…come back next week for a closer look at minute)!

I had no idea. So simple, but…I had no idea, LOL.

We all know what reveal and revelation mean, of course…and they have been in the English language for a LONG time. Like, since the early 1400s. The meaning has never really changed either–it’s always been “to disclose, to divulge, to make known.”

What’s interesting is actually the Latin root. The Latin revelare also carries the same meaning, but it is literally “to unveil.” Velare is the “to veil” part (no surprise, right?) and the re here isn’t the usual “again” but the rarer use of “opposite of.” We don’t see the re- prefix used like that very often!

And I love this imagery, don’t you? That something being revealed isn’t just shown or made known, it’s literally unveiled. Because that’s how it always feels when we discover something–that a mask or curtain has been pulled away, leaving us with that beautiful “Ta da!” moment of discovery.

Today’s word comes courtesy of the reading my daughter and I have been doing in our Greek New Testament. We came across the word for treasure (thesauros), we both went, “Hey! That sounds like ‘thesaurus’!” To which I of course said, “Well, maybe we use it as ‘a treasury of words.'” Which I thought would be pretty cute, but I wasn’t convinced I was right.

As it happens, though…I was!

Thesaurus has been in English since the 1820s as “a treasury, a storehouse,” and from the 1840s as “an encyclopedia.” Interestingly, though, an alternate spelling of thesaurie has been used by dictionary compilers since the 1590s! Roget was the first to create a version of “words arranged by order of sense” rather than alphabetic, definitional listings, which he first compiled in 1852.

Some other old versions of this word include thesaurer as “treasurer” and thesaur as “treasure” in the 1400-1500s. I’m not certain how we came to replace that H with an R, but the words are certainly close even in spelling, aren’t they?

Are you a fan of a thesaurus? I use them frequently in my writing (digital versions) and always had a paperback version on hand when I was a teen!

Stoic. You probably know what it means: “a person who accepts what happens without complaint or showing emotion.”

I was in college when I learned that this was referring to a particular group of people who adhered to the philosophy of Zeno and then Epictetus, ancient Greek and Roman philosophers…but even then I didn’t learn where the word came from.

Apparently the Greek word from which we get stoic is stoa which means … wait for it … PORCH! That’s right. Stoic means “from the porch.” Why, you may ask? Because Zeno liked to give lectures from his portico. His followers would gather around his porch to listen to him, and so they became known as Stoics.

Do you accept whatever befalls you with detachment?

My daughter and I have been reading a verse from Matthew in Greek each day and then looking at the translation (after she does actual translation in her Ancient Greek textbook), just to see the language in actual use. Well, when one starts in Matthew, that means one comes across verses like “Mary was found to be with child…” Which means one notices that the Ancient Greek word for “pregnant” or “with child” is en gastri. See anything familiar there? Gastr- is where we get gastro, as in “stomach.” It’s pretty much “in the stomach.” Which of course, makes sense.

Given that as of the time I’m writing this I have 5 friends who are either pregnant or just delivered, I thought it would be fun to look at the English word too. =)

English pregnant (from the early 1400s) is from the Latin praegnantem, which literally means “before birth.” Though the word’s been around quite a long time in English, for quite a while it was not considered polite to ever mention it in conversation. Not until the 1950s did it really become okay. Until then, there were an array of euphemisms, which I’m sure we’ve all come across in our reading. Increasing, in a family way, in a delicate condition, and the like.

I’m very excited that so many of my friends and relatives are welcoming new life into the world, however you want to phrase it!