Word of the Week
Word history and etymology
Have you ever wondered when certain words started to be used in certain ways? Or how they even came about? If they’re related to other, similar-sounding words?
I wonder these things all the time. And so, for years I’ve been gathering interesting words together, looking at the etymology, and posting them in fun, bite-sized posts called Word of the Week. Here you’ll find everything from which definition of a word pre-dates another, to how certain holiday words came about, to what the original meaning was of something we use a lot today but in a very different way. And of course, the surprising words that we think are new but in fact are pretty ancient, like “wow”!
Word of the Week – Doldrums
Doldrums. Interestingly, this is a plural word that has no singular...anymore. Once upon a time, there was indeed a singular version, and a doldrum was a "dull person." (Dol is a variation of dull.) Over time, however, that meaning disappeared, and was replaced...
Word of the Week – Baguette
This one comes to you courtesy of fellow author and friend Rhonda Ortiz, who happened to mention in an email that baguette is a relatively new word. I'd never stopped to ponder when the famous French loaf may have come to be--in my mind, as long as there's been Paris,...
Word of the Week – Cardinal
The history of the word cardinal in English is rather interesting. It comes from the Latin cardinalis, meaning "chief, principal." But it first came over to English not as an adjective with that meaning, but as the noun--as in, the order in the Church. Since the 12th...
Word of the Week – Problematic
Did you know that the most-used definition of problematic--namely, "constituting or causing difficulty"--only dates from around the 1960s?? I didn't! But as it turns out, that use is directly taken from a word coined for use in sociology. So what, you may ask, did the...
Word of the Week – Martial
Unlike mercurial of last week, martial is a word I use plenty--I imagine we all do. And I even knew where this one came from, LOL. Martial means "warlike; pertaining to war" and for good reason--it comes from the Roman god Mars, the god of war. What I didn't realize...
Word of the Week – Mercurial
Ready for the next installment of our "adjectives from mythology" series? Today we're taking a look at a word I honestly don't use very often. In fact, if one of my kids were to ask, "What does mercurial mean?" I probably would have given them a look and said, "Why...
Word of the Week – Jovial
For the next couple weeks, I'm going to do a little mini-series on some adjectives we have that are based on the names of ancient mythological gods. As I was reading through a list of some of these, I found it so fascinating! So we'll start off with Zeus. Now, I know...
Word of the Year – Intentional
Looking for insight into how to choose an intentional Word of the Year?Check out that post here.As 2020 wound to a close, my best friend and I were talking about a Word for the year to come. I mentioned how I usually come to mine...namely, I pray about it and wait for...
Holiday History ~ The Twelve Days of Christmas
These days, all the hype is leading up to Christmas. So much so that on December 26, it feels kinda like a letdown, right? The all-Christmas-music-all-the-time radio stations are back to normal programming. Some people start taking down decorations. By the time New...
Holiday History ~ Boxing Day
So...what's Boxing Day? Though our friends across the pond don't even have to ask, we Americans may scratch our heads a bit at this one. We know that it is, just not necessarily what it is. From reading, I knew that Boxing Day was the day after Christmas, which,...
Holiday History ~ Noel
When I was asking you all for suggestions of holiday words or traditions you'd like to learn more about, someone suggested "Noel." I knew this was the French word for Christmas, but I admit that's where my knowledge ended, so it was fun to learn more! Noel does indeed...
Holiday History ~ Merry Vs. Happy
Have you ever wondered why in America we say "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Christmas," when "happy" is the wish of choice for other holidays? Experts don't completely agree on the why of this, but they have some good ideas. First of all, the history. We can date...
Word of the Week – Cornucopia
We probably all know that cornucopia literally means "horn of plenty," from the Latin. And it's been a traditional symbol of Thanksgiving and a fruitful harvest since...well...forever. But do you know the actual history of it? I didn't! The story of the cornucopia...
Word of the Week – Monster
A couple weeks ago as Halloween stuff was everywhere, my family was talking one night about the word monster and where it might have come from. We were musing that since it ends in -ster, and -ster usually indicates "someone who does a particular task" (like spinster...
Word of the Week – Story
I'm sure we've all noticed that history and story look mighty similar. Well, for good reason--they're both taken directly from the same French word, estoire or estorie,which came in turn from Latin and Greek. The literal meaning is "a chronicle of events," and has...
Word of the Week – Caffeine
Last week, my son and I were (for some reason I can't recall) talking about caffeine, and how it occurs naturally in coffee. Which led him to ask, "Is that where the word caffeine comes from? From coffee?" Insert me going, "Huh. You know, I bet it does..." and pulling...
Word of the Week – Disgruntled + Gruntle
I saw a Facebook post a couple weeks ago in which someone realized disgruntled was the opposite of gruntled--a word they'd never heard before, but which they were "very gruntled to learn about." I got a good laugh out of it...so naturally, had to look it up. Though in...
Word of the Week – Greg (That’s Right, Greg)
Did you know that greg is Latin for "flock or herd"? Yeah, neither did I. 😉 But that then makes sense when we look at some of the words that have greg as their root: Congregate - to come together as a groupSegregate - to separate from a group And then the one that...
Word of the Week – The Dickens
A phrase from the archives today...Original post published 2/20/2017 Another special request today, though there isn't quite as much information on it as there was on last week's . . . The question was where the expression "the dickens" comes from. Well, the answer's...
Word of the Week – Decimate
So let's look at the word decimate. We all know what it means--"to utterly destroy." Right? Well, as it turns out, yes--but. There's always a "but," right? LOL. Decimate actually has a much more precise meaning that I was completely unaware of. If we look at the root...
Word of the Week – Myriad and Million
When we think about numbers, we don't often consider that once upon a time, they didn't go very high. But in fact, in ancient days, there weren't words for anything greater than "ten thousand." In the Ancient Greek and Roman eras, this was the largest number known,...
Mock Latin Words 5
I hope you've enjoyed the Mock Latin series! This is my final installment, and only one is mock Latin. The other two are just "mock" in general, but they were fun, so I thought I'd include them. 😉 Asquatulate - This is another word meant to poke fun at the person...
Mock Latin Words 4
Nearly through our Mock Latin series! I just have one more week of them after this one. 😉 Today we begin with a word I have used all the time, never realizing it was one of these "fake" constructions! Discombobulate - So obviously this is a fun word, which is why I...
Mock Latin Words 3
Time for the third installment of the Mock Latin series! Omnium gatherum ~ So technically, this one is only partly "mock." 😉 Omnium is indeed a Latin word for "of all things." Kind of like miscellaneous. In the 1520s (this one is OLD!), people came up with the...
Mock Latin Words 2
Today we're continuing our Mock Latin series with a few more totally fabricated, totally joke words that make me smile. =) Cruciverbalist - Our first word is actually quite new, dating from 1977. If you look at the parts of the word, we have the roots crux which means...
Mock Latin Words 1
After looking at circumbendibus last week, I decided it would be fun to do a series on Mock Latin words ~ words deliberately made up to sound like Latin even though they're not. Since they're completely fake, LOL, the etymology on these isn't very long, so I'm going...
Word of the Week – Circumbendibus
Circumbendibus. How fun is that word? You can almost guess the meaning just by listening to it, can't you? This is another selection from that Colonial-era word list I saw, and I absolutely LOVE this one. Circumbendibus simply means "a roundabout way or process." Like...
Word of the Week – Jollification
It's my birthday week, so I thought it would a fun time to look at this old-fashioned word, popular in the Colonial American era. =) Jollification is literally "making merry," from jolly + -ication ("to make") and dates from the 1760s. Though the adjective "jolly" had...
Word of the Week – Savvy
I recently saw a list of fun Colonial-era words that we should totally bring back into use. One of them was savvy, which anyone who watched Pirates of the Caribbean can hear in Jack Sparrow's voice. Well, just for the record, Jack was totally using it appropriately....
Word of the Week – Grand
A couple weeks ago, my husband said something about something costing "Ten Gs" and my mother-in-law said, "Where does that come from, anyway?" Cue the chime of "Word of the week!" from my kids, LOL. So obviously we knew that "G" was just short for grand. But why and...
Word of the Week – Cushy
A couple weeks ago a friend sent me a list of "18 English Words That Are Actually Hindi," and while quite a few of them I knew that about, others really surprised me. One of those was cushy. I knew that cushy meant "soft" and so I think I always imagined it came from...
Word of the Week – Hot Dog
(A revisit from 2012) Is summer hot dog season in your family? This year we've started grilling out on our campfire ring every Sunday with my mother-in-law, and hot dogs are pretty much always on the menu. But have you ever wondered where they got their name? Well, a...
Word of the Week – Quantum
I'm currently reading Siri Mitchell's State of Lies for my book club (SO GOOD!!!!), in which the heroine is a quantum physicist. (Which her 6-yr-old son calls a fizziest, which made me giggle.) I've been thoroughly enjoying all the science jokes on her T-shirts, and...
Word of the Week – Fence
Originally posted in May 2015 So, duh moment. Did you know that the noun fence--like, you know, the thing around your yard--is from defense? Yeah. Duh. I'd never paused to consider that, perhaps because the spelling has ended up different, but there you go! It has...
Word of the Week – Field Trip
This is another revisit...and since we were all sheltering at home for the last months of the school year, one that we're probably all thinking about with longing. 😉 Coming at you originally from May of 2015, when Rowyn was only 7 and Xoe was 9, which of course gave...
Word of the Week – Grapevine
Originally published June 2015 We've all heard it through the grapevine (and some of us might break into song at the mere mention...), but do you know where the saying comes from? I didn't--but I learned recently so thought I'd share. =) Grapevine, meaning "a rumor"...
Word of the Week – Salary and Salt
Leave it to my daughter to lean over in the middle of church and whisper, "Word of the week!" during the sermon--which is exactly what happened when my dad shared this fun little tidbit. ;-)Did you know that salary is from the same root as salt? Salary has meant...
Word of the Week – Sit, Twiddle, and Twirl
Originally published on 9/3/2012 Today I'm going to examine the origin of a particular phrase rather than a particular word. 😉 Back in the day when I originally examined this, as I was working on Whispers from the Shadows, my hero was exclaiming something about how it...
Word of the Week – Nauseous
Originally published 10/15/2012 Okay, y'all, I originally posted this seven and a half years ago, and my call for actual evidence to support the claim below netted me nothing but others who were curious, LOL. So I'm trying again--because this claim has since even...
Word of the Week – Mean
Originally posted 8/20/12 Mean is one of those words that I knew well would have been around forever, but I looked it up to see about some of the particular uses. And as usual, found a few surprises. =) As a verb, mean has meant "intend, have in mind" even back...
Word of the Week – Zone
Originally posted on 8/13/12 Once upon a time, I was looking up "war zone," and in so doing came across some interesting tidbits on zone. =) The noun dates to the late fourteenth century, coming directly from the Latin zona, which means "a geographical belt, celestial...
Word of the Week – Mayday
This is a very appropriate revisit from 2012, I thought since we're only a few days away from May 1. As in, May Day. Ha...ha...ha...😉 Anyway! Mayday, according to "The Wireless Age" from June 1923, is an aviator distress call. It was agreed that just saying the...
Word of the Week – Wow
Originally posted August 27, 2012 Though a revisit, this remains one of my favorite word discoveries! I always thought of wow as a modern word. So when I looked it up, I was shocked to see that it's from 1510! Wow is a Scottish interjection, one of those that...
Word of the Week – Smorgasbord
Holidays mean food. (So do regular days, LOL.) And this year, with trying to limit our trips to the store, I'm making more of an effort than usual to make sure all leftovers get eaten. Which led me to pull everything out of the fridge and declare dinner a smorgasbord...
Word of the Week – Fast II
I've looked at the word fast before, but I was specifically focusing on the adjective/adverb form (and why we don't add -ly to it anymore). Today I wanted to take a look at the verb/noun form. Seems appropriate as we enter Holy Week, the end of the period of Lenton...
Word of the Week – Curfew
I found this one on another trending list at Etymonline.com -- and found it quite interesting! Did you know that curfew is literally "cover fire"? It's from the Old French cuevrefeu -- cuevre being "cover" and feu, of course, being "fire." Why? Well, it began in the...
Word of the Week – Mystic and . . . Secretary?
Talking about some secretive words today. 😉 In one of our family devotionals last week, there was a quote from a "mystic" of millennia past, and we found ourselves wondering where the word came from. Mystic comes from the Greek mystikos, meaning "secret, connected to...
Word of the Week – Quarantine
No, I'm not being morbid. 😏 But this was one of the trending words on Etymonline, and I found its etymology fascinating! So quarantine entered English around 1660 with its somewhat-familiar meaning: "the length of time a ship suspected of carrying disease was kept in...
Word of the Week – Mesmerize
When one looks up the etymology of mesmerize, one will find that it dates from 1819, when it was coined with the meaning of "to put into a hypnotic state." What Etymonline doesn't mention is that this comes directly from the name of the physician who developed the...
Word of the Week – Just Kidding!
Originally published November 2011 I like the word "kid." I use it with my children (do you know how hard it was for me to write that sentence without using the word "kid"? LOL), I use it for jests. It's a standard part of my vocabulary. But I'll never forget the...