Word of the Week

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...

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...

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...

I'm having so much fun going through my old Word of the Week entries and redoing some of the oldest ones. I don't know about you, but I don't remember all these tidbits I've looked up in the past! LOL. This one comes to you from 2011. Appropriate, again, since I'm...

This is another re-post, from way back in 2011...and I couldn't resist sharing it again now, given that the most famous use of fiddle de dee is undoubtedly from Gone with the Wind, and I'm currently editing my upcoming novel, Dreams of Savannah that has a very...

This one was a question my son asked the other day. Why do we use the same word for the two different meanings of stable--the adjective and then the noun? Are they from the same root? (Why yes, my children do ask questions like this regularly, LOL.) The short answer...

Originally published 5/12/12 I thought it would be fun to revisit this old Word of the Week when I saw the pretty photo I put in here of a strip of our flowers at our old house. Ah, spring, how I long for thee. 😉 So here you go--a(nother) glimpse at the word plant:...

Okay, I just did this one not-quite-three-years ago...but it was when I was brainstorming On Wings of Devotion, so it seemed like a fun revisit! ~*~ This might seem like an odd word of the week until you consider I'm a writer, LOL. One who, as it happens, is indeed...

Nimrod. In Genesis, he's recorded as being a hunter of legendary renown and expertise. But I remember the first time I read that for myself thinking, "Really? I thought it meant 'idiot.'" The etymologists can't document exactly how this change in meaning happened, but...

Special request from Bev today, and an appropriate one for the 6th Day of Christmas. 😀 Figgy Pudding. If you're like me, you've really only heard of it in that oft-forgotten verse of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." But what in the world is it? First, let's get this...

(Originally published in 2015)  I am sometimes baffled by how things come into our cultural consciousness...and change over the centuries. Cue the elves. Elf comes from Germanic folklore, with equivalents in Norse and Saxon mythology. The word itself hasn't...

This one's another revisit from 2014. 😁 And this discovery made me smile. I have to say that most times when I hear the word jolly, I think of Christmas. Jolly old St. Nick, jolly elves, etc. And apparently, that's a good thing to think of! Though the word comes most...

Today's Word of the Week--a revisit of a post from 2014--is less a word and more the etymology of a story. Because my kids asked me after I went through the original St. Nicholas story with them, when Rudolph came about, and I had no clue. As it turns out, our beloved...

1922 ad in Ladies' Home Journal Advent is upon us, so I figured I'd go back to my practice of sharing holiday-themed words each Monday. I think I've used pretty much all of them at some point or another, but I'll try to highlight ones I haven't looked at in a while,...

I've always loved the word whimsy. For some reason, those "fanciful, fantastic" ideas strike me as pure joy. (Shocking for a novelist, right?) Interesting, though, that (in my head at least) whimsy and whimsical have good connotations, while whim can carry a more...

We know the word candid as "truthful, honest, sincere." It's carried this meaning since the 1670s. But before that, it carried the meaning of "bright, white" which came from the Latin candere, which means, "to shine." I really kind of love this one. Because what...

The word trek has been in the English language only since around 1849--and it was a direct borrow from the Dutch treck. But I found it interesting that treck didn't actually mean "a long journey" when the Dutch started using it. Nope. It meant "to drag or pull." Why?...

(Originally published on April 25, 2011) I can't say as I've ever understood why, when we comprehend something, we stand under it. So this week we're working to understand the word understand. 😀 According to the wonderful world of www.etymonline.com, this word, which...

Post originally published 4/18/2011 Another Word of the Week revisit coming your way, again from my first days of doing these features in 2011. 😀 And today we're (re)looking at amen. "Amen" is a direct translation from a Hebrew word that literally means "so be it."...

This is actually a revisit of one of my very first word features, from way back in 2011. Figured we could use a refresher on some of those fun ones! So today...macaroni! Yes, you read that right. 😉 Now, in my house "macaroni" is synonymous with "the most common food...

Those of you who have been reading these posts for the entire eight years I've been writing them weekly may (or may not) remember the third word I featured: handsome. I thought it would be fun to revisit some of those early entries and remind myself of their...

At church last week I was joking with my son about something and declared it "Beyond the pale." At which point he, of course, asked what in the world that meant. Hmm. Good question. This being me, I immediately pulled up etymonline.com (so not cool, Mom) and looked up...

Since last week we looked into peach, I thought it would be fun to move to an autumn fruit this week and explore the history of the word apple. Apple is from Old English, which means it's been around pretty much forever. But it didn't always mean that specific fruit...

So, funny story. When we moved from our old house to one on my mother-in-law's property, my daughter was distraught over leaving the beautiful old weeping cherry tree we had at the other house. So her grandmother promised to plant her one here. And so she did...or so...

We're all familiar with the word stamina, meaning "strength to resist, endurance." But did you know that it comes from the Latin word for "threads"? The Latin, in turn, is from the Greek stemon...a thread. Specifically, the thread that the three Fates spun, measured...

Did you know that our word enigma actually comes from the Greek word for "fable"? I hadn't! But apparently so. Said Greek word is ainos. And since a fable is a tale whose meaning/message has to be puzzled out, ainos let to a verb ainissesthai, which means (go figure)...

It took a while for summer weather to really take hold for us this year in West Virginia...but man, it's been full force in August! Heat and humidity all around--which we frequently describe as balmy. Which, as it turns out, probably isn't actually a good word for it,...

This kind of qualifies as a head slap moment, LOL. So even as kid, I noticed how close pastor sounds and looks to pasture. And the fact that pastoral means "having to do with country life" was something I learned a long time ago. But I never actually paused to wonder...

A couple years ago, I remember reading to the kids about Commodore Matthew C. Perry's visit to Japan in 1854, and how it opened Japan to trade with the US for the first time. But I didn't realize that the word tycoon came directly from this visit! During Perry's...

If you saw my post a few weeks ago on excruciating/crucifixion, you might just look at the word crucial and say, "Well, huh. That has that cruc root in it too!" And you'd be right. Crucial also has the same root, which literally means "cross" in Latin. But in the case...

Did you know that the word adept is linked to alchemy? Yeah...neither did I. Adept is from the Latin adeptus, literally meaning "having attained" and was introduced into English in the Middle Ages among alchemists. If you showed particular knowledge of this art, you...

When I think about Roman tax collectors, I admit that most of what I know has been gleaned from the Gospel passages dealing with them, LOL. But did you know that tax collectors in Roman days would collect all the taxes in baskets woven from rushes? The Latin word for...

This seems like a nice word for the middle of summer, doesn't it? We know it as meaning "lazy, languid." Not always a good thing, but on a summer day, you might be inclined to give it less negative connotation, right? This word has a fun history, though! It dates to...

We all know what an anthology is, right? A collection of pieces by various writers or artists (or by a single author) all gathered into one volume. I'd never paused to think about how old these are, but in fact, the English word anthology as a collection of poems...

A quick but enlightening word choice this week. Did you know that the word excruciating is linked directly to crucifixion? If you're like me, you'd never paused to think about it, but as soon as you see the two words side by side ~ excruciating | crucifixion ~ you see...

One of my very first Words of the Week was the word cleave. I've long found it interesting that the word has two meanings, which are opposite each other: Cleave, definition 1 - to divide, to split, to cut Cleave, definition 2 - to stick, cling, adhere to something...

Why? Because I'm a big fan of cheese...and I happened across the word when browsing through etymonline.com (why yes, I browse etymology sites. Doesn't everyone?? LOL) and realized I had no idea of the history of either the word or the food. The English word for cheese...

This week I'm mixing it up just a wee bit and referring you to another fun blog post that explores the origins of 9 common English sayings. Language is such a fascinating area of study, and each has its own unique, complex set of intricacies that makes it difficult...

Okay, when I say truffle, I mean the chocolate. Period. At least in terms of things I'd like to put into my mouth. 😉 But I am, of course, also aware of the fungus sold for ridiculous amounts of money that answers to the same name. And I've wondered why these two very...

No one wants to be ostracized, right? It's a banishment, or a more metaphorical exclusion. Either way, not good. But it has a looooong history. Ostracize actually comes from the Greek word ostrakon--a piece of broken pottery. See, back in the day in Athens, someone...

This ranks as another of those words that surprised me! I've long known that people used to call small portraits miniatures--but what I didn't realize was that the "small" part wasn't the root of the word. In fact, the word miniature comes from the Latin miniare,...

No, I'm not advocating one of anything. 😉 I just read the history of the word in my son's vocab book and thought I'd share. Do you already know the history of this one? I think I've probably heard it before, and I had a vague recollection that it was a name, but the...

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,...

I always find it interesting when a word with different meanings comes, in fact, from different root words. Such is the case with scale. Though that single English word can mean many different things--fish's scale, or a scale that builds up on something; to scale a...

So mediocre has meant the same thing since it entered English round about 1580: "of moderate quality, neither good nor bad." But I'd never really looked it up to realize where it comes from. Medi- of course means "middle" or "halfway" in Latin, which we know from...

Yet another homeschool-inspired Word of the Week--this one from my daughter, who bounced out to the kitchen the other day to say, "Do you know where the word sinister comes from?" To which I replied, stopping what I was doing, "No! Tell me!" And so she did. 😀 (I adore...

My daughter has been taking ballet since she was five, and it's safe to say she is a very enthusiastic fan of the art. 😉  A few weeks ago she asked me to look up where the word comes from, so of course, I obliged. Ballet comes to English from (shocker) French....

My daughter informed of this one, courtesy of her history book. =) So we all know jumbo as "very large." Even excessively large. But did you know it came from an elephant's name? I didn't! In the 1880s there was an elephant in the London zoo called Mumbo Jumbo...

Okay, this one is really cool, guys! I've long known that stationary (meaning "not moving") and stationery (meaning "writing materials") were homophones and that the one with the a was the adjective and the one with the e had to do with writing letters. But did you...

This is another one that comes courtesy of my son's vocabulary book. 😉 Let's look for a moment at the Latin word integer, which means "whole, complete." We see this root in quite a lot of English words. First, the word integer itself, which means "a whole number."...