rifacimento

Pronounced: rih-fah-chih-MEN-toh, noun

Notes: I’ve not heard this word before, but most of us have run across rifacimenti (the plural form of rifacimento)

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Yesterday’s word

The word hap can mean, as a noun

• chance; fortune
• an occurrence

As a verb, it can mean

• to occur
• to clothe, cover, or wrap

First usage

The word goes back to the 1300s (see the next section)

Background / Comments

If you’re like me, you probably knew both of the noun meanings (or were reasonably close), and the first verb meaning — it is the second verb meaning that caused this word to appear in the list; I had not heard this before. Both noun meanings and the first verb meaning come from the Old Norse word happ (good luck), from which we get happen, mishap, hapless, and happy. This was the earlier meaning, coming into English in the mid-1300s. The origin of the second verb meaning is unknown, but it is know that it came into English in the late 1300s.