vagary

Pronounced: VAY-guh-ree, noun

Notes: This is another word I have a vague idea of

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Yesterday’s word

The word hydra means “a persistent or multifaceted problem that presents a new obstacle when a part of it is solved”

First usage

Our word came into English in the mid-1300s

Background / Comments

When I was in grade school and high school, I was interested in Greek and Roman mythology, so I knew about the monster called Hydra. It was a multi-headed monster that Hercules fought; when he cut off one head, two more grew. However, I did not know that it had come to have the meaning it does. It reminds me of lots of areas of working with software. In the area of compiling code, I remember fixing one compiler error, and then another one (or several others) showed up. In the same way, fixing a bug in the software (a problem in the software) will often cause a problem to show up in another place. There was one co-worker who was (in)famous for turning over fixes that caused new problems; this person was a hydra creation genius! I’m sure there are other professions that can attest to hydras peculiar to their work. Our word comes from the Latin word Hydra, which came from the Greek word Hudra (water snake).