peregrination

Pronounced: per-uh-gruh-NAY-shun, noun

Notes: Another word I think I’ve run across, but I didn’t quite know the meaning

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Yesterday’s word

The word levee (are you ready?) means

• an embankment made to prevent flooding
• an embankment around a field that is to be irrigated
• a landing place; a quay
• a formal reception

First usage

The last definition above is the earliest, coming into English around 1700; the other meanings came into English in the early 1700s (see the Background below)

Background / Comments

The only definition I knew for certain was the first one; the second one, however, makes sense and is a kind of natural progression from the first. Both the third and fourth definitions were completely unknown to me. The last definition, however, has an excuse – it comes from a somewhat different path: It came from the French word levé, a variant of lever (rising from bed) – a noun use of the infinitive, which traces to the verb lever (to rise). From this sense, levee originally referred to a meeting held when a royal arose from bed. The other definitions from the French word levée, which is the past participle of the same verb lever (to raise).