acuity

Pronounced: uh-KYOO-ih-tee, noun

Notes: I was close to the meaning

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Yesterday’s word

The word distrait means “apprehensively divided or withdrawn in attention; distracted”

First usage

Our word came into English twice; first in the 1400s and again in the mid-1700s (see the comments below)

Background / Comments

Our word came from the Anglo-French word distrait, which came from the Latin adjective distractus. When our word first came into English, it had a meaning very much like “distraught” (deeply agitated or troubled). Apparently, it fell out of use because it came into English a second time — this time meaning “preoccupied; distracted”. Unlike other words from the French language, our word still clings to the French origin: the final ‘t’ is silent, and there is a feminine variant (distraite). These days, our word usually means “mentally remote”, but it can suggest agitation. Once I found this word, I keep running across it in reading, even in stories I’ve read before. I think I (incorrectly) assumed that it was an alternate spelling of “distraught”.