calumny

Pronounced: KA-luhm-nee, noun

Notes: This is a word I kind of knew, but not precisely

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Yesterday’s word

The word recreant, as an adjective, means

• unfaithful to a cause, duty, person, belief, etc
• cowardly

As a noun, it means

• a disloyal person
• a coward

First usage

Our word came into English in the mid-1300s

Background / Comments

I thought that our word was somehow a shortening of “recreation” (maybe a person who participates in recreational activities), but that was far short of the mark. Our word came from the Old French word recreant, which is the present participle of recroire (to yield; to surrender allegiance), which came from the Latin word recredere (to yield or pledge), made up of re- (again) and credere (to believe).