scarify

Pronounced: SKER-uh-fie, verb

Notes: Not related to “scare” (which is what I thought)

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Yesterday’s word

The word Laputan means “absurdly fanciful or impractical”

First usage

Our word came into English in the mid-1800s

Background / Comments

If you have read Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, published in 1726, you may know our word: it comes from a floating island in the book called “Laputa”. The residents of the island were absorbed with music, math, technology, and astronomy – so much so that they tended to ignore practical matters. Something interesting about the book: in the story, the people of Laputa discovered two moons of Mars; it was 150 years before the two moons Deimos and Phobos were discovered. In honor of the book, Deimos has a crater named “Swift”, and geographic places on Phobos are named after places in Gulliver’s Travels.