Pronounced: ag-uh-thuh-kak-uh-LAHJ-uh-kuhl
Notes: I originally had no idea of the meaning of the word, but afterwards, it made sense to me
Yesterday’s word
The word intercalate means
- to insert (something) in a calendar
- to insert between or among existing elements or layers
First usage
Our word came into English in the early 1600s
Background / Comments
Our word came from the Latin prefix inter- (between; among) and the verb calāre (to proclaim; to announce). Intercalate was originally used to proclaim adding a day (or month) in some calendar. With our current calendar, we only intercalate a day every four years, but some early calendars added months. The early Roman calendars had ten months with a total of 304 days. That’s why “October”, “November”, and “December” start with the number IDs for eight, nine, and ten – in the early calendar, they were the 8th, 9th, and 10th months. It was a later ruler who intercalated January and February. Over time, the usage broadened toward the second definition above.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 