gelt

Pronounced: gelt, noun

Notes: I think I’ve run across the word, but I could not remember the meaning – do you?

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Yesterday’s word

The word florilegium is “a volume of writings; anthology”

First usage

Our word came into English in the mid-1600s

Background / Comments

Well, it turns out that my instincts were not so far off: People who create florilegia (the plural of our word) are gathering the best of stories, much as one would gather a bouquet of good flowers. Our word came from a New Latin word that came from the Latin word florilegus (culling flowers). Our word was first a collection of flowers, and then a book about flowers, and finally a collection of the flowers of literature. Rather to my surprise, the word “anthology” has a similar origin, but instead of Latin, it traces back to a Greek word for “flower gathering”.