Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day
Words that I do not know
Pronounced: ah-DRAY, noun
Notes: I didn’t know this word
The word allocute means “to make a formal speech, especially by a defendant after being found guilty and before being sentenced in a court”
This word came into English in the mid-1800s
Our word came from allocution (a formal speech), which comes from the Latin word allocution, which came from loqui (to speak).
Pronounced: AH-luh-cute, verb
Notes: Another word I don’t know
The word verbicide is “the willful and intentional distortion of the original meaning of a word”
Our word came into English in the mid-1800s
Our word comes from verb plus -icide (to kill). The word verb is from the Latin word verbum (verb).
Pronounced: VUR-buh-side, noun
Notes: I didn’t know this word, but have known instances of it
The word politick means “to engage in (usually partisan) political activity”
This word came into English in the late 1800s
I thought that our word was obsolete; we use politic and politics, and our word looks like an old spelling. Our word is a verb and was created from the noun politicking, which came from politic (pragmatic; shrewd), which came from the Old French word politique (political). The Old French word came from the Latin word politicus (political), which came from the Greek work politikos (political), which is taken from the word polis (city).
Pronounced: POL-ih-tick, verb
Notes: You probably know this word; I’ll talk more about tomorrow
The word meta means “of, or related to, a story, play, film or character that consciously references its own subject”
This may be the most recent word; the reference material says it came into usage in the 2010s, but I thought I’d heard it before that time.
Our word simply comes from the Greek prefix meta- (with). In Old English, it was mid (gives an interesting understand of “midwife”, eh?); in German, it is (was?) mit; in Gothic, it was mith.
Pronounced: MEH-tuh, adj
Notes: The vocabulary reference I took this from says it is pronounced “MEE-tuh”; however, this particular reference seems to be riddled with errors; I’ve always heard it pronounced “MEH-tuh”. In addition, no web site I checked has it as “MEE-tuh”, so I think this is just another error.
The word imago means
This word came into English in the late 1700s
I learned the stages of insect life as egg-larva-pupa-adult. Apparently, our word is starting to be used instead of “adult”. When I was checking the insect life stages to make sure I spelled them properly, I ran across one web site that used our word in place of “adult”. It is clear that the second definition has grown out of the first. My data doesn’t say, but I suspect it is a later definition. Anyway, our word comes from the Latin word imago (image).
Pronounced: ih-MAY-go (alt: ih-MAH-go), noun
Notes: Interesting plural: imagines (ih-MAY-guh-neez); can also use the (expected) imagoes
The word bel-esprit means “a person of great wit or intellect; a witty or clever person”
Our word came into English in the mid-1600s
A nice word to use to as an alternate to “witty” or “clever”. It is, as you may think, a French word; in that language, bel-esprit means “fine mind; wittiness”. This word has an interesting plural: beaux-esprits.
Pronounced: bell-es-PREE, noun
Notes: Another word I don’t know (but a good one)
The word ecdysis is “the shedding of an outer layer; molting”
This word came into English in the mid-1800s
Our word came from the Greek word ekdysis, which is from ekdyein (to take off), which is made of ek- (out; off) and dyein (to put on).
Pronounced: EK-duh-sis, noun
Notes: I’m pretty sure I have run across this word, but I could not recall the definition
The word meliorism means “the belief that the world can be made better and improved by concentrated effort and diligent work”
Our word came into English in the mid-1800s
Our word came from the Latin word melior (better) with the ending -ism. The definition I quoted above is a more “friendly” definition; I have also seen “the doctrine that the world becomes better (or may be made better) by human effort”. One would probably write quite an essay on this topic. It is certainly true that we have amazing technology these days. Our mobile phones have more power than the computers they used to get to the moon. Ordering something is speedy; many things are delivered within a day or two. At the same time, people’s behavior seems to be worse, and there is much less freedom: listen to an older person describe the things they did; it almost sounds like another word. This is not a good place
Pronounced: MEAL-yuh-riz-uhm (alt: MEE-lee-uh-riz-uhm), noun
Notes: Nice word, but I didn’t know it
The word earwig means, as a noun, “any of various insects of the order Dermaptera, having a pair of pincers at the rear of the abdomen”.
As a verb, it means
This word may be one of the earliest words; it goes back to before the year 1000
Our word comes from the Old English word earwicga, which is composed of ear and wicga (insect). It was an old belief that this insect crawled into people’s ears to reach their brains. I assume that the noun form was the original, and the idea of an insect in one’s brain (and thus influencing one) became a verb something like influenced as if by an earwig… the insect part was dropped, and the idea of influence was kept. The other verb meaning no doubt comes from the idea that listening to a secret conversation causes influence.
Pronounced: EAR-wig, noun/verb
Notes: I had a faint idea of the meaning of the noun form, but no clue concerning the verb form
The word xyst means “a garden walkway planted and bordered with trees”
Our word came into English in the mid-1600s
Our word comes from the Latin word xystus (garden terrace; shaded walk), which came from the Greek word xystós (a covered colonnade)
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day