rifacimento

Pronounced: rih-fah-chih-MEN-toh, noun

Notes: I’ve not heard this word before, but most of us have run across rifacimenti (the plural form of rifacimento)

Yesterday’s word

The word hap can mean, as a noun

  • chance; fortune
  • an occurrence

As a verb, it can mean

  • to occur
  • to clothe, cover, or wrap
First usage

The word goes back to the 1300s (see the next section)

Background / Comments

If you’re like me, you probably knew both of the noun meanings (or were reasonably close), and the first verb meaning — it is the second verb meaning that caused this word to appear in the list; I had not heard this before. Both noun meanings and the first verb meaning come from the Old Norse word happ (good luck), from which we get happen, mishap, hapless, and happy. This was the earlier meaning, coming into English in the mid-1300s. The origin of the second verb meaning is unknown, but it is know that it came into English in the late 1300s.

hap

Pronounced: hap (duh), noun/verb

Notes: You probably think you know the meaning (as did I), but there is one of the verb meanings that I’d not heard before (and so it made the list)

Yesterday’s word

The word fribble means, as a verb, “to act in a foolish, frivolous way” (often followed by ‘away’). As a noun, it is “a fool”

First usage

The word came into English in the mid-1600s

Background / Comments

I am pleased with myself about this one: before I looked at the background, I assumed that it came from a corruption of “frivolous”, and that is pretty close to correct: the verb “frivol” is a back-formation from the adjective “frivolous”, and it is assumed that fribble is an alteration (corruption?) of “frivol”.

fribble

Pronounced: FRIB-uhl, verb/noun

Notes: I don’t think I’ve run across this word, and I could not guess the definition

Yesterday’s word

The word mithridatize means “to develop immunity to a poison by gradually increasing the dose”

First usage

This word came into English in the mid-1800s

Background / Comments

I like reading mysteries; especially the older classical mysteries: Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Rex Stout, and Sherlock Holmes stories. In many of the stories poison is used, and the Dorothy Sayers book “Strong Poison”, which features mithridatism (however, it doesn’t use that term). I don’t think all poisons work this way, but (as I understand it), it is possible to mithridatize oneself against arsenic. Our word comes from a person: Mithridates VI, king of Pontus (a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea – now part of Turkey), who reigned from 120-63 BC. It is said of him that he acquired immunity to poison by ingesting gradually larger doses of it. His father was poisoned, which explains his interest in being able to develop a tolerance to poison. He was defeated in battle by Pompey; the story is that he didn’t want to be taken alive, so he tried to poison himself, but failed due to his immunity. So, he asked a servant to stab him to death.

mithridatize

Pronounced: MYTH-rih-day-tize, verb

Notes: I’m surprised, given my enjoyment of mysteries, that I haven’t run across this word

Yesterday’s word

The word scabrous means

  • full or problems or difficulty
  • indecent, risqué, or scandalous
First usage

This word came into English in the late 1500s

Background / Comments

I thought that this word might somehow be related to scabs… maybe describing someone who had a lot of scabs. As you can see, that’s not right. The word comes from the Latin word scaber (rough).

scabrous

Pronounced: SKAB-ruhs, adj

Notes: Not what I thought it was…

Yesterday’s word

The word grimthorpe means “to restore or remodel something without paying attention to its original character, history, etc”

First usage

This word came into usage in the late 1800s

Background / Comments

Nothing to do with “grim” (although it might be considered “grim” to grimthorpe a building). The word comes from a person’s name: Edmund Beckett, the first Baron Grimthorpe. He was an architect that “restored” St Albans Cathedral – because of the radical changes he made he made during the restoration, he was critized, and his name became a verb.

grimthorpe

Pronounced: GRIM-thorp, verb

Notes: I don’t recall running across this word, but “grim” makes it look vaguely bad

Yesterday’s word

The word poetaster is “a bad poet; a writer of poor or mediocre verse”

First usage

Our word came into English in the late 1500s

Background / Comments

As I noted yesterday, I think I’ve posted this word before… but I had vocabulary words at work for several years and I posted words on Facebook for a year before I moved it here. I was surprised at the age of this word; I thought it was more recent. In addition, I thought that this word was just poet run together with disaster, but that’s not right. The poet part is correct (and comes from Latin), but the -aster is also Latin and is a pejorative suffix meaning “something that imperfectly resembles or mimics the real thing”.

poetaster

Pronounced: POE-it-as-ter, noun

Notes: This word looks familiar; I may have posted this same word a couple of years ago when I had these on Facebook (I cannot guarantee that I’ll never repeat a word)

Yesterday’s word

The word subrogate means “to substitute one person or entity for another in a legal claim”

First usage

This word goes back to the mid-1400s

Background / Comments

Our word makes me think of a smashed together “substitute” and “abrogate”. In fact, it comes from the Latin word subrogare, which is composed of sub- (in place of) and rogare (to ask; to propose a law). So, I had the parts of the word correct (abrogate also comes in part from rogare), but I could not figure out a meaning from those two words.

subrogate

Pronounced: SUB-roh-gate, verb

Notes: This looks like I word I should know, but I didn’t

Yesterday’s word

The word bushwa means “rubbish; nonsense; or baloney”

First usage

This word showed up in the 1910s

Background / Comments

As I wrote yesterday, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this word. The reference material I looked at were not certain of the origin; it is thought that our word may be related to bourgeois, because this term was used in political rhetoric. It could also be a “cleaned up” version of a vulgar word.

bushwa

Pronounced: BOOSH-wah (alt: BOOSH-waw), noun

Notes: I’ve not run across this word

Yesterday’s word

The word middlescence means “the middle-age period of life”

First usage

This word came into usage in the 1960s

Background / Comments

Our word was patterned after adolescence (which came into usage in the early 1400s). Knowing that, the word now makes sense.

middlescence

Pronounced: mid-uhl-ESS-uhns, noun

Notes: I didn’t know this word, but it is logical (you may know it with this hint)

Yesterday’s word

The word esse means “the essence; existence”

First usage

I cannot find information about when this word began to be used

Background / Comments

This word comes from the Latin word meaning “to be”.