Ophelian

Pronounced: oh-FEE-lee-uhn, adj

Notes: The origin is probably what you think, but do you know the meaning?

Yesterday’s word

The word procrustean is “marked by arbitrary often ruthless disregard of individual differences or special circumstances”

First usage

Our word came into English in the mid-1600s

Background / Comments

I was completely wrong about the origin of this word; I saw “crusty” in the word, and thought that was related to the word. Our word actually a character from Greek mythology: Procrustes was a villain defeated by Theseus. Procrustes was a robber who killed his victims by making them lie on a bed and cutting off parts that hung over the ends, or, if they were too short, by stretching them. Thus the word came to mean something that makes no allowance for individual differences.

procrustean

Pronounced: pruh-KUH-stee-uhn, noun

Notes: I had a vague idea of the meaning, but I wasn’t quite right

Yesterday’s word

The word muzzy means

  • mentally confused
  • blurred; indistinct
First usage

Our word came into English in the mid-1700s

Background / Comments

Our word looks a bit like “fuzzy” (in the sense of “confused”) so I was pretty close. It is thought that our word is a blend of muddled and fuzzy.

muzzy

Pronounced: MUHZ-ee, adj

Notes: I had some idea of the meaning

Yesterday’s word

The word eolian (also spelled aeolian) means “borne, deposited, produced, or eroded by the wind”

First usage

Our word came into English in the late 1500s

Background / Comments

Our word came from Greek mythology: Aeolus was the Greek god of the winds, and the king of the floating island of Aeolia. That became the adjective aeolian; our word is a simplified version by dropping the initial ‘a’. Usually the word is used for things sculpted by the winds, such as dunes or snow drifts or even caves.

eolian

Pronounced: ee-OH-lee-uhn, adj

Notes: Not quite what I was thinking

Yesterday’s word

The word stiction is “the frictional force that much be overcome to set one object in motion when it is in contact with another”

First usage

Our word came into English in the 1940s

Background / Comments

In the early days of hard drives, they would often be afflicted with what I heard someone call stiction — when the hard drive would refuse to spin up properly. Sometimes, a good whack on the drive would get it to spin up; nevertheless, it was a sign that the drive was starting to go bad. I had always thought that the word was made up for that condition, and was thus surprised to see it come up. Our word is a combination of static and friction.

stiction

Pronounced: STICK-shun, noun

Notes: I’ve used and heard this word, but I always thought we just made it up; I had no idea it was a real word

Yesterday’s word

The word distaff means “maternal; female”

First usage

Our word came into English before 1000

Background / Comments

I ran across this word somewhere in the Lord Peter Wimsey stories by Dorothy Sayers – probably in more than one book. I actually took the time to look up the word. If I remember correctly, it is used in those books (perhaps just “book”) very much in the sense that we use the word “maternal”: something like So-and-so is related to X on the distaff side. Originally a distaff was a short staff that held fibers of flax or wool that would be spun into yard or a thread. Such spinning was typically done by women in those days, and thus our word became symbolic for the work or domain of women, and, over time, to refer to the female side of a family.

distaff

Pronounced: DIH-staff, adj

Notes: I happen to know this word, but I don’t think it is generally known

Yesterday’s word

The word slimsy means “flimsy; frail”

First usage

Our word came into English in the mid-1800s

Background / Comments

I thought our word was just another form of “slim”, so the definition surprised me. Our word comes from a blending of slim and flimsy.

slimsy

Pronounced: SLIM-see, adj

Notes: I didn’t know that this was a word

Yesterday’s word

The word telegraphese is “language characterized by the terseness and ellipses that are common in telegrams”

First usage

Our word came into English in the late 1800s

Background / Comments

These days, we have email and texting and Twitter (X) to communicate. In the 1800s, people used the telegraph communicate with someone far away; telegraph came from the Greek words tele (distant) and graphe (writing). The message sent was called a telegram (tele again and gramma [letter]). Telegrams were expensive — one paid by the number of words — so people used various schemes to communicate with a minimal number of words. Our word arose to describe any kind of language that was similarly brief.

telegraphese

Pronounced: teh-luh-gra-feez, noun

Notes: You can probably guess the meaning of this word

Yesterday’s word

The word sulfurous means

  • relating to or resembling sulfur
  • pale yellow
  • fiery; hellish
  • hot-tempered
  • profane; blasphemous
First usage

Our word came into English in the mid-1500s

Background / Comments

Clearly, the first two definitions are pretty clear; sulfur is a pale yellow element. It had been previously known as “brimstone”, and that accounts for the other definitions; the Bible describes the place of eternal punishment as burning with brimstone. Therefore, the other definitions have arisen. Our word is derived from sulfur, which comes from the Latin word sulfur.

sulfurous

Pronounced: SULL-fur-us (alt: sull-FYOOR-us), adj

Notes: Also spelled “sulphurous” – there are multiple definitions: how many do you know?

Yesterday’s word

The word haplology is “the contraction of a word by omission of one or more similar sounds or syllables”

First usage

Our word came into English in the late 1800s

Background / Comments

An example may be useful — a common haplology is saying “prolly” instead of “probably”. While that example is incorrect (at least at the present time), there are other instances of haplology that explain current word: we currently use the word “ably” for someone who does something well, but it started at “ablely” and, due to haplology it was shorted. There are many occurrences of this: What we call today “England” began as “Engla land” (land of the Englas), which, through haplology became “England”. Our word is considered to have been coined by the American philologist Maurice Bloomfield by combining the Greek words haplóos (simple; single) and lógos (speech; expression; idea).

haplology

Pronounced: ha-PLAH-luh-jee, noun

Notes: I didn’t know this word, but many of us have run across haplologies

Yesterday’s word

The word fulminate, as a noun, is “an explosive salt of fulminic acid”. As a verb, it means

  • to explode or to case to explode
  • to issue denunciations
First usage

Our word came into English around 1500

Background / Comments

As I noted yesterday, I recognized one of the definition: the second verb definition is one I think I read somewhere. I was unaware of the other definitions. Our word came from the Latin word fulminare (to strike with lightning), which came from fulmen (lightning), which came from fulgere (to shine).