warp speed

Pronounced: warp speed, noun

Notes: How one defines this depends upon how much of a science fiction aficionado one is

Yesterday’s word

The word benedict is “a newly married man; especially one who was previously thought to be a confirmed bachelor”

First usage

Our word came into English in the early 1800s

Background / Comments

As noted yesterday, our word has nothing to do with “benediction” – it comes from Shakespeare; specifically, an alteration of the character Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing.

benedict

Pronounced: BEN-ih-dict, noun

Notes: I know “benediction”, but not this word

Yesterday’s word

The word epenthesis is “the insertion or development of a sound or letter in the body of a word”

First usage

Our word came into English in the mid-1600s

Background / Comments

There are lots of examples of this – one of the ones I’ve heard is pronouncing “wash” as “warsh”. Other examples of epenthesis are “film” pronounced “FILL-um”. A slightly less known one is pronouncing cummerbund as “CUM-ber-bund”. Perhaps you have run across some of your own? Our word came from the late Latin word epenthesis (inserting a letter), which came from the Greek word epenthesis, which is made up of epi- (upon; before; after) and en- (within; in) and thesis (placing).

epenthesis

Pronounced: ih-PEN-thuh-sus (alt: ih-PENT-thus-sus), noun

Notes: A technical term that many of us have experience with

Yesterday’s word

The word Ophelian means “displaying madness, suicidal tendencies, and similar characteristics”

First usage

Our word came into English in the first decade of the 1900s

Background / Comments

You probably recognized (as I did) “Ophelia”, a character in William Shakespeare Hamlet. However, I wasn’t quite sure of the meaning, because my recollection of Ophelia’s story wasn’t terribly accurate. In the story, she was driven to insanity and killed herself.

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.