Grateful Dead

I have (hopefully until today) always had to consult my dictionary when determining which is the good word: approbration or opprobrium. I know one is a good thing and one is not, but which is which has yet to sink into my mind. So this blog today is as much for me as for elucidating anyone else.

Approbation, according to my dictionary, is official approval, sanction, or commendation. So it’s the good word. It is the noun form of the transitive verb approbate, which comes through Middle English (approbaten) from Latin (approbatus, the past participle of approbare, which means approve.) Unfortunately, there is disagreement in the sources. Etymonline.com agrees that the source word is approbare, but says that the lineage goes through the noun form of the past participle of approbare¸ which is approbationem, and from there went into Old French as aprobation in the 14th century before coming into English. I anticipate a knock-down, drag-out fight over that disagreement. Watch the news closely….

I noticed in the listing for approbate something I can’t remember seeing in my dictionary before at the beginning of a definition: “[Now Rare].” I concur; while I’ve encountered the word approbation I’ve never seen approbate.

Opprobrium, on the other hand, is the disgrace or infamy attached to conduct viewed as grossly shameful. Its other two definitions refer to anything that brings shame and the considering of something with shame and contempt. It also comes originally from Latin, from the word opprobrare, which means to reproach and is formed from ob- (toward, for, before, or about) and probrum, which refers to a disgrace. Probrum comes from pro- (before, forward) and the base word ferre, which is the Latin word for bear (as in carry, not like the animal). Opprobrium was first used in English in the 1680s, but etymonline suggests it first came in the form opprobrious in the 14th century, derived from the Old French word opprobrieux. The Old French got it from Late Latin (opprobriosus) which got it from opprobare. While this disagreement isn’t as contentious as for approbation (no one threw down the gantlet - see blog of 1/24/10), it still shows the difficulty in tracing back how a word made its way to us.

A word that fits somewhat in with these two words that I have wondered about the etymology of is the word grateful. By all rights it should mean full of grate, with grate being a noun and a synonym for appreciation. But grate means to rub against, or grind into shreds. As a noun it is a frame of metal bars. How did grateful come to mean feeling or expressing gratitude? And why isn’t the word gratitudeful?

The word grate (that meant agreeable and thankful) came from the Latin word gratus (meaning pleasing, and is the source of the word grace). Grate in this form is, alas, an obsolete word. It has left the list of endangered species and is dead (hence the title for this blog). But it evolved into the word grateful in the 1550s and continues to exist in that form. And for that we are grateful.