An Explicit Education

Explicit would seem to be a close cousin to illicit. But it isn’t. While the pornographic meaning of explicit has some illicit meaning, illicit means not legally permitted or authorized. It is synonymous with unlawful. It also means morally or ethically wrong, and is as often used with the second meaning as with the first. It comes from the Old French word illicite, and came to English in the 1300s. The Old French got illicite from the Latin word illicitus, which means unlawful.

A word that is a virtual homophone (I am not homophone phobic) to illicit is elicit. Elicit came to English in the 1640s directly from the Latin word elicitus, which of course is the past participle of elicere. Elicere was formed by adding the prefix ex- (meaning “out”) to licere, which is the form of the word lacere that is used when combining. Lacere means to entice, lure, or deceive, and is related to the word laqueus, which means noose or snare, and from which we get the word lace. So elicitus means to entice or lure out. My dictionary defines elicit as a verb that is used with an object, and it means to bring out or evoke or educe.

Educe? It also means to draw out or bring forth but it came to English earlier, in the 1400s. While it lists elicit as a synonym, it also includes in its primary definition the sense of the object (as with elicit, educe needs an object) being latent or potential – not yet obvious or realized. There is a developmental sense to educe that does not exist in elicit. Educe comes from educere, which has an interesting meaning. Imagine the General at the head of his troops, or the Admiral’s ship at the head of the armada. (We also get the word conduce and the title Duke from this Latin word.) They are “leading out” or “bringing out,” and that is the meaning of educare.

You may have noticed how close the word educare is to educate. Indeed, I did not connect the two until I saw the Latin source word, and if you know the past participle of educare is educatus, you will understand how a few years after educe came into use in English the word educate followed (in the mid-15th century. The words educare and educate both meant to bring up children and to train them. But the meaning of providing schooling didn’t develop until the 1580s.

Before I finish today, I have to say that educe has educed a second meaning: to infer or deduce. To draw a conclusion from data is a relatively recent meaning, and you may remember when it came into use in 1837. I don’t, but I’m a whipper-snapper, a word for another day.

Speaking of words for another day, avid readers of this blog with photographic memories will recall a similar word, evince, which means to show clearly or disprove (or confute, another word for another day). It shares with educe the sense of deduction, but educe has a sense of proving, while evince has a sense of disproving. If you are trying to prove something through deduction, Sherlock, use educe. If you are trying to disprove, use evince. They’re both good words. Now you have been educated, and can elicit illicit scorn with your mastery of these words.