Not a Uxorial Salute

When I began this string of blog posts on words found in a couple recently read books I thought it would take a couple of posts. Here we are on the third, and final, post on the subject.

I’ve been eager to get to the word uxorious, which was used by P.D. James in her mystery The Private Patient. It’s a glorious word, because it is an adjective used to describe someone who dotes upon or is “foolishly” fond of or “affectionately submissive” toward their wife. There are several pejorative phrases used because people don’t know this word, the most acceptable of which is “hen-pecked.”

Uxorious came to English long ago, in the 1590s, from the Latin word uxorius. Uxor is the Latin word for wife, and uxorius means “of or pertaining to the wife.” In 1800 the word uxorious was used as the formation of the nicer word uxorial, which simply means what the original Latin word meant: of or pertaining to the wife. Then, with two words already in English, and apparently in response to a high-profile incident, the word uxoricide was coined in 1854 to describe the murder of one’s wife.

So, the good word is uxorial, the bad word is uxorious. In fact, the bad word might be minatory.

Minatory is an adjective that means threatening or menacing. It came to English around 1530, either from the Old (or Middle; there’s some dissension) French minatoire, or directly from the Late Latin minatorius, which means threaten. Why do we have three words (threatening, menacing, and minatory) that mean the same thing? There are four likely reasons: 1. Threatening and menacing are adjective forms of verbs. Minatory came to English as an adjective, 2. Different sources (threaten came from Old English, menace from Anglo-French, and Minatory from Late Latin), 3. Using minatory is an opportunity to show your pedantic abilities, or 4. They had slightly different meanings (menace had a sense of urging that the others don’t; threaten a sense of ominous foreboding, and minatory was more purely negative).

The other two words picked up from this source are mullion and salubrious.

Mullions are the vertical pieces between windows, doors, screens, etc. It is a structural support piece, not a decorative separation. It came to English in the 1560s from the Middle English word moyniel, which came from the Anglo-French moinel, which came from the Old French word meien, which means mean (as in intermediate).

Salubrious is a good adjective for that which promotes health. Diets can be salubrious, spring waters have been considered salubrious, as has mountain air. Salubrious has been used in English since the 1540s, when it was adopted from the Latin word salubris that has the same meaning.

In case you’re wondering, our word salute comes from the same Latin source word, salus. The Latin word salutare (from which we got salute in the late 1300s) literally means “wish health to.” By the beginning of the 1400s the gesture or utterance of greeting was called a salute. The military (and nautical) meaning of a salute as a display of flags or sound of cannons to mark respect has been used since the 1580s. However, the military sense of a hand salute didn’t come into use as a noun until 1832 or as a verb until 1844. 

So let's salute all those who are not minatory or uxorious.