Pining for My Opinion?

It has been a hiatus of a couple of weeks since my last post – my travel schedule has made posting most difficult. (I have only been at home six days this month, although the last six have been a vacation, so I am not complaining.) It is time to catch up on words related to previous posts

In a previous post I included the word abjure. But in reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetry I ran across the very similar word adjure. It means to charge, bind, or command earnestly and solemnly, often under oath or the threat of a penalty. It can also mean to entreat (I would have used the word ask or plead) or request earnestly.  It came to English in Latin in the late 1300s from the word adiurare (no letter J in Latin), and meant to confirm by oath, or add an oath or swear in addition. It had the sense of another oath, although the prefix ad- meant to swear and the iurare is the word from which we get jury. But now adjure can mean oath or a very strong assertion or entreaty. And if you renounce what you formerly adjured, you abjure it.

Even further back is a post on rapine, which is not to be confused with repine or opine. Rapine is the taking away of someone’s property by force. Repine is a verb that means to fret or complain. Opine is the verb for having an opinion. And while we’re on the subject,  the words to the song from Evita could have easily been “Don’t pine for me, Argentina,” because the verb  pine means to yearn deeply for. So how do words with pine in them have such different meanings?

Let us go back to Old English, where the word pinian (not to be confused with pinion, a gear with a small number of teeth that often interfaces with another gear known as a rack) meant to torture or cause pain (not to be confused with the medieval form of torture known as the rack). It may have come from the Latin word  for punishment, poena, or the Greek word poine, from which we get words like punishment and penal (not to be confused with penile). The idea of pining causing a languishing or a wasting away came into use in the 1300s. To yearn deeply or suffer with longing is now the primary definition.

A couple of hundred years later, in the mid-1500s, someone added the prefix re- to the very pine and formed the word repine. It has come to mean to be fretfully discontented, although I have seen it used to describe a positive experience of pining, or longing in a good way. I would use pine in a negative sense and repine in a positive and less intense sense.

Opinion and opine also go back to the 1300s and 1500s. While the noun opinion also came into use in the 1300s it was not until the mid-1500s that the verb opine came into English. Both words came from French, opinion from the Old French word of the same spelling and meaning, and opine from the Middle French word opiner, that came directly from the Latin word opinari. Opinari means to have an opinion while opine means to express that opinion. We have not come far from the original meaning with this set of words.

Now you know my opinion; don't pine for me.... 

Sharing Roots or Not?

As I was reading Advise and Consent this week I came across the word depredation, which reminded me of the words deprecation and  degradation, and made me wonder if the two have the same root. As I looked at my list of words covered to make sure I had not already written about one or the other I was reminded of a word from a previous post that should have been mentioned in one of my posts on abs, abjure. I came across it at the end of January while reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese. Does it have the same root as adjure?

It turns out that all three words have different roots. Degradation is pretty straightforward, and means the act of degrading, or lowering in dignity or estimation, in character or quality. Degrade came to English earlier than degradation, in the late 1300s versus the 1530s. Degrade came from the Old French word degrader, which meant to deprive someone of their rank or office. They got it from desgradus, a Latin word that meant a step down (gradus + des-). The French word dégradation came from the Medieval Latin word degradationem, a form of degradus. So degradation can be remembered as tantamount to the old Western movie image of someone “losing their stripes” and being demoted to a lower grade of soldier.

Depredation, or the act of preying upon someone or plundering a place, came to English in the late 15^th century, also from the Middle French. Their word depredation came from the Late Latin word deprædationem, which is Latin for thoroughly plundering. (Plundering is prædari, and the prefix de- indicates totality.) There is a verb form of the word, depredate, but it is not used nearly as much as the verb form depredation.

Abjure and adjure, on the other hand, have the same root word. It is the Latin word for taking an oath, iurare.

In the case of abjure, the prefixed ab- is Latin for “away”, so abjure is taking away your oath or retracting it. It came to English in the early 1400s from the Middle French word abjurer, although it is possible it came directly from the Latin word abiurare, which means “deny on oath.”

The prefix ad-, when affixed to iurare, changes the meaning from simply an oath to the act of confirming by an oath, or to swear to in addition to stating. In Late Latin adiurare meant to put someone to or under an oath.  Adjure was first used in English in the late 1300s, or slightly before abjure. It was not until people were put under oath that they could retract the oath they had taken.

And that word iurare is the source of a number of words, which you will have to wait until next week to read about in this blog. I must be prudent and keep the blog post fairly short. But just to get you wondering, what does prudence have to do with iurare?