Happy Belated Father’s Day!

I got as far as choosing three words and writing three words last week when other events conspired against getting a blog written. They weren’t great words for Father’s Day anyway, so a week’s delay doesn’t mean you missed using them in a timely manner.

The first word that came to mind was avuncular. Very simply, it means anything pertaining to or having the characteristic of an uncle. That’s assuming we all have the same idea what an uncle is, but that’s an entirely different blog. Proving that you can’t believe every online source, Dictionary.com lists it as coming to English somewhere between 1825 and 1835 while etymonline.com dates it specifically at 1789. Both say it came directly from the Latin avunculus, which means maternal uncle, although its literal translation is “little grandfather”.  While some languages (like Latin) distinguish between a maternal uncle and a paternal uncle (in Latin faedera) English does not.

However, there are several  axiomatic uses of the word uncle that may or may not be familiar to you. In North America, to “say uncle” or “cry uncle” is to indicate during a fight that you concede; it is still in wide use today. Since 1838 the phrase “Dutch uncle” has had currency, to refer to someone who gives stern but kind advice, and as far back as 1747 “Welsh uncle” indicated your parent’s cousin.

I have never noticed in reading old books, but apparently the word uncle was used as a humorous and less embarrassing word for pawnbroker between the 1600s and 1900s (even before referring to your parent’s brother). It is easier to say “I left my ring with my uncle” than to admit you pawned it.

For some reason (and it has nothing to do with any of my uncles) I associate the word ursine with avuncular, probably because I learned them at about the same time, possibly from the same book. Ursine, for astronomers, is easy. The Big Bear and Little Bear are constellations known as Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. So astronomers would recognize that ursine means bearlike and comes from Latin. It has been used in English since the 1550s, and is generally used  to refer to a large, hairy man.  However, for large, hairy men who remember the first James Bond movie, Dr. No, you will remember Ursula Andress (in her role as first “Bond Girl” Honey Ryder) dramatically coming out of the ocean. Ursula means “she-bear”, but that isn’t the most descriptive word for Honey Ryder (she certainly wasn’t hairy).  The word vulpine comes more to mind.

Vulpine also comes from Latin, from the word vulpes, which is what those who spoke Latin called the fox. (Honey Ryder was in many ways foxy.) Because we associate foxes with being sly and cunning vulpine is a more obscure way of saying someone is sly and cunning. (“How very vulpine of you.”) It came to English at the same time that the Mayflower came to Massachusetts (1620).  

So whether they’re avuncular, ursine, or vulpine, it’s never too late to say “Happy Father’s Day” to a dad (which while first recorded in about 1500 is probably of much older usage as an informal word for father). 

Magdelene and Emma

Today begins with another word from The Catcher Was A Spy (see 5/27/12 blog post). It’s not an unusual word, but in reading the book I ran across the word maudlin and thought “that’s an unusual word construction”. (I’m sure such a thought occurs to you all the time.)

Maudlin has an interesting etymology, but first its definition: maudlin’s primary definition is foolishly emotional or tearful. Several dictionaries attach drunkenness to the cause of this condition, but usage I’ve seen doesn’t require this state. Another definition is just tearfully or weakly emotional. The most common usage (to the point of almost being a maxim or aphorism – you decide) is in the phrase “don’t be maudlin”, a rejoinder (no blog post yet) that has little meaning if you don’t know the definition of maudlin. Now you do.

But maudlin’s etymology is more interesting. The word came to English in 1607 (quite specifically, but the source is not mentioned) and meant “tearful”. The Middle English name Maudelen (which was adopted – the name, not the person – about 1320) is the source of the word maudlin, a nickname in essence and came from the name Magdalene. Many will recognize Magdalene as the surname to one of the Marys in the Bible. Forgiven by Jesus in a dramatic and mysterious scene in Luke 7:37, she became a favorite subject (one source used the word ubiquitous – another future blog post) of artists in the Middle Ages, and was often depicted as weeping in appreciation for her salvation.

But the other thing that intrigued me about the word maudlin was its unusual construction using “audl”. I could only find one other word in English with those four letters in order: caudle.

A caudle is a warm drink for someone’s who’s sick. It is usually wine or ale mixed with eggs, bread, sugar, and spices, although you can add other ingredients if you wish. It came to Middle English from the Old North French word caudel (which may have also been Anglo-French if you want to argue), which devolved from the Old French word chaudel, and is the origin of the modern French word chaudeau, which of course is a zabaglione.  Caudel also came from the Middle Latin word caldellum, a diminutive form of caldum, which is the neuter of the Latin caldus which means warm and from which we get the word calorie.

Caudle sounds very similar to coddle, and for good reason. Coddle, which most often means to treat tenderly or pamper also means to cook in water just below the boiling point (see the tie-in?), a use we can find in the 1600s. It was used in English in the 1300s to refer to any warm drink for invalids, and came originally from the Latin word calidium that referred to a warm drink or warm wine and water. Of course, calidium is the neuter of calidus, which means hot, and comes from the same Latin word, cadere, from which we get caudle.

The interesting thing about the word coddle is that its first recorded use as a verb to mean “treat tenderly”, the most common usage today, was in 1815 in Jane Austen’s novel Emma. The name Emma has no relation to the name Madeline, but it would be a nice way to close this blog if it did.

Lacuna Matata

Just finished reading the book The Catcher Was A Spy by Nicholas Dawidoff, and collected a number of words both from previous posts and for future posts. The book was a very interesting biography of Moe Berg, and would be of interest to aficionados of baseball, spy craft or psychology (Moe is part of a diagnosable family). I also collected (from page 248) a nice quote, mostly attributed to Moe: “poverty annihilates the future.”

So, on to the words: the one word collected that has already had a post was recondite. I had a couple of words I’d already collected but hadn’t yet posted on – lacuna and caesura, and 13 words I thought should be added to my pending posts list.

Let’s begin with the two that I had already collected. Those words were caesura and lacuna, and are similar in meaning.  

Caesura is not an unfamiliar term for recovering musicians like me. In musical notation it is the double mark indicating “stop the music – don’t keep beating time” (or at least that’s my interpretation.) It is also a phrase used in writing verse, but it also means simply a break or pause in time. (Appropriate for this post, my first in several months.) It was adopted in English in the 1550s directly from the Latin, although the Latin probably had it as the ae “grapheme… a ligature representing the Latin diphthong” (Wikipedia) whatever that means. The Latin word caesura refers to a pause, and is literally translated as “a cutting”.

The second word is lacuna, and actually refers more to a missing portion of a written work. It also had the Latin grapheme in its plural form, but at the end. It came to English in the 1660s, and the Latin word refers to a hole or a pit (obviously into which letters, words, or sections of manuscripts can disappear.)

In my "waiting words" list for future posts I have another word associated with lacuna, and it is listed in the dictionary as a synonym for caesura. Hiatus is the word, and it also means a break or gap, but it can be in time or space. The definition of hiatus uses the word lacuna, so you see how nicely the three fit together. Also directly from the Latin, hiatus means an "opening, aperture, rupture, gap" and arrived in English in the 1560s. It took only 50 years for it to be applied to "an interruptions in events" (etymonline.com).

Stay tuned for more words from my The Catcher Was A Spy. Some (like maudlin, turpitude, and tatterdemalion) may be familiar, but others were completely new to me (scrofula and crepuscular).

By the way, in case you’re missing the reference, the title to this blog post is a reference to a song from the movie The Lion King entitled Hakuna Matata, which is a Swahili phrase meaning “no problem”. Its literal translation is “there are no worries.”

Toccata and Back Again

This upcoming month is a unique one on my schedule. While my wife is usually nidiculous, this next month will be one of those times when I will spend a week at home, then a week away, then a week at home. I don’t know the last time that happened. In addition, the two of us will be nidifugous while I have two appointments in southern California.

Nidify and its forms are one of the few words to not have etymology in the vast resource that is etymonline.com. But it is found in several dictionaries. Nidify is the verb form, and nidificate is another form of the verb. (Any time I see the –icate suffix I presume it to be a back-formation and prefer the simpler word, in this case nidify, but it could be a cognate.) Nidify is formed from the Latin word nidificare, which means to build a nest. Nidificare  is formed from the words nidus, nest, and facere, to make. Isn’t Latin grand? Nidify came to English from the Latin in the 1650s, and it apparently took until the 1810s for nidificate to arrive. (According to dictionary.com it was formed from the past participle of nidificare, which of course is nidificatus.)

It wasn’t until the 1900s that the adjective nidiculous was used. It means staying in the nest, because the Latin suffix –colere, the root of –culous, means “to inhabit.” The Latin suffix –fugere is the source of the word that means “leave the nest” (nidifugous), and –fugere has a meaning of “take flight”.

Fugere is also the root word for the musical term fugue, which makes fugue a cognate of nidify. Fugue is spelled the way it is because it came to English from “the French version of the Italian word,” according to etymonline.com. It arrived in the 1590s, when fugues were all the rage, showing up prominently on the Billboard charts of the day. Fugue refers to a composition where a melody is introduced in one part, then another part takes up the melody (often a 4^th or 5^th away from the initial statement) and sometimes continuing with multiple statements of the melodic theme in other parts. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, a most interesting form of which you can see and hear for yourself if the tune doesn’t come readily to mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te4SqP-X8GA

Unfortunately, the most common and useful form of nidify would be one to describe the empty nest and I wasn’t able to find that word (anyone want to find it?)

I’ve used a word a couple times today that bears defining: cognate. Cognate also comes directly from Latin, from the word for “of common descent”: cognatus. Cognatus is formed by combining the prefix com-, meaning “together”, and gnasci, meaning “to be born”, from which we get the word genus. In other words, a cognate of genus is cognate. (So is nascent, by the way.) As etymonline.com so nicely puts it “cognates are cousins, not siblings”.

For those of you who misread the opening line and thought I called my wife ridiculous, get your eyes checked.

Jive gibes that jibe

I recently came across a misuse (or misspelling) of the word gibe. Because the initial sound is the g that is the same as a j it makes sense that the spelling would be confused. But a more confused set of words I have yet to come across. Let’s go back to the beginning (in English) to see if we can sort out these differences.

The word jibe is the first word to make its appearance in English. It has several meanings. In its noun form jibe came in the 1560s from middle French word giber that meant “to handle roughly”. It may have been an alteration of the French word gaber that meant “to mock”, a meaning that adds confusion.


The verb form arrived in 1813, and while its etymology is uncertain, there are several possibilities, the most likely being a nautical term referring to shifting a sail or boom to be more in agreement with the wind. That meaning is still used today, and a jib is still the name of a particular triangular sail. So the meaning on land is to be in harmony or agreement.

In interesting contribution to this very confusing combination of words, the Oxford English Dictionary, THE authoritative source in English (bow your head), suggests that the etymology is a phonetic alteration of chime in its use “to chime in, or be in harmony with”. Perhaps that makes sense with an English accent, but it doesn’t with an American one unless you have a stuffed up nose.

Gibe is the spelling of the word that now refers to mocking or scoffing or jeering. But it can also be spelled gybe or jibe. Etymonline.com makes no distinction between jibe and gibe except in the noun and verb sense. But dictionaries do, and so does the Encyclopedia Brittanica, which for a few more days is offering free online access since they announced they will no longer offer a printed version (a moment of silence for its demise, please).

The Encyclopedia Brittanica (EB ) suggests that jibe may have been a modification of the Dutch word gijben and agrees on the 1813 source for the verb form. It agrees with the middle French source for gibe, but gives the date more specifically as 1567.

That leaves the word jive. American in original usage, it appeared first in 1928 and came to common usage from the distinctly American musical idiom jazz. According to etymonline.com it may have come from the African Wolof word(s) jev or jeu, “talk about someone absent, especially in a disparaging manner.”

Jive originally referred to a certain style of swing music, but its meaning has broadened since then. Etymonline attaches the meaning by 1938 of “New York City African-American slang.” According to the EB, it has come to also mean “the jargon of hipsters” and “a special jargon of difficult or slang terms”, as in “jive talkin’” (the 1975 Bee Gees hit); its use may now still indicate being “hip” but being hip is passé. Today’s hip is phat (I think: I've consulted my children for confirmation/correction.)

Jive can still refer to a particular style of jazz, or to deceptive, exaggerated, or meaningless talk, or even the jitterbug. According to etymonline.com its adjectival form came in 1964 to have, and they quote the OED, a “fluid meaning and application.” By 1969 it came to mean “not acting right”, and its meaning and usage continues to be fluid.

So, jibe = agree, gibe = scoff or taunt, and jive = hip. Alternative spellings for jibe are gybe and gibe. But jibe can also have nautical meaning, and jive can mean any number of things. Just make sure your jive jibe gibes with these meanings. 

I'm No Aristotle, Part 3

Let me begin by addressing how I ended last week’s blog. Busker is a word I’d never seen before, but found when researching the word peripatetic. It turns out that it is a word much more common in England and even in Canada. A busker can be a street entertainer in England or a person making a showy or loud appeal in Canada. What is interesting in researching the word is that none of the dictionary definitions provide any linkage to peripatetic activity. It is etymonline.com that links the two.

It etymonline’s explanation of the word, it refers to an “itinerant entertainer”, hence its connection to peripatetic and itinerant (3/4/12 blog). Its etymology is uncertain, but etymonline suggests several sources:

• In the 1660s it had a nautical use, referring to tacking or “beat to windward”. This use would have come from the obsolete French word busquer, which meant to shift, filch, or prowl. Busquer is related to the Italian word for filching and prowling, buscare and the Old Spanish word boscar.
•  In 1841 it was used in “in reference to people living shiftless and peripatetic lives.”
•  In 1851, (according to Mayhew) its figurative sense came “perhaps from busk ‘to cruise as a pirate.’”
•  In 1857 a source suggests it was formed from the verb busk which meant “to offer goods for sale only in bars and taprooms.”

Because buskers would often go where the people gathered (streets, bars, theaters) to perform, several of these etymologies make sense.  Someone who has their circuit of entertaining in public in hope of making money would be a busker.

So how do our final two words, errant and arrant, fit? Well, errant is the connection to other words on moving around, and arrant is sometimes confused for errant.

Errant came to English in the mid-14^th century from the Anglo-French word erraunt. Erraunt was formed from two Old French words, errant (the past participle of errer) and errant (the present participle of errer, which meant “to travel or wander”).  These words came from the Late Latin iterare, which came from the Latin word iter from which we derive itinerant (see 3/4/12 blog).

While most dictionaries I consulted define errant as meaning straying from a proper course or simply roaming, some dictionaries tie it to what I’ve found to be its most common usage: the errant knight. These days we would call them “free agent knights” because they would travel around looking for adventure or love.

Very quickly (before the 15^th century arrived) the word errant evolved into another word: arrant. At first it was “merely derogatory”, referring negatively to someone who wanders about, or roams; a vagrant. By the 1540s it acquired the meaning of “thoroughgoing, downright, notorious.” While there may have been arrant knights, most of those who weren’t tied to one particular state or adventure were errant.

And while my travelling is not anywhere near finished, this finishes our three blog posts on it. 

I'm No Aristotle, Part 2

Last week was Albuquerque, this week eastern Pennsylvania. Last week was peregrination and peripatetic, this week is extirpate and deracinative. You may not think they are related (they don’t look alike) but they both are rooted in the same idea.

Extirpate gives away a little of its meaning with the prefix ex-. (Neither extirpate nor deracinate have the corresponding  positive verbs: tirpate or racinate. See blog on prefixes posted 12/26/09 for other ex-amples.) Both extirpate and deracinate mean pull up by the roots. For extirpate it is the secondary meaning; its primary meaning is to completely destroy or exterminate.  (How can exterminate and terminate mean the same thing? I see another post coming…) The secondary definition of deracinate is to isolate someone from their culture, home, or environment.

So, while I may be deracinating this week (as I travel across country) I will not be extirpating. If we decided to move to another state (Texas and Arizona are choices 1 and 2) we would be deracinating.  We may pull up roots (in which case extirpate might qualify) but  deracinate is the better descriptor of moving to a new home in a different state. Those who have suffered from the recent tornadoes might decide to extirpate because of all the extirpation around them.

So why do two such similar words look so different? The original root words (I couldn’t help myself) are Latin. For deracinate the root is racix, for extirpate it is stirpus. Racix is the word from which we get radish, which makes sense. The Latin word stirps refers to a tree root.

Sometime in the 15^th century the word extirpating came to English directly from Latin, where the ex- prefix (meaning “out” had already been added to stirps). It began its English life meaning “removal” and by the 1520s expanded (not just panded) to mean rooting out or eradicating (can one radicate?)

Deracinate came to English in the 1590s over the channel from France, where the French were using the word déraciner, which they got from the Old French word desraciner. The Old French had taken the Late Latin word radicina and shortened it to raciner and added their prefix des-. Radicina  is the diminutive form of the aforementioned radix.

As so often happens, when researching one word I find new words (or related words) that should be included. This week’s two words in that category are itinerant and a new word to me: busker.

Itinerant is a word I’ve read and used to describe someone whose employment requires them to travel considerably, usually an adjective to “preacher” or “evangelist”. But I’d never considered its actual meaning. The dictionaries I consulted all define it as travel relating to work, in which case I could be described as itinerant. One dictionary said it refers especially to travel in a circuit. I know that when Abraham Lincoln was an itinerant judge, he traveled in a specific circuit, so I see where that definition came from.

The word itinerant, according to etymonline.com, arrived in English in the 1560s, “(attested in Anglo-Latin from late 13^th c.)” and referred initially only to circuit courts. I was surprised to find that some circuit court judges still travel a circuit in the U.S. English got the word from the Late Latin word itinerantem, which was formed from the Latin word iter (meaning journey).

Busker will have to wait until next week.