So I was in Phoenix getting ready for some meetings, putting my agenda on paper and I came to the heading that needed changed. Was it axiom or maxim I wanted to use. What's the difference? What's the good word? So of course I headed to this blog for elucidation and found that only one of these words has been covered. (Maxim, as indicated by the link to the post on short expressions.)
Now's the time. And now, after a hiatus of months I have motivation for a new post.
Axiom is defined as a self-evident truth or a universally accepted principle or rule. It came to English in the late 1400s from the Middle French word axiome, which the Middle French got from the Latin word axioma, which they took from the Greek word axioma that meant "authority" in general but literally is "that which is thought worthy or fit" according to etymonline.com.
Maxim is defined as an expression of a general truth or principle, especially one that is aphoristic or sententious.
So the difference is that axiom is a self-evident truth while maxim is a general truth. Axioms are universally accepted while maxims are only generally accepted. (Although the blog post tells that the Latin word means literally "greatest premise, greatest among propositions." So maybe a maxim beats an axiom which beats a pair of nines.) And an axiom deals with a principle or rule while a maxim deals with a principle or truth. That explains it, doesn't it?
I decided the word I wanted to use was apothegm. Now I'll go back to blog sleep.
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Sunday, August 30, 2015
From King Charles II to Sarah Palin in One Word
I have been reading a biography of Charles II, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland. It is written in English (as opposed to American or Australian) but there are few words unfamiliar to me.
The one word that has cropped up most often is the word prorogue, in reference to the King's actions regarding Parliament. Prorogue is defined as "to discontinue a session of (the British Parliament or a similar body)" or "to defer or postpone." It came into use in the 1400s (200 years before King Charles II) from the Old French word proroger or proroguer. Of course, the Old French got the word from Latin, from prorogare, that literally translated is "to ask publicly." It is formed by combining the prefix pro- meaning before (a good meaning for a prefix) and rogare meaning to ask.
Etymonline.com suggests the original sense in Latin may have been to ask the public for consent to extend someone's term in office, but the legislative meaning of "temporarily discontinued" has been around since the mid-1400s.
How it changed from asking consent to postponing is not explained. But etymonline.com does connect it with another word, rogation, a word my spellcheck doesn't recognize. Neither did I. It is apparently an ecclesiastical term for "solemn supplication", and is especially related to the chanting that occurs in the three days before Ascension Day (called in some places Rogation Days). Ascension Day is the 40th day after Easter. The history of Rogation Days goes far back into the early few centuries of the church.
Rogation also comes from the Latin word rogare. So does a more familiar word that either prorogue or rogation. The word derogatory comes from rogare, by adding the prefix de-, meaning "away." Derogare means both to diminish and to partly repeal or modify. Derogatory came into English in about 1500 directly from Latin, and is the word for that which lessens the merit or reputation of a person or thing.
The verb form of the adjective derogatory (derogation) followed another 50 years later.
You may have been wondering how our word rogue relates (or if it does) to prorogue. One would be forgiven for thinking that when a legislative body is temporarily discontinued is has something to do with giving time off "for the rogues." But, alas, it doesn't.
Rogue, while it may also have come from rogare, has a different and more colorful course into English use. Ten years after the arrival of derogation it appeared, and there are two theories for its source. One is that it comes from a Celtic word akin to the Breton word for haught: rog. But the Oxford English Dictionary (all bow) says there is no evidence of a connection to the French word for haughty, rogue. Another theory is that it is a shortened form of the word roger, pronounced with a hard "g", which was thieves' slang for a beggar (rogare: to ask) who pretends to be a poor scholar (poor monetarily, not necessarily in scholarship) from Oxford or Cambridge.
Before the onset of the 15th century the word was used more affectionately (and less derogatorily) for a mischievous individual.
It was not until 1859 it was first used for a large beast living apart form the herd, most commonly it seems of a rogue elephant. I always wondered why we didn't call them rogue dogs or rogue rabbits, but it is most often used with elephants in my experience. That's the same year the phrase "rogue's gallery" came into use for the collection of police mug shots.
Apparently until 1964 no one thought to use it of other things that are undisciplined or uncontrolled, and now it has been transmogrified into the phrase "going rogue," which was used as the title of Sarah Palin's political memoir.
And that is how you get from King Charles II to Sarah Palin in one word: rogare.
The one word that has cropped up most often is the word prorogue, in reference to the King's actions regarding Parliament. Prorogue is defined as "to discontinue a session of (the British Parliament or a similar body)" or "to defer or postpone." It came into use in the 1400s (200 years before King Charles II) from the Old French word proroger or proroguer. Of course, the Old French got the word from Latin, from prorogare, that literally translated is "to ask publicly." It is formed by combining the prefix pro- meaning before (a good meaning for a prefix) and rogare meaning to ask.
Etymonline.com suggests the original sense in Latin may have been to ask the public for consent to extend someone's term in office, but the legislative meaning of "temporarily discontinued" has been around since the mid-1400s.
How it changed from asking consent to postponing is not explained. But etymonline.com does connect it with another word, rogation, a word my spellcheck doesn't recognize. Neither did I. It is apparently an ecclesiastical term for "solemn supplication", and is especially related to the chanting that occurs in the three days before Ascension Day (called in some places Rogation Days). Ascension Day is the 40th day after Easter. The history of Rogation Days goes far back into the early few centuries of the church.
Rogation also comes from the Latin word rogare. So does a more familiar word that either prorogue or rogation. The word derogatory comes from rogare, by adding the prefix de-, meaning "away." Derogare means both to diminish and to partly repeal or modify. Derogatory came into English in about 1500 directly from Latin, and is the word for that which lessens the merit or reputation of a person or thing.
The verb form of the adjective derogatory (derogation) followed another 50 years later.
You may have been wondering how our word rogue relates (or if it does) to prorogue. One would be forgiven for thinking that when a legislative body is temporarily discontinued is has something to do with giving time off "for the rogues." But, alas, it doesn't.
Rogue, while it may also have come from rogare, has a different and more colorful course into English use. Ten years after the arrival of derogation it appeared, and there are two theories for its source. One is that it comes from a Celtic word akin to the Breton word for haught: rog. But the Oxford English Dictionary (all bow) says there is no evidence of a connection to the French word for haughty, rogue. Another theory is that it is a shortened form of the word roger, pronounced with a hard "g", which was thieves' slang for a beggar (rogare: to ask) who pretends to be a poor scholar (poor monetarily, not necessarily in scholarship) from Oxford or Cambridge.
Before the onset of the 15th century the word was used more affectionately (and less derogatorily) for a mischievous individual.
It was not until 1859 it was first used for a large beast living apart form the herd, most commonly it seems of a rogue elephant. I always wondered why we didn't call them rogue dogs or rogue rabbits, but it is most often used with elephants in my experience. That's the same year the phrase "rogue's gallery" came into use for the collection of police mug shots.
Apparently until 1964 no one thought to use it of other things that are undisciplined or uncontrolled, and now it has been transmogrified into the phrase "going rogue," which was used as the title of Sarah Palin's political memoir.
And that is how you get from King Charles II to Sarah Palin in one word: rogare.
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Quiescence
It is quiescent this morning, and before there is any ruction or I
get the paroxysm of energy necessary to mow the lawn I thought I’d post on
three of the (still) over 200 remaining words on my list.
Actually, paroxysm might be a slight misuse of the word. It is a
sudden (applicable) or violent (not accurate) outburst, or a fit of violent (not
accurate) action or emotion (not accurate). It is also used in medicine of some
quick growth of a disease or a seizure or convulsion. It has been in English
since it came from Middle French word paroxysme
in the early 1400s. The Medieval Latin word paroxysmus referred to a fit of a disease or an incidence like I
had as a youth at summer camp with poison ivy. Para- means beyond and oxynein
means to sharpen or goad, according to etymonline.com. Oxynein is from the Latin word oxys
that means sharp or pointed and from which we get the word acrid.
Acrid only came into English in 1712, when it was formed
(irregularly according to etymonline) from the Latin word acer, that means “sharp, pungent, bitter, eager, fierce.” But
nowhere in the etymonline.com explanation does the word oxys appear, so I don’t know why it’s included as part of the listing on
paroxysm.
At any rate, paroxysm was only used as a medical word until about
1600 when its meaning broadened to include any outburst or fit or strong
emotion.
A ruction is a disturbance, particularly between two individuals.
Its etymology is unknown, and is somewhat colloquial or even dialectical, but
has been around since 1825. It may be a portmanteau word (like brunch) formed from eruption
and insurrection. Brunch is a portmanteau of breakfast and lunch reported in
the Aug. 1, 1896 issue of “Punch” as introduced by Mr. Guy Beringer. (Smog is
another portmanteau word, formed in 1905 from smoke and fog. It seems to have
been coined in reference to London’s air. Its first attestation is in a paper
read by Dr. H.A. des Voeux, treasurer of the Coal Smoke Abatement Society in
the “Journal of the American Medical Association” issue of Aug. 26, 1905. Take
that, Los Angeles!)
Quiescent is a wonderful word that describes the calm, quiet
stillness of a summer’s day when the world is inactive and motionless. The word
comes from the Latin word quiescentem,
which is a form of quiescere,
described by etymonline.com as an “inchoative verb formed from quies.” Quies is the Latin word from which the Old French got their word quiete and which supplied us (in about 1300) with the word quiet. Since about
1500 we have had the adjective quiescent in English, and since the 1630s the noun form, quiescence, but only since 1821
the verb form: quiesce.
So on this day of rest in the Christian world, quiesce a little.
Avoid ruction and don’t engage in any paroxysms.
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Returning to Visit
Time to play a little catch-up and revisit some posts.
First, a February post about unpaired words continues to inexorably affect me. I used the word inexorable a few posts ago and wondered if there is a word such as exorable. Since there is it does not qualify for unpaired word status.
But neither inexorable nor exorable have been covered in this blog. Inexorable means not able to be moved or unyielding or unchanging. Exorable means able to be moved or persuaded. Inexorable arrived in English in the 1550s, twenty years before exorable. While the word inexorable came directly from the Middle French word of the same spelling, its original source is the Latin word inexorabilis that means "that cannot be moved by entreaty".
In reading some of Emerson's essays this week I ran across the word educe, which made me think of the words deduce and adduce (which I found in reading a Perry Mason mystery). Adduce means to bring something forth as evidence in an argument (argument is also used in legal cases for one side's contentions in the courtroom) or to cite as pertinent or conclusive. Adduce was formed in Latin by adding the prefix ad-, that means "to", to the word ducere, that means "to lead." While that sounds like it would result in "to to lead" it results in the meaning "to lead to" or "to bring to." Adduce appeared in the early 1400s as did deduce and educe. All of which leads us to another word from ducere.
In my post on educe I mention the connection of ducere to the word Duke and conduce. But I never discussed conduce. It means to lead to a result. The original Latin word, conducere is formed by adding the prefix "com-" to ducere. Com- means together, so conduce is reminiscent in my mind of the mother duck and her ducklings, as she conduces them to the nearest pond. While conduce appeared about 1400, the word conduct followed shortly after (like a duckling).
Conduct is formed from the past participle of ducere. It originally had the general sense of convey, like a railroad conductor, then by the 1630s added the meaning of managing or directing. In about 1710 it began to be used to refer to behavior.
In case you wonder when the word came to be used specifically as the name of the leader of an orchestra, it was 1784. Conductor was first used in the 1520s for anyone who guides or leads, but when educe and deduce and adduce were coming into use the word being used for a leader or a group was "conduitour," from the Old French word conduitor. But once the word conductor came on the scene it won out. The railroad conductor got its name in 1832. The scientific uses meaning to pass electricity is from 1737 and to pass heat is from 1745.
You can now adduce that ducere inexorably leads to many words in English.
First, a February post about unpaired words continues to inexorably affect me. I used the word inexorable a few posts ago and wondered if there is a word such as exorable. Since there is it does not qualify for unpaired word status.
But neither inexorable nor exorable have been covered in this blog. Inexorable means not able to be moved or unyielding or unchanging. Exorable means able to be moved or persuaded. Inexorable arrived in English in the 1550s, twenty years before exorable. While the word inexorable came directly from the Middle French word of the same spelling, its original source is the Latin word inexorabilis that means "that cannot be moved by entreaty".
In reading some of Emerson's essays this week I ran across the word educe, which made me think of the words deduce and adduce (which I found in reading a Perry Mason mystery). Adduce means to bring something forth as evidence in an argument (argument is also used in legal cases for one side's contentions in the courtroom) or to cite as pertinent or conclusive. Adduce was formed in Latin by adding the prefix ad-, that means "to", to the word ducere, that means "to lead." While that sounds like it would result in "to to lead" it results in the meaning "to lead to" or "to bring to." Adduce appeared in the early 1400s as did deduce and educe. All of which leads us to another word from ducere.
In my post on educe I mention the connection of ducere to the word Duke and conduce. But I never discussed conduce. It means to lead to a result. The original Latin word, conducere is formed by adding the prefix "com-" to ducere. Com- means together, so conduce is reminiscent in my mind of the mother duck and her ducklings, as she conduces them to the nearest pond. While conduce appeared about 1400, the word conduct followed shortly after (like a duckling).
Conduct is formed from the past participle of ducere. It originally had the general sense of convey, like a railroad conductor, then by the 1630s added the meaning of managing or directing. In about 1710 it began to be used to refer to behavior.
In case you wonder when the word came to be used specifically as the name of the leader of an orchestra, it was 1784. Conductor was first used in the 1520s for anyone who guides or leads, but when educe and deduce and adduce were coming into use the word being used for a leader or a group was "conduitour," from the Old French word conduitor. But once the word conductor came on the scene it won out. The railroad conductor got its name in 1832. The scientific uses meaning to pass electricity is from 1737 and to pass heat is from 1745.
You can now adduce that ducere inexorably leads to many words in English.
Sunday, August 2, 2015
Much Ado About Zero, Cipher, Naught
As a Cincinnati Reds fan there has not been much to cheer about this year. But this last week the Reds took their first series in St. Louis from the Cardinals in the last ten visits. Not only that, but they had back-to-back shutouts, which means the Cardinals scored - wait for it - zero, zilch, zip runs! That's the first time they've accomplished that feat since 1937. The "redbirds" scored in only one inning of the 27 they played, the last 24 in a row. That is 26 "goose eggs" in 27 innings for Reds' pitchers.
Which gets me to today's post. Zeroes, or ciphers - particularly if you're British (in which the previous paragraph may be a different kind of cipher: a coded message requiring interpretation/deciphering if you will) - are known in baseball colloquially as "goose eggs" because of the resemblance of zeroes to eggs. According to the book 2107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings, & Expressions, by Charles Earle Funk, its first recorded use was in 1886, by the New York Times, in its report on a baseball game: "The New York players presented the Boston men with nine unpalatable goose eggs in their contest on the Polo Grounds yesterday." Britain has its own version: in 1863 Charles Reade's Hard Cash described a failure to score at cricket achieving a "duck's egg."
The concept of zero is interesting. Etymonline.com has a posting on it here that explains, basically, that the concept didn't exist except in Babylonian, Mayan, and Indian number systems. The word zero came to English in about 1600 from the French word zéro, or directly from the Italian zero. Either would have come from the Medieval Latin word zephirum from the Arabic word sifr, a translation of the Sanskrit word for desert, empty place, or nought: sunya-m.
The word cipher is older. It also ultimately comes from sunya-m, although it's easier to see its etymology from sifr. It arrived in English in the late 1300s. Again according to etymonline.com it "came to Europe with Arabic numerals.Originally in English 'zero,' then 'any numeral' (early 15c.), then (first in French and Italian) [a] 'secret way of writing; coded message' (a sense first attested in English 1520s), because early codes oftn substituted numbers for letters."
In the paragraph before last the word nought is used. I remember it being used most often when there were people alive talking about the first decade of the 20th century, in which a year was often referred to as "nineteen-nought...." Nought (or naught - both are acceptable) comes from Old English (where it was nowiht) and has meant "zero, cipher" since the early 1400s.
Since we're on the subject, Zero Mostel (1915-1977) was a comedic actor born in Brooklyn as Samuel Joel Mostel. He was nicknamed Zero by the press agent for a club at which he was hired as a comedian who said "here's a guy who started from nothing."
And finally, Shakespeare wrote Much Ado About Nothing in the late 1500s. He could have called it Much Ado About Zero or Much Ado About Cipher. But he didn't.
Which gets me to today's post. Zeroes, or ciphers - particularly if you're British (in which the previous paragraph may be a different kind of cipher: a coded message requiring interpretation/deciphering if you will) - are known in baseball colloquially as "goose eggs" because of the resemblance of zeroes to eggs. According to the book 2107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings, & Expressions, by Charles Earle Funk, its first recorded use was in 1886, by the New York Times, in its report on a baseball game: "The New York players presented the Boston men with nine unpalatable goose eggs in their contest on the Polo Grounds yesterday." Britain has its own version: in 1863 Charles Reade's Hard Cash described a failure to score at cricket achieving a "duck's egg."
The concept of zero is interesting. Etymonline.com has a posting on it here that explains, basically, that the concept didn't exist except in Babylonian, Mayan, and Indian number systems. The word zero came to English in about 1600 from the French word zéro, or directly from the Italian zero. Either would have come from the Medieval Latin word zephirum from the Arabic word sifr, a translation of the Sanskrit word for desert, empty place, or nought: sunya-m.
The word cipher is older. It also ultimately comes from sunya-m, although it's easier to see its etymology from sifr. It arrived in English in the late 1300s. Again according to etymonline.com it "came to Europe with Arabic numerals.Originally in English 'zero,' then 'any numeral' (early 15c.), then (first in French and Italian) [a] 'secret way of writing; coded message' (a sense first attested in English 1520s), because early codes oftn substituted numbers for letters."
In the paragraph before last the word nought is used. I remember it being used most often when there were people alive talking about the first decade of the 20th century, in which a year was often referred to as "nineteen-nought...." Nought (or naught - both are acceptable) comes from Old English (where it was nowiht) and has meant "zero, cipher" since the early 1400s.
Since we're on the subject, Zero Mostel (1915-1977) was a comedic actor born in Brooklyn as Samuel Joel Mostel. He was nicknamed Zero by the press agent for a club at which he was hired as a comedian who said "here's a guy who started from nothing."
And finally, Shakespeare wrote Much Ado About Nothing in the late 1500s. He could have called it Much Ado About Zero or Much Ado About Cipher. But he didn't.
Sunday, July 26, 2015
"Just Take This Thing" - A Phrase My Wife Used in Parturition
So what I thought would be one blog post has turned into three. Parturition, parturient, and pare are still left from the subject of the last two posts. Then we'll get to some other words.
Parturition and parturient are related forms, parturition being the noun and parturient being the adjective .
Parturient is the older, having come into English in the 1590s, and means bearing young or about to do so, although it is sometimes used of an idea, although nascent is a more common word for that concept. Parturient comes from the Latin word parturientem, a form of the word parturire that means to be in labor. It literally means "desire to bring forth" according to etymonline.com, being the desiderative (I didn't know there was such a thing in Latin) of parere, which means "to bear."
Parturition, which came from the Latin word parturitionem, which is a "noun of action" (no wonder I flunked Latin...twice) from the past participle stem of parturire. Parturition came into use in English in the 1640s, so for 50 years in England you could only talk about the process, not the act of giving birth. It would be another 136 years before men would gather in Philadelphia to parturition a nation.
The Latin word parere gives us another English word, pare. Pare means to cut off or cut away the outer layer of something (in my experience most often an apple). It is the oldest of these three words, having arrived about 1300 into English from Old French, where the word was parer, which the Old French got directly from the Latin parere. Parere had many meanings, according to etymonline.com. Their list is "make ready, prepare, furnish, provide, arrange, order; contrive, design, intend, resolve; procure, acquire, obtain, get; get with money, buy, purchase." I suppose today the difference between provide and purchase is not great, and maybe it wasn't so in ancient Rome, either. The point is that it the word pare had other meanings derived from French and Latin and it was not until the 1520s that the meaning of taking a peel off came into preeminence.
I ran across a post on Mental Floss.com (which today highlights a post "11 Paraprosdokians That Will Make You Think Twice") written by Arika Okrent entitled "11 Weirdly Spelled Words and How They Got That Way. One of the words was "knead" and I thought what was written was interesting:
While that is great, the two things not said were that knead is a verb that means to work into a uniform mixture by pressing folding, and stretching (and punching and throwing and squeezing) or that it comes from the Old English word cnedan (Saxon, Dutch, German, and Old Norse all use the k in their forms of the word, in case you wonder.)
Not that you kneaded to know.
Parturition and parturient are related forms, parturition being the noun and parturient being the adjective .
Parturient is the older, having come into English in the 1590s, and means bearing young or about to do so, although it is sometimes used of an idea, although nascent is a more common word for that concept. Parturient comes from the Latin word parturientem, a form of the word parturire that means to be in labor. It literally means "desire to bring forth" according to etymonline.com, being the desiderative (I didn't know there was such a thing in Latin) of parere, which means "to bear."
Parturition, which came from the Latin word parturitionem, which is a "noun of action" (no wonder I flunked Latin...twice) from the past participle stem of parturire. Parturition came into use in English in the 1640s, so for 50 years in England you could only talk about the process, not the act of giving birth. It would be another 136 years before men would gather in Philadelphia to parturition a nation.
The Latin word parere gives us another English word, pare. Pare means to cut off or cut away the outer layer of something (in my experience most often an apple). It is the oldest of these three words, having arrived about 1300 into English from Old French, where the word was parer, which the Old French got directly from the Latin parere. Parere had many meanings, according to etymonline.com. Their list is "make ready, prepare, furnish, provide, arrange, order; contrive, design, intend, resolve; procure, acquire, obtain, get; get with money, buy, purchase." I suppose today the difference between provide and purchase is not great, and maybe it wasn't so in ancient Rome, either. The point is that it the word pare had other meanings derived from French and Latin and it was not until the 1520s that the meaning of taking a peel off came into preeminence.
So instead of saying “in labor” or “act of giving birth” you can
say parturient or parturition. Not that it’s much shorter. “In delivery” or
“delivery seem to be the more common usage.
We have space to look at an unrelated word today.
I ran across a post on Mental Floss.com (which today highlights a post "11 Paraprosdokians That Will Make You Think Twice") written by Arika Okrent entitled "11 Weirdly Spelled Words and How They Got That Way. One of the words was "knead" and I thought what was written was interesting:
Two things happened in the early 1500s that really messed with English spelling. First, the new technology of the printing press meant publishers - rather than scribes - were in charge, and they started to standardize spelling. At the very same time, the Great Vowel Shift was underway. People were changing the way they pronounced vowels in vast groups of words, but the publishers weren't recognizing the changes yet. This is why we ended up with so much inconsistency: 'ea' sounds different in knead, bread, wear, and great. Along with the vowel changes, English lost the /k/ shound from /kn/ words, the /w/ from /wr/ words, and the /g/ from gnat and gnaw. But by the time the change was complete, the writing habits has already been established.
While that is great, the two things not said were that knead is a verb that means to work into a uniform mixture by pressing folding, and stretching (and punching and throwing and squeezing) or that it comes from the Old English word cnedan (Saxon, Dutch, German, and Old Norse all use the k in their forms of the word, in case you wonder.)
Not that you kneaded to know.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Shakespeare and Hunka Hunka Burning Love
Last week I ended the blog post by saying we never got to the words fornication or parturition or priapic or pudendum. With the anticipation building to a fever pitch, without further ado let's get back to what for some are prurient interests.
Fornication is the most commonly used of today's words. It is not just any sexual intercourse, it is specifically the voluntary sexual intercourse between two people who are not married to each other. The noun form is older than the verb form, fornicate. Fornication came to English in about 1300 from the Old French word fornicacion, which came from the Late Latin word fornicationem, both of which came from the Latin word for brothel, fornix. The verb came directly from the Latin in the 1550s, or it may just be a back-formation from fornication.
Fornix is actually a word, but it is anatomical, referring to various arched formations. Huh? Well, fornix in Latin originally meant an arch or vaulted chamber or opening, or a covered way, and the supposition is that prostitutes in Rome used such architectural features as their place for solicitation. By the time of Juvenal and Horace fornix meant brothel,
Another interesting etymological possibility from fornix is that the arched meaning has some kinship to fornus, which is the Latin word for a brick oven with an arch or dome. It is the word from which we get furnace, which is any structure or apparatus in which heat is generated. So perhaps Elvis's song hunka hunka burning love has Latin roots.
Since fornix is an anatomical word, let's look at the words priapic and pudendum, which are also anatomical in nature.
Priapic means something is like Priapus, who I am sure you remember as the son of Dionysus and Aphrodite, and is the god who personified male reproductive power. Priapic, the adjective formed from his name, has been in use since 1786, perhaps as a more obscure word for the more commonly used word phallic, although priapic came into English three years before phallic. Priapism has been used in English since the 1620s, and refers to the "persistent erection of the penis." If it lasts more than four hours, call your doctor.
Phallic means pertaining to the phallus, and came from the Greek word phallikos, which came from the Greek word phallos, meaning penis, from which we get the noun form of phallic, phallus. Phallus has been used in English since the early 1600s, and is defined as "an image of the male reproductive organ." The Greek word for whale is phalle. I'm not sure there is a connection, I'm just saying.... Since 1924 phallus has been used not just of an image, but of the penis itself. Phallic symbol has been used in English since 1809.
In case this post makes you uncomfortable, you might be interested to know that the word pudendum, which refers to external genital organs, comes from the Latin word pudendum which literally translated is "thing to be ashamed of." It has been used in English since the late 1300s, and while originally it would refer to either male or female genitals it now primarily refers to female genitalia, specifically the vulva.
And we're out of space, so parturition, parturient, and pare will have to wait until next week. Paring the post here may be, as Shakespeare wrote, "the most unkindest cut of all."
Fornication is the most commonly used of today's words. It is not just any sexual intercourse, it is specifically the voluntary sexual intercourse between two people who are not married to each other. The noun form is older than the verb form, fornicate. Fornication came to English in about 1300 from the Old French word fornicacion, which came from the Late Latin word fornicationem, both of which came from the Latin word for brothel, fornix. The verb came directly from the Latin in the 1550s, or it may just be a back-formation from fornication.
Fornix is actually a word, but it is anatomical, referring to various arched formations. Huh? Well, fornix in Latin originally meant an arch or vaulted chamber or opening, or a covered way, and the supposition is that prostitutes in Rome used such architectural features as their place for solicitation. By the time of Juvenal and Horace fornix meant brothel,
Another interesting etymological possibility from fornix is that the arched meaning has some kinship to fornus, which is the Latin word for a brick oven with an arch or dome. It is the word from which we get furnace, which is any structure or apparatus in which heat is generated. So perhaps Elvis's song hunka hunka burning love has Latin roots.
Since fornix is an anatomical word, let's look at the words priapic and pudendum, which are also anatomical in nature.
Priapic means something is like Priapus, who I am sure you remember as the son of Dionysus and Aphrodite, and is the god who personified male reproductive power. Priapic, the adjective formed from his name, has been in use since 1786, perhaps as a more obscure word for the more commonly used word phallic, although priapic came into English three years before phallic. Priapism has been used in English since the 1620s, and refers to the "persistent erection of the penis." If it lasts more than four hours, call your doctor.
Phallic means pertaining to the phallus, and came from the Greek word phallikos, which came from the Greek word phallos, meaning penis, from which we get the noun form of phallic, phallus. Phallus has been used in English since the early 1600s, and is defined as "an image of the male reproductive organ." The Greek word for whale is phalle. I'm not sure there is a connection, I'm just saying.... Since 1924 phallus has been used not just of an image, but of the penis itself. Phallic symbol has been used in English since 1809.
In case this post makes you uncomfortable, you might be interested to know that the word pudendum, which refers to external genital organs, comes from the Latin word pudendum which literally translated is "thing to be ashamed of." It has been used in English since the late 1300s, and while originally it would refer to either male or female genitals it now primarily refers to female genitalia, specifically the vulva.
And we're out of space, so parturition, parturient, and pare will have to wait until next week. Paring the post here may be, as Shakespeare wrote, "the most unkindest cut of all."
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