Get to the Point!

The word punctilious came up in my reading recently, and it started me thinking about how unusual the punc- construction is. Is punctilious related to puncture? Punch? How about compunction? Where did these words come from?

Dictionary.com says that someone who is punctilious is someone extremely attentive to punctilios. (Love those circular definitions.) Punctilio is, in my experience, less used than punctilious. A punctilio is a detail in a procedure or ceremony. Someone who is punctilious is careful about the fine points of observances, formalities or amenities. Both punctilio and punctilious came to English from the Italian word puntiglio, which means “fine point.” Etymonline.com says the Italians got punctiglio from the Latin word for prick (a sharp point or a puncture), which is punctum. It is interesting to me that our words keep the c in place and don’t use the g.  Punctilio arrived in the 1590s while the adjective punctilious came across in the 1630s.

Etymonline.com also says about punctum "see point." So let's see it. 

Point is a much more common word, and has been used in English since about 1200, at least in its noun form, which means a sharp end, or a single idea. What’s interesting is that etymonline suggests that the word is a merger of two words that both came from the Latin word pungere (which means pierce or puncture and from which we also get pungent). The neuter past participle of pungere  is punctum, and was used to refer to the small hole made by a single-point of puncture (as opposed to a blade which causes a slash rather than a circular wound). Its meaning broadened to include anything that looked like that puncture, a dot for instance. Punctum begat the Old French point, which refers to a dot or a small amount, “which was borrowed in Middle English by c. 1300.” And we haven’t given it back, so I think it’s fair to say we “took” it, not just borrowed it.

“Meanwhile,” continuing to quote etymonline.com, “the Latin feminine past participle of pungere was puncta, which was used in Medieval Latin to mean ‘sharp tip,’ and became the Old French pointe ‘point of a weapon, vanguard of an army,’ which also passed into English, early 14c.”

The French words point and pointe continue to have a difference of meaning in French, while we have combined their meanings in English.

Pungent refers to something that smells or tastes sharp, or something that is poignant. While pungent is derived from the present participle (pungentem) of the above reference pungere, in Middle and early Modern English there was a verb, punge, which has lapse into obsolescence. It meant to pierce or prick, and hence to smart or sting. The word pungent arrived in English at the same time as punctilio, from the aforementioned pungentem. 

Pungere is related to pugnus, hence to pugnacious and inexpugnable. The past participle of pungere is punctus, from which we got puncture (a pointed piercing or pricking) in the late 14^th century.

And we've reached the end of today's post, but not the end of words from pugnere. More next week.