Them's Fighting Words!

We’ve been looking at words that came to English from the Latin root word pungere.

To get an intensive form of a word like pungere in Latin you add the prefix com-. Doing so gives you the word compungere, and in Late Latin compungere became compunctionem, which meant something that pricked the conscience and caused remorse. The Old French adopted the word as compunction, and in the mid-14^th century the English also began using the word to refer to any feeling of unease or anxiety of conscience, or any wavering in consideration of which is the correct action to take.

Pungere and punctionem (the less intensive form of compunctionem) developed in Old French into the word for the tool that makes a puncture, a poncho or poinchon. In the mid-14^th century the English adopted poinchon as puncheon and later shortened it to punch. Within 100 years it also came to refer to the action of using the puncheon to create a hole, and eventually to any quick stab or jab that we call a punch (as now with a fist.)

Poignant also comes from pungere. The Old French took the present participle of pungere, which is poindre, and created in the 13^th century the word poignant to mean sharp or pointed. By the late 14^th century the English adopted the word to refer to any painful feeling (physical or emotional).  In addition, etymonline.com tells us it involves a “linguistic trick play, a double-reverse.” Pungere is from the same root word in Latin as pugnus, which means fist, and poignant “represents a metathesis of –n-and -g- that later was reversed in French.” Isn’t wordplay fun?

Pugna, the Latin word for fist, is the source of pugnacious, which is a back-formation of pugnacity, the original word that arrived in English in about 1600. The Latin word pugnacitas means fondness for fighting (with fists), and came pretty directly into use in English as pugnacity. Within 40 years the adjective pugnacious was formed.

Have we exhausted words from pugnare? Hardly. You could take pugnus (fist) and form pugil, the Latin word for boxer or fist-fighter, from which in 1789 we got the word pugilism. Or you could take the word pugnare, add the Latin prefix for reverse, re-, and get the Latin word for fight back: repugnare, the present participle of which is repugnantem and from which in the late 14^th century English created the adjective repugnant. Repugnant describes a reaction to anything that is distasteful or offensive.

One final word before we leave this topic. Impugn is a verb that means to challenge as false or cast doubt on the veracity of someone or something. Take our word of the day, pugnare, add the prefix meaning in or into or on, in-, and you get through the magic of Latin the word impugnare, which means to attack or assault. The Old French changed that into impugner, and in the late 14^th century the English adopted it as a word to mean any attack by argument.

Them’s fighting words!