Some Locutions For When You Estivate

I recently ran across the word estivate, and inferred that it was the opposite of hibernate.

Estivate means “to spend the summer, as at a certain place or in a certain activity.” Hibernate means “to spend the winter.” Zoologically the meanings also includes a sense of dormancy. But if you are not talking zoologically you can use the two words to refer to those who are known as snowbirds, or even more pretentiously those who have a summer home. (e.g., “I’m wintering in Palm Springs and summering in Newport.”)

Hibernate is often used, both zoologically and non-zoologically, but estivate is not used nearly as much as it should be. Hibernate has been used for the practice of spending time in what is colloquially known as a “man-cave.” But when I spent my summers at camp (both as camper and as staff) I never knew I was estivating there.

Hibernate is likely a back-formation of the noun hibernation. Hibernate has been used since 1802, while hibernation came to English from Latin in the 1660s. Hibernationem means the same as hibernation.

Estivate, on the other hand, has been in English since the 1650s, and also came directly from Latin, from the word aestivatus that also means spend the summer.

I used the word colloquial earlier in this post, and had not covered it in a recent post, Slang, Idiom, Jargon, Euphemism, or Argot? (SIJEA) Colloquial basically means informal as opposed to formal speech. All of the forms of speech from the SIJEA post are colloquial. But not all colloquial speech fits into one of those categories.

Colloquial comes from the word colloquy, a word that dates in English from the mid-1400s. As with all our words today it comes directly from the Latin, from their word (colloquium) for conversation. Colloquy means conversation or conference. Colloquium is formed by combining the prefix com- meaning “together” with loquium that means “speaking” and from which we get the word loquacious. The form of loquium that means “to speak” is the source of English word locution. 

While I have previously covered loquacious I have not covered locution. Dictionary.com suggests that its primary definition is “a particular form of speech,” and I have heard it used that way. But I seemed to have heard the second definition more often: “a style of speech or expression; phraseology.” Perhaps because my style of speech and expression are unusual.

Another word we have from the Latin word loqui is interlocutor. It came to English in the 1510s, combining the prefix inter- (meaning between) with “to speak.” While it can refer to anyone involved in a conversation, it has developed a sense of conversational go-between, a meaning that first came from minstrel shows where a person in the middle would act as announcer and “banter with the end men,” according to Dictionary.com. It can also mean an interrogator or interviewer, although those meanings are less common.

One final loqui word today: elocution. As did colloquial, elocution came to English in the mid-1400s, from the Latin word elocutionem that means “voice production” according to etymonline.com. It also is a “’speaking out, utterance, manner of speaking,’ in classical Latin especially ‘rhetorical utterance, oratorical expression.’” 

So whether you're estivating or hibernating, you can engage in colloquy as an interlocutor. You will more likely use colloquial expressions and won't worry at all about your locution. You would also probably prefer hibernating to elocution.