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archetypal

[ ahr-ki-tahy-puhl ] [ ˌɑr kɪˈtaɪ pəl ] Show IPA Phonetic Respelling

adjective

of or having the nature of an original model or prototype.

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More about archetypal

Archetypal “having the nature of an original model,” the adjective form of the noun archetype, comes from Ancient Greek archétypon “a model, pattern.” The first element in archétypon is based on one of three related words—archḗ “beginning,” árchos “leader,” árchein “to be the first, command”—all of uncertain ultimate origin. The second element is týpos “mold, type” (earlier “blow, impression”), which may be distantly related to a variety of English st- words once connected to pushing, knocking together, cutting off, or sticking out, including steep, steeple, stepchild, stint, stock, stoop, stub, stunt, and stutter. Archetypal was first recorded in English in the 1640s.

how is archetypal used?

Often cited as the archetypal “Renaissance man,” Leonardo came from an era in which the well-rounded individual, prolific and curious of mind, was highly valued.

Lee Scott, “Why the Renaissance man–and woman–is making a comeback,” Conversation, April 26, 2016

In their book The Fourth Turning, Howe and Strauss identified four generational archetypes: Hero, Artist, Prophet, and Nomad. Each consists of people born in a roughly 20-year period. As each archetypal generation reaches the end of its 80-year lifespan, the cycle repeats.

John Mauldin, “Millennials Are Doomed To Face An Existential Crisis That Will Define The Rest Of Their Lives,” Forbes, June 24, 2016
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intercalate

[ in-tur-kuh-leyt ] [ ɪnˈtɜr kəˌleɪt ] Show IPA Phonetic Respelling

verb (used with object)

to insert (an extra day, month, etc.) in the calendar.

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More about intercalate

Intercalate “to insert an extra day in the calendar” is based on the Latin verb intercalāre, of the same meaning, which is a compound of the preposition inter “between, among” and the verb calāre “to proclaim.” Though calāre looks and sounds quite a bit like English call, the two are not related; Grimm’s law shows that Latin c tends to correspond to Old English h, while Old English c is equivalent to Latin g. In this way, Latin calāre is related to Old English hlōwan “to roar,” becoming English low “to moo.” Meanwhile, English call may be related to Latin gallus “rooster.” Intercalate was first recorded in English circa 1610.

how is intercalate used?

Chinese New Year, like Passover, Rosh Hashanah and all Jewish holidays, pops up at various times each year within two months of the Gregorian calendar (January and February), because the Chinese calendar, like the Hebrew calendar, is based on the Metonic cycle, a lunisolar calendar that intercalates an extra month seven times in a 19-year cycle (as opposed to the Gregorian, with its months of varying lengths and its additional day every four years).

Seth Rogovoy, “The secret Jewish history of the Chinese New Year,” Forward, February 11, 2021

Once the existence and the length of the fraction of a day has been discovered, this difficulty can be corrected, as it is in our calendar, by intercalating a single day at regular intervals, but the discovery requires very precise methods of measurement, and throughout antiquity only approximate values for the fraction were known.

Agnes Kirsopp Michels, Calendar of the Roman Republic, 1967
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hoary

[ hawr-ee, hohr-ee ] [ ˈhɔr i, ˈhoʊr i ] Show IPA Phonetic Respelling

adjective

tedious from familiarity; stale.

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More about hoary

Hoary “tedious from familiarity” is an adjective based on the noun hoar “frost, a grayish-white,” which is of Germanic origin. Because English and German are both Germanic languages, hoary has two cognates in German—hehr “sublime, noble” and Herr “gentleman, sir, mister”—that show a shift in definition from gray hair alone to words of respect for gray-haired individuals. From there, there are at least three possibilities for the ultimate origin of hoary: one hypothesis connects hoary to the same root for color-related words that gives rise to hue, a second option links hoary to an ancient root meaning “to shine,” and a third proposes that hoary shares a source with obscure (via Latin), shadow (via Old English), and the recent Word of the Day sciamachy (via Ancient Greek). Hoary was first recorded in English in the 1520s.

how is hoary used?

It’s a hoary old debate: how much do our genes define how we grow and learn, and how much is due to the environment? A new study by [Augustine] Kong and colleagues shows that parents’ genes, even those not passed on to children, have major effects on kids’ health and educational attainment.

Jenny Graves, “Kids’ learning and health is shaped by genes they don’t inherit, as well as genes they do,” Conversation, January 31, 2018

Webster included [in the dictionary] new American words like “subsidize” and “caucus,” and left out hoary Britishisms like “fishefy.” John Quincy Adams, the future president, was shocked by the “local vulgarisms,” and doubted that Harvard, of which he was a trustee, would ever endorse such a radical “departure from the English language.”

Adam Cohen, “According to Webster: One Man's Attempt to Define ‘America,’” New York Times, February 12, 2006
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