Word of the Day
Indigenous
adjective
relating to or being a people who are the original, earliest known inhabitants of a region, or are their descendants.
More about Indigenous
When used in reference to people (the sense we are highlighting today), Indigenous may be capitalized as a sign of respect. A quick glance at indigenous and endogenous shows close relationship in their formation and meaning. Both adjectives mean something like “internally produced, developing from within.” The first element, Latin indi- and Greek endo-, comes from Proto-Indo-European endo, endon “inside, indoors,” perhaps originally “in the house” (Greek éndon, Hittite anda, andan “within”). In Latin, endo, later indu, is an archaic preposition equivalent to the preposition and adverb in, in– “in, into, inside.” The Latin adjectival suffix –genus “born of” is a derivative of the verb gignere “to beget, bring into being, create” (indigena means “a native inhabitant”). Latin –genus is close kin to the Greek suffix –genḗs “born,” from the verb gígnesthai “to become, be born” (endogenḗs means “born in the house”).
how is Indigenous used?
One shelf contained nonfiction, mostly medical reference books and biographies of great Indigenous people.
For Indigenous authors, writing themselves into sci-fi and fantasy narratives isn’t just about gaining visibility within popular genres. It is part of a broader effort to overcome centuries of cultural misrepresentation.
"'We’ve Already Survived an Apocalypse’: Indigenous Writers Are Changing Sci-Fi," New York Times, August 14, 2020
roister
verb (used without object)
to act in a swaggering, boisterous, or uproarious manner.
More about roister
The English verb roister, “to act boisterously; to revel without restraint,” started life as a noun meaning “noisy bully” (now roisterer), from Middle French rustre, ru(i)stre “ruffian, boor, lout,” from the adjective ruste “rude, rough,” from the Latin adjective rusticus “rural, rustic.” Roister entered English in the 16th century.
how is roister used?
Haerlem, Schiedam and Olifant were the ships, and they tied up so that their sailors could roister ashore, and large fights broke out because sailors from the first two ships, which bore honorable names, began to tease those. from the Olifant, Dutch for elephant.
Their tails had become sticky with pine sap, then got knotted together as the squirrels roistered around.
newfangled
adjective
of a new kind or fashion.
More about newfangled
Newfangled comes from Middle English new– “new,” –fangel, –fangol, an otherwise unrecorded adjective suffix meaning “taken, inclined to take,” and the adjective suffix –ed, the entire adjective meaning “taken by the new, inclined to the new.” The element –fangel, –fangol most likely is from the same root as the British dialect verb fang “to seize, grab” and the standard English noun fang “canine tooth” (that is, “the seizer”), all from fang-, the stem of the Old English verb fōn “to take.” Newfangled entered English at the end of the 15th century.
how is newfangled used?
Both the floss and the AI toothbrush had surprised me. … But they had also sparked a desire for the potentially unnecessary, as newfangled things are prone to do.
YouTube was less than two years old—Justin Bieber had not yet been discovered there—and still resembled a newfangled version of “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”