Word of the Day
ratoon
noun
a sprout or shoot from the root of a plant, especially a sugarcane, after it has been cropped.
More about ratoon
Ratoon “a sprout from the root of a plant” is likely anglicized from Spanish retoño “sprout,” which is based on the verb retoñar “to sprout again in the fall,” from re- “again” and otoño “fall, autumn.” Spanish otoño and English autumn together come from Latin autumnus, which is of uncertain origin, even stumping expert linguists! Among the few proposals are connections to the Etruscan language, to Latin augēre (stem auct-) “to increase,” or distantly to English sere “dry, withered” (compare archaic English sere month “August”). Old English hærfest “autumn” is the source of modern English harvest. Ratoon was first recorded in English circa 1630.
how is ratoon used?
Sugarcane is one of the few crops that has seen an increase in planting area. But across Maharashtra, large fields of sugarcane ratoons—the new cane that grows from the stubble left behind from the previous year—are drying up instead of being nurtured to maturity.
Giant banana leaves, ratoons of sugar cane and bright orange guavas—set amid a jumble of sheds, trellises, fences and retaining walls—give the hill the look of a rural village carved from jungle.
pax vobiscum
phrase
peace be with you.
More about pax vobiscum
Pax vobiscum “peace be with you” is a loan from Latin that comprises pax “peace” and vōbīscum “with you.” Pax is the source of appease, pacify, pay, and peace; the noticeable variation in spelling stems from natural sound changes that occurred as Latin pax (stem pac-) evolved into Old French pais (and modern French paix). Vōbīscum is a compound of vōbīs, the prepositional object form of vōs “you,” and cum “with.” Similar constructions survive today in modern Romance languages, such as Spanish conmigo “with me” and Portuguese convosco “with you.” The singular equivalent of pax vōbīscum, said to one person, is pax tēcum, while “peace be with us” is pax nōbīscum. Pax vobiscum was first recorded in English in the 1810s.
how is pax vobiscum used?
Sholom Aleichem was a pseudonym assumed by Sholom Rabinowitz, born in 1859 in what is now Ukraine. In Hebrew, “sholom aleichem” is a greeting that means “peace be with you.” Who knows? Maybe if he wrote in Latin he would have called himself Pax Vobiscum.
“Pax vobiscum!” he called. Continuing in Latin, he said, “Peace to you this night. Please, put up your swords. You have nothing to fear from us.”
torrid
adjective
oppressively hot, parching, or burning, as climate, weather, or air.
More about torrid
Torrid “oppressively hot” comes from Latin torridus “dried up, parched,” from the verb torrēre “to parch, burn.” This Latin verb has two stems: torr-, as in torrent, and tost-, which is the source of toast. A popular hypothesis is that torrēre is related to Latin terra “earth,” perhaps originally in the sense “dry land,” which is the source of the recent Word of the Day terrene. Because of Grimm’s law, Latin t tends to correspond to English th, and this is how Latin torrēre is a distant relative of English thirst (from Old English thrust “dryness”). For more on terra, check out the recent Words of the Day testudinate and telluric, and to see Grimm’s law in action, compare togated and transcendental. Torrid was first recorded in English in the 1580s.
how is torrid used?
Torrid weather gripped large parts of western and central Europe on Wednesday, setting new June temperature records in Germany and the Czech Republic and forcing drivers to slow down on some sections of the famously speedy German autobahns.