Word of the Day

Brume, “mist or fog,” is a borrowing from French and comes via Provençal bruma from Latin brūma, “winter, winter solstice.” Brūma is ultimately a contraction of brevissima (diēs), “shortest (day),” which is the superlative of brevis, “short.” Brevis is the source of abbreviate and brevity as well as (by way of French) abridge and brief. In Latin, the superlative forms are often marked with -issimus; compare Italian bravissimo and generalissimo. Brume was first recorded in English in the first decade of the 19th century. EXAMPLE OF BRUME USED IN A SENTENCE With excellent timing, a brume arose from the sea on the solstice and spread inland, all as if to signal that winter had come.

Posole, “a soup of meat, hominy, mild chile peppers, and cilantro,” is a loanword from Mexican Spanish, in which it is also spelled pozole. Because of a phonological phenomenon called seseo, while c and z are pronounced in most dialects of European Spanish as “thuh,” they have merged with s in Latin American Spanish and become “suh.” Pozole comes from pozolli “hominy, maize-based stew” in Nahuatl, which only uses c and z, not s, to indicate the “suh” sound. Posole was first recorded in English in the 1690s. Learn more words of Nahuatl origin in English. EXAMPLE OF POSOLE USED IN A SENTENCE He prepared a large pot of posole, which he knew would help cure the post-holiday hangover.

Niveous comes from the Latin stem niv-, “snow,” which combines with the suffix -eous to form an adjective. Today, niv- survives as French neige, Italian and Portuguese neve, Romanian nea, and Spanish nieve, all meaning “snow.” Niv- is a distant relative of English snow, which has the s- that Latin lost thousands of years ago. Other examples include the English/Latin pairs slack and laxus (“loose”) as well as steer and taurus (“bull”). Niveous was first recorded in English around 1620. EXAMPLE OF NIVEOUS USED IN A SENTENCE With the previous day’s blizzard finally past, the children headed outside for an afternoon of frivolous play in their now niveous neighborhood.

Bobèche, “a cupped ring that catches a candle’s drippings,” comes from French but is of uncertain origin. With that said, linguists have one prevailing hypothesis. The bob- part may be the same as the first element in Middle French bobine, “skein of thread,” which is the source of English bobbin. The -èche element could be based on an analogy with flammèche, “spark,” which comes from Old High German falawiska, “hot ashes.” Bobèche was first recorded in English in the late 1890s. EXAMPLE OF BOBÈCHE USED IN A SENTENCE Without a bobèche available, they carried the lit candles very carefully, dodging scalding drips of hot wax.

Shammes, “the candle used to kindle the candles in the Hanukkah menorah,” is a borrowing of Yiddish shames, which comes from Hebrew shammāsh, “server, attendant.” As we learned from the Word of the Day cherubic, many Hebrew nouns add -im to become plural, which is why one shammāsh in Hebrew becomes multiple shammāshim and one shammes in English becomes multiple shammosim. Though Hebrew shammāsh is easily confused with Shamash, an Assyrian and Babylonian sun god, the two are not related; while Shamash comes from a Semitic root meaning “sun,” shammāsh appears to come from Egyptian šmsw, “follower, servant.” Shammes was first recorded in English in the late 1940s. EXAMPLE OF SHAMMES USED IN A SENTENCE She had the honor of lighting the shammes and the first candle on the first night of Hanukkah.