Word of the Day

Olfaction contains two Latin roots: ol-, “to smell,” and fact-, “to make, do.” Ol- is a variation of od-, which is found in odor and deodorant. The change from d to l happened with several Latin words over time, which is also how the older word dingua, “tongue, speech,” evolved into Classical Latin lingua, as in bilingual, linguistics, and linguine—yes, the tongue-shaped pasta. Olfaction was first recorded in English in the 1840s. EXAMPLE OF OLFACTION USED IN A SENTENCE The farmer found that her pigs didn't need any training to help hunt truffles because they had a natural passion for olfaction. FUN FACT ABOUT OLFACTION Humans have about six million olfactory receptors in their noses. Dogs have 300 million, which explains why their sniffers are better! Learn more fun facts at the Museum of Science.

Dolma, “a dish of stuffed vegetables,” is a loanword from Turkish, in which dolma means “something filled, filling.” Turkish dolma, in turn, comes from the verb dolmak, “to stuff, fill, be full.” Though it is spoken in Europe, Turkish belongs not to the Indo-European language family (along with English, Greek, and Hindi) but rather to the Turkic family, along with Azerbaijani, Kazakh, and Yakut. For more on the Turkic language family, check out our recent Words of the Day barchan and yurt. Dolma was first recorded in English in the late 1880s. EXAMPLE OF DOLMA USED IN A SENTENCE If stuffing a Thanksgiving turkey is too much work, dolma’s use of hollow vegetables and grape leaves makes it an enticing alternative.

Swizzle, “to agitate a beverage with a rod,” is of uncertain origin, but not because there are multiple competing theories. Instead, the mystery behind swizzle is the same as that behind many slang terms: linguists have no idea what the origin of swizzle could possibly be! Swizzle is first and foremost a noun referring to a type of alcoholic drink from the Caribbean, and in an example of metonymy, the name came to refer as well to the stick served with the drink. A similarly named drink is the switchel, which is found in some varieties of US and Canadian English, but just as with swizzle, switchel is also of uncertain origin. Swizzle was first recorded in English circa 1810. EXAMPLE OF SWIZZLE USED IN A SENTENCE As happy hour started, the bar filled with the sounds of patrons swizzling their drinks and clinking their glasses together in toasts.

Malic “pertaining to apples” comes by way of French from Latin mālum “apple." Mālum, in turn, is an adaptation of Ancient Greek mêlon, which refers specifically to apples or generally to any tree fruit and is also the source of English melon. Similarly, though mālum survives today as Italian mela “apple,” while the French word for “apple,” pomme, comes from Latin pōmum “fruit.” Portuguese maçã and Spanish manzana derive instead from the Latin term Mattiāna (mala) “(apples) of Matius,” which refers to Gaius Matius, a Roman botanist and friend of Julius Caesar. Though the words are almost identical, Latin mālum is not related to Latin malus “bad,” meaning that the use of apples to represent forbidden fruit is a clever pun. Malic was first recorded in English in the 1790s. EXAMPLE OF MALIC USED IN A SENTENCE The Evil Queen’s temptation of Snow White with a poisoned apple is a perfect example of malic malice.

Petrichor is based on two Ancient Greek words: pétros, meaning “stone,” and īchṓr, the name of an ethereal fluid that the gods of Greek mythology had instead of blood in their veins. This scent results from certain types of rocks and soils releasing a plant-derived oil during rainfall. Scientists Isabel Joy Bear and Richard G. Thomas coined petrichor in 1964. EXAMPLE OF PETRICHOR USED IN A SENTENCE After weeks without a single drop of rain, petrichor hung in the air after this morning’s showers. FUN FACT ABOUT PETRICHOR Though often confused with the smell that ozone causes before rainfall, petrichor actually refers to the earthy aroma during rain. Learn more fun facts at the Museum of Science.