Word of the Day

When delving into the history of horripilation, things become hairy rather quickly. The horri- part comes from a Latin verb meaning “to bristle,” and this verb is also the source of words such as horrendous, horrify, and horror. Unlike terror, which literally has to do with being frightened, the root of horror is all about hair standing on its end! In addition, the -pil- part of horripilation is a Latin stem meaning “hair.” Horripilation was first recorded in English in the 1650s. EXAMPLE OF HORRIPILATION USED IN A SENTENCE As the truck set off on the haunted hayride route, the riders experienced some horripilation in anticipation of the scares ahead. FUN FACT ABOUT HORRIPILATION The nervous system response that causes goosebumps is the same response that makes a cat puff up its tail or a porcupine puff out its quills when they are scared. Learn more fun facts at the Museum of Science.

Metamorphose “to undergo a change in form or nature” is a back formation from the noun metamorphosis “a complete change in form.” As we learned from the recent Word of the Day defenestrate, a back formation is a word created from another by cutting off a suffix (or what seems to be a suffix) from the older word, such as the verb edit from the noun editor. The noun metamorphosis is a compound of the combining forms meta- “after, beyond” and morph- “form, structure,” which come from Ancient Greek metá “between, after” and morphḗ “shape,” respectively. Though linguists have tried to connect Ancient Greek morphḗ with its Latin equivalent, forma “form, model,” based on the words’ shared sounds, it remains unclear whether the resemblance is merely a coincidence. Metamorphose was first recorded in English in the 1570s.

Uraeus, “the sacred asp on ancient Egyptian headdresses,” comes from Late Greek ouraîos, of the same meaning. This ouraîos appears identical to Ancient Greek ouraîos, “of the tail,” but the two likely do not share a deeper origin; while ouraîos, “of the tail,” comes from ourá, “tail,” and is the source of the English combining form uro- (not to be confused with oûron, “urine,” the source of a different uro-), ouraîos, “uraeus,” comes from Egyptian y’rt, “rearing cobra,” which is also transliterated variously as iaret or jꜥrt. Though uraeuses is the standard plural, the alternative uraei appears in some texts. Uraeus was first recorded in English circa 1830.

Cantrip, “a magic spell,” may not be related to the English verbs can and trip, but that doesn’t mean that its origin is any clearer. One possibility is that cantrip is a variant of Old English calcatrippe, “caltrop,” with the shift from l to n resulting from dissimilation, as we learned about from ensorcell. Calcatrippe is equivalent to Latin calx, “spur, heel” (as in calcaneus, a bone of the heel), plus Old English træppe, “step” (compare modern English trap). Another possibility is that the can- element comes from Latin cantāre, “to sing,” (as in enchant, incantation, and past Word of the Day descant), while -trip element is related not to trap but rather to rope because ropelike objects are a common element in sorcery. Cantrip was first recorded in English in the 1710s.

Ensorcell, “to bewitch,” comes from Middle French ensorceler, of the same meaning, which is a dissimilated variant of ensorcerer. Dissimilation refers to when one of two identical sounds in a word happens to change, such as how colonel is pronounced “kur-nl” in US English and February often becomes “feb-yoo-er-ee”; without dissimilation, the two l’s in colonel and the two r’s in February would be preserved in speech. Learn more about dissimilation from the Word of the Day porphyry. Ensorcerer ultimately derives from Latin sors (stem sort-), “lot, fate.” Another descendant of sors today is French sortir, “to exit,” which comes via Latin sortīrī, “to cast lots,” perhaps with the influence of surgere (stem surrēct-), “to spring up, arise, stand up.” Ensorcell was first recorded in English circa 1540.