Word of the Day
Learn a new word every day! The Dictionary.com team of language experts carefully selects each Word of the Day to add some panache to your vocabulary.
to flee or depart suddenly, especially without having paid one's bills.
Scarper, “to flee or depart suddenly,” originated in a British argot, likely Polari, and probably comes from Italian scappare “to flee,” which is related to English escape (compare French échapper). The ultimate origin appears to be from a Vulgar Latin verb reconstructed as excappāre, based on Latin ex “out of, from” and Late Latin cappa “hooded cloak, cape.” For another example of Polari’s influence on English, see the recent Word of the Day busk. Scarper was first recorded in English in the late 1840s.
a reflection or thought.
Pensée, “a thought,” is a loanword from French, in which it is the past participle of the verb penser “to think.” Penser derives from Latin pēnsāre, of the same meaning, which in turn comes from pendere “to hang”—similar to the English expression “have hanging over (one’s) head,” namely, when a persistent thought causes fear and anxiety. Pendere has two stems in English: the first is pend-, as in pendulum, suspend, and the recent Word of the Day spendthrift, and the second stem is pens-, as in compensate, expensive, and pension. Pensée was first recorded in English in the late 1880s.
to come into close contact or union.
Osculate, "to kiss,” comes from the Latin verb ōsculārī “to kiss,” which is based on the noun ōsculum “kiss” or, literally, “little mouth.” Ōsculum comprises ōs (stem ōr-) “mouth” and -culum, a diminutive suffix that we learned about last week from the Word of the Day canicular. Ōs is the source of oral and orifice but not of any word for “mouth” in modern Romance languages; the likely reason for this is confusion between ōs and the similar-sounding os (stem oss-) “bone,” which is the source of Italian/Portuguese osso and Spanish hueso. With os winning this phonetic battle, Latin bucca “cheek” eventually evolved into modern Romance words for “mouth,” such as French bouche, Italian bocca, and Portuguese and Spanish boca. Osculate was first recorded in English in the 1650s.
consisting of land and water, as the earth.
Terraqueous “consisting of land and water” is a compound of Latin terra “land” and English aqueous “watery,” which is based on Latin aqua “water.” As we learned from the recent Words of the Day terrene and torrid, terra once referred specifically to dry land, and the term ultimately won out over tellūs (compare the recent Word of the Day telluric) in evolving into the words for “land” in modern Romance languages, such as French terre, Romanian țară, and Spanish tierra. In contrast, aqua did not have to compete with any synonyms in Latin, and it gave rise to French eau, Italian acqua, Romanian apă, and Spanish agua. Terraqueous was first recorded in English in the 1650s.
either of the apparent extremities of the rings of Saturn or of other planets, especially when viewed from the earth or from spacecraft under certain conditions, when they look like two handles.
Ansa, “a handle-shaped region of Saturn’s rings,” is a borrowing of Latin ānsa “handle, loop, clamp.” As a regular Latin noun, the plural in Latin is ānsae, and the plural in English is ansae (sometimes stylized as ansæ). Descendants of ansa in modern Romance languages include anse in French as well as asa in both Portuguese and Spanish. Beyond Latin, ansa has few known relatives, but potential matches appear in various Indo-European languages, from Ancient Greek to Icelandic to Lithuanian. Ansa was first recorded in English in the early 15th century.
