Word of the Day

Scholarch “the head of a school” comes from Ancient Greek scholárchēs, of the same general meaning, which is a compound of scholḗ “leisure employed in learning” and -archēs, a combining form of árchos “leader.” Scholḗ, of course, is the source of scholar, scholastic, and school. The trigraph sch has two predictable pronunciations in English: sch is pronounced as “shuh” in words of German origin (such as the recent Words of the Day schwa and Weltanschauung) and as “skuh” in words of Ancient Greek or Italian origin (such as the recent Words of the Day paschal and scherzando). Scholarch was first recorded in English in the early 1860s.

Tessellate “to form of small squares” comes from Latin tessellātus “mosaic,” based on ​​tessella “small square stone or cube.” The Latin noun tessella is a diminutive of tessera, a small piece used in mosaic work that often has four sides, which comes from Ionic Greek tésseres “four.” Ionic is one of several dialects of Ancient Greek, and the word for “four” in the well-known Attic dialect is téttares. Téttares and tésseres together are the source of tetrapod “a four-limbed animal,” the game Tetris, trapezoid, trapezium, and the recent Word of the Day tesseract. Tessellate was first recorded in English circa 1790.

Swain “a male admirer” comes by way of Middle English swein “servant” from Old Norse sveinn “boy, servant.” Linguists consider the earliest sense of sveinn and its relatives in other Germanic languages to have been “one’s own (man)”; a similar shift in meaning appears with swami, from Sanskrit svāmī “master, owner,” which may have originally meant “one’s own (master).” Both swain and swami come from a root meaning “one’s, oneself” that also appears in self and sibling. Today, swain can be found in the nautical-themed compounds boatswain and coxswain (pronounced a little counterintuitively as “boh-suhn” and “kok-suhn”). Swain was first recorded in English before 1150. For more love-related terms, check out past Words of the Day inamorata, turtledove, and jo!

Chaise longue “a chair with a lengthened seat for reclining” is a loanword from French, in which it means “long chair.” A common practice among English speakers is to say “chaise lounge,” which is the result of confusing French longue “long” with English lounge “to rest lazily.” While chaise longue and lounge chair are both considered standard, “chaise lounge” is gaining in popularity. French chaise is a Paris-area dialectal variant of the original chaire (adapted into English as chair); unlike rhotacism, which changes s (or z) to r, Parisian French frequently used to change r to s. The ultimate origin of French chaise is Ancient Greek kathédra “seat, chair,” which is also the source of English cathedral. Chaise longue was first recorded in English in the 1790s.

Fauna “the animals of a given region as a whole” is an example of a collective noun, a noun that typically appears as singular but refers to a group of persons or objects. Common collective nouns in English also include couple, government, jury, population, and team, all of which refer to groups of people even when the nouns themselves are singular. Unlike mass nouns such as electricity, furniture, and sadness, collective nouns can use the indefinite article a (or an) and numbers; we may say a team or two couples but not an electricity or two furnitures. Fauna is the namesake of the rural Roman goddess Fauna, the feminine counterpart of the forest god Faunus. These two Latin names may come from the verb favēre “to favor,” which would make them potential relatives of the recent Words of the Day Faustian and foehn. Fauna was first recorded in English circa 1770.