Word of the Day

Muon “an unstable, positively charged subatomic particle” is a shortening of mu meson; beginning in the mid-20th century, scientists have used Greek letters to identify specific types of newly discovered subatomic particles, and the terms pion and tauon are formed similarly. The Greek letter mu, which is pronounced as “mee” in modern Greek and is the ancestor of the Roman letter m, is a borrowing from the Phoenicians, a seafaring people of the ancient Mediterranean. The Phoenician source is the letter mēm, a relative of the Hebrew letter mem, and both come from a Semitic root meaning “water.” Muon was first recorded in English in the early 1950s.

Brattice “a temporary wooden fortification” comes by way of Old French from Medieval Latin brittisca, which appears to be a Latin adaptation of Old English Bryttisc “British” because of the assumption that this type of fortification originated in Britain. The word British—as well as the related terms Breton, Britain, Brittany, and Brythonic—comes from a lost Celtic name that Greek writers recorded variously as Brettanoí and Prettanikḗ two millennia ago. An alternative proposal is that brattice is a compound of German Brett “board” and a common Romance element derived from Latin -iscus, which forms adjectives. Brattice was first recorded in English in the early 14th century.

Musaceous “of or relating to the fruit of the banana family” comes from New Latin Musa, the name of the genus to which bananas belong, plus the suffixes -aceae “made of, resembling” and -ous “full of.” Musa is adapted from Arabic mawzah “banana” and, before that, perhaps Sanskrit mocaḥ. One interesting proposal is that Musa ultimately comes from an unidentified language once spoken in what is now Indonesia. In contrast, the English word banana comes via Portuguese or Spanish likely from a Niger-Congo language, much like the recent Words of the Day capoeira and mbira, though the specific origin is still uncertain. Musaceous was first recorded in English in the early 1850s.

Amendatory “serving to alter” is an Americanism based on Late Latin ēmendātōrius, with the ē- swapped out with the a- from amend. The source of all these words is the Latin verb ēmendāre “to correct,” equivalent to ē (or ex) “out of, from” plus menda “blemish, fault, mistake.” Latin menda is also the source of three English words with a broad range of senses: mend “to make usable by repairing,” mendacious “telling lies” (via Latin mendāx “lying”), and mendicant “begging” (via Latin mendīcus “needy”). Amendatory was first recorded in English in the 1780s.

Xenial “welcoming and hospitable” comes from the Ancient Greek noun xenía “hospitality.” Xenía, the element xenon, the name of the warrior princess Xena, and the recent Word of the Day euxinia all come from Ancient Greek xénos “stranger, guest.” Xénos may be a distant relative of English guest (from Old Norse gestr), hospitable and hostel (from Latin hospes “guest, visitor, host”), and hostile (from Latin hostis “stranger, enemy”). Note that xenial is not to be confused with the unrelated term xennial, which denotes people born in the late 1970s and early 1980s, on the cusp of Generations X and Y. Xenial was first recorded in English in the 1790s.