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 carry on a lawsuit.
Litigate “to carry on a lawsuit” is based on Latin lītigātus “having gone to law,” the past participle of lītigāre “to go to law.” The verb lītigāre is a compound of two other Latin words: līs (stem līt-) “lawsuit” and agere (stem -ig-) “to do, drive, carry on.” As we learned from the recent Words of the Day fustigate and disambiguate, agere is a rather productive verb with several stems: the present stem ag- appears in agenda, agent, and agile; the reduced stem -ig- is also found in castigate and navigate; and the perfect stem act- is found in action, activity, and exact. Litigate was first recorded in English circa 1610.
of, relating to, or of the nature of something introductory.
Prefatory “of or relating to something introductory” is based on the Latin noun praefātiō “a saying beforehand,” plus the adjective-forming suffix -ory. Praefātiō became Medieval Latin prēfātia and then became Middle French preface, which English has borrowed. In this way, prefatory and preface are doublets, two words in a language with the same origin but that took different pathways to get there—in this case, directly from Latin and by way of French, respectively. Latin praefātiō is a compound of prae “before,” which is the source of English pre-, and fārī “to speak,” which is the source of affable, fable, fate, and infant. Prefatory was first recorded in English circa 1670.
a musical instrument of what is now Zimbabwe and Malawi that serves as a resonating box, to which vibrating metal or wooden strips are attached for plucking.
Mbira “a musical instrument made from a gourd” is a borrowing from the Shona language. Though Shona mbira is of unclear origin, some linguists hypothesize connections to ambira, kalimba, and marimba, which are all xylophone-like instruments originating in southern Africa. The Shona language is spoken in what is now Zimbabwe, and it belongs to the huge Bantu group of languages, which is found throughout western southern Africa and also includes Wolof, Xhosa, Yoruba, and Zulu. Mbira was first recorded in English circa 1910.
turning or growing toward the light.
Heliotropic “turning toward the light” is a compound of the forms helio- “sun” and -tropic “turned toward.” Helio- comes from Ancient Greek hḗlios “sun,” which is also the source of the word helium, named for its presence in the chemical composition of the Sun. Meanwhile, -tropic is based on Ancient Greek tropikós “pertaining to a turn,” from trópos “turn.” This same root word is behind English tropical, which we tend to associate today with hot weather and the naming of storms, but the literal sense of tropical describes the zone in which the Sun travels directly overhead in the sky. Heliotropic was first recorded in English in the early 1870s.
to estimate.
Approximate “to estimate” is based on Late Latin approximātus “drawn near to, approached,” which is based on the verb proximāre “to near, approach,” combined with the prefix ad- “to, toward.” Proximāre ultimately comes from the Latin adjective proximus “next,” which is the superlative of prope “near.” Prope is the source of the verb propiāre “to draw near,” which combined with ad- and passed through a couple of sound changes in French, such as -pi- to -ch- because of a phenomenon called palatalization, eventually becoming English approach. Approximate was first recorded in English in the early 15th century.
