Word of the Day

Opprobrious “outrageously disgraceful or shameful” is an adaptation of Late Latin opprobriōsus, literally meaning “full of reproach,” based on opprobrium “reproach” and the adjectival suffix -ōsus “full of.” Opprobrium itself is a compound of the preposition ob “toward, against” and the noun probrum “infamy, disgrace,” with the b in ob assimilated to match the p in probrum. Confusion frequently arises about the similarity between probrum and the Latin adjective probus “good” (the source of approbation and approval), but the two are not quite related; probrum may literally mean “(thing) brought forward,” such as a complaint, while probus may have originally meant “being in front,” as in better than everything that follows. Opprobrious was first recorded in English in the late 14th century.

Prerogative “a right limited to a specific person” derives via Middle English from Latin praerogātīvus “voting first,” a compound of the preposition prae “before” and the verb rogāre “to ask, propose.” Prae is the source of the prefix pre-, which appears in three other words in this paragraph, while rogāre gives rise to several question- and claim-related words, such as arrogant (originally meaning “presuming”), interrogate, and surrogate (originally meaning “to nominate as a substitute”). Prerogative was first recorded in English in the late 1300s.

Fortuitous “happening or produced by chance” ultimately comes from the Latin noun fors (stem fort-) “chance, luck.” Though chance and luck are not quite one and the same, the overlap between the two is why fortuitous evolved a second, more common sense of “lucky, fortunate.” Also derived from fors is the noun fortūna, which is the source of English fortune. The Roman goddess Fortūna was the goddess of luck as well as fate, and the Romans celebrated a festival in her honor, Fors Fortūna, annually on June 24. Note that Latin fors is not related to the English words forte “a person’s strength” and fortify “to strengthen against attack,” which come instead from Latin fortis “strong, brave” (compare Spanish fuerte). Fortuitous was first recorded in English circa 1650.

Vanguard “the forefront in any movement” comes from the same source as the recent Word of the Day avant-garde: the Middle French terms avant “to the front” and garde “guardianship.” Avant, which means “before” in modern French, comes from Latin ab ante, literally “from before.” The preposition ab “from” can be found in numerous English words that signify movement away from something, such as abduct (literally “to lead away”) and abstain (“to hold back”), while ante “before” appears in antechamber (“before a room”) and antediluvian (“before a flood”). Middle French garde is related both to English guard and ward, as the w sound in Germanic languages corresponds to g or gu in French; compare the recent Word of the Day guerdon. Vanguard was first recorded in English in the 1480s.

Engarland “to encircle with a wreath of flowers” is a compound of the prefix en- and the verb garland. As we learned from the recent Word of the Day enkindle, en- alerts English speakers that the verb it is attached to will take a direct object. The odd thing here is that garland already takes direct objects, so the prefix en- in engarland is redundant, kind of like saying “added bonus,” “free gift,” or “unexpected surprise.” Garland is a borrowing from Old French garlande “wreath,” which is of unclear origin but may derive from the word for “wire” in Frankish, a now-extinct language closely related to English and German that was very influential on French. Garland can also appear as a surname, but one of the name’s most famous bearers, Judy Garland, took it as a stage name after her family name of Gumm proved less than desirable for show business. Engarland was first recorded in English circa 1580.