Word of the Day

Schmatte, “an old ragged garment,” is an Americanism adapted from Yiddish shmate, “rag,” from Polish szmata, of the same meaning. Though much of Yiddish vocabulary comes from German, it uses the Hebrew writing system as an alphabet and treats silent Hebrew consonants as vowels. This is how the letters aleph and ayin, which are silent in most varieties of modern Hebrew, make the “ah” and “eh” sounds in Yiddish shmate. Schmatte may also appear as shmatte in English; both spellings are equally valid, with the sch- closer to German spelling standards despite its Polish origin. Schmatte was first recorded in English in the late 1960s. EXAMPLE OF SCHMATTE USED IN A SENTENCE “Take that schmatte off,” the grandmother scolded, “and put on a proper coat, or you’ll catch a cold!”

Snye, “a side-channel,” is probably adapted from Canadian French chenail, a variant of standard French chenal. Chenal comes from Latin canālis, “waterpipe, conduit,” which may derive from canna, “reed, pipe.” Canna, in turn, is a borrowing (via Ancient Greek kánna) of a word of Semitic origin such as Akkadian qanū, “reed”; related words in modern Semitic languages include Arabic qanāh, “canal, channel,” and Hebrew qāneh “cane, reed, stem.” In this way, the Semitic source of Latin canna is also the source of English canal, cane, canister, cannoli, cannon, canon, canyon, channel, and—for fashion mavens—the surname Chanel. Snye was first recorded in English in the 1810s. EXAMPLE OF SNYE USED IN A SENTENCE The snye joined the main waterway right in front of their cabin, which made for a perfect fishing spot.

Malinger, “to pretend illness,” is an adaptation of French malingre, “sickly, ailing,” with a change in spelling perhaps because of the influence of English linger, which is not at all related. A common hypothesis is that malingre is formed from Old French mal, “badly,” and heingre, “haggard, scrawny.” Alternatively, the mal- element may come from the related term malade, “sick,” the source of malady. Heingre is also of unclear origin, but a clue may lie in German hager, “gaunt,” which is—yet again—of unknown origin. Nevertheless, hager is perhaps connected to English haggard. Malinger was first recorded in English in the 1810s. EXAMPLE OF MALINGER USED IN A SENTENCE When the sun is shining and the birds are singing, it may be tempting to malinger.

Jeu d’esprit, “a witticism,” is a borrowing from French, in which it literally means “game of spirit.” Jeu, “game,” comes from Latin jocus, “joke,” which is the source of jeopardy, jewel, and jocular. Meanwhile, esprit comes from Latin spīritus, “spirit, breath,” from spīrāre, “to breathe”; compare aspire, expire, perspire, and respire. The plural of jeu d’esprit is jeux d’esprit, in both English and French, with only the “game” element becoming plural. Though most French nouns add -s when made plural, most nouns ending in -eu add -x. Jeu d’esprit was first recorded in English in the 1710s. EXAMPLE OF JEU D’ESPRIT USED IN A SENTENCE The unexpected jeu d’esprit that closed the speech had the entire room roaring with laughter.

Steppe, “an extensive, treeless plain,” is a borrowing by way of either French or German from Russian step’, of unknown origin. In the English transliteration of Russian step’, the apostrophe (’) represents the Cyrillic letter (ь), known to the Russians as myágkiĭ znak, “soft sign.” This indicates that the consonant immediately before it is palatalized, or pronounced with the tongue against the hard palate, adding a slight “yuh” to the consonant. Though English doesn’t use palatalization quite as Russian does, this phenomenon is still somewhat visible in words such as assume, which some pronounce as “uh-soom” and others as “uh-syoom.” Steppe was first recorded in English circa 1670. EXAMPLE OF STEPPE USED IN A SENTENCE The animals ventured south across the steppe to find a warmer home for the coming winter.