Word of the Day

Tantivy “used as a hunting cry when the chase is at full speed” is of obscure origin, but the prevailing theory is that the term is of onomatopoeic origin, based on the sound of galloping or blowing a horn. While it may seem odd that a complex word such as tantivy, in comparison to far simpler onomatopoeias such as tap or toot, would result from imitating a sound, tantivy is far from the only term to blaze this trail. Compare the similar interjection tantara, which represents the sound of a trumpet or horn; the noun clippety-clop, which refers to the sound of a horse trotting on pavement; and the noun tarantara, which imitates the sound of a bugle. Tantivy was first recorded in English circa 1640.

Colcannon “an Irish dish made of cabbage, greens, and potatoes” is an anglicization of the Irish Gaelic term cál ceannann, in which cál means “cabbage” and ceannann means “white-headed.” Cál comes via Old Irish from Latin caulis, of the same meaning, which is the source of cauliflower as well as cole, a catchall term for plants of the mustard family. Ceannann is a compound of ceann “head” and -ann, a weak variant of fionn “white,” and has an unexpected cognate in English: penguin. While ceannann means “white-headed” in Irish Gaelic, penguin may derive from Welsh pen gwyn “white head.” Irish Gaelic and Welsh belong to two different branches of the Celtic group of Indo-European languages: Q-Celtic and P-Celtic, respectively. Many c-words in Q-Celtic correspond to p-words in P-Celtic because of an ancient sound shift; also compare Irish Gaelic cúig to Welsh pump “five.” Colcannon was first recorded in English circa 1770.

Auriferous “yielding or containing gold” is based on Latin aurifer “gold-bearing” and the adjectival suffix -ous “full of, containing.” Aurifer is a compound of aurum “gold” and the suffix -fer “bearer,” from the verb ferre “to bear, carry.” As we learned from the recent Word of the Day aureate, aurum is of uncertain origin but may be related to Latin aes “brass, bronze, copper” or aurōra “dawn.” Ferre comes from the Proto-Indo-European root bher-, of the same meaning, which is also the root of Ancient Greek phérein “to carry,” the source of euphoria, metaphor, and phosphorus. The root bher- is also behind the English verb bear; because of Grimm’s law, which changes stop consonants in Germanic languages such as English, German, and Swedish, the Proto-Indo-European sounds bh, dh, and gh—in which the h indicates aspiration, a “puff of air” sound—often become b, d, and g in English. Auriferous was first recorded in English in the 1720s.

Porphyry “a very hard, dark, purplish-red rock” derives via Middle English from Medieval Latin porphyreum, from Ancient Greek porphyrī́tēs (líthos) “purplish (stone).” The Ancient Greek word for “purple” is pórphyros, which comes from the noun porphýra “kind of shellfish yielding purple dye, the dye, cloth so dyed,” which is of uncertain origin. However, some linguists consider porphýra to have been a loanword from a pre-Greek language or a Semitic source. Porphýra was later borrowed into Latin as purpura and then into Old English as purpure, which became purple in a process known as dissimilation, when a sound in a word changes to become less like another nearby sound. Dissimilation also explains how Latin marmor becomes Old English marmel and then English marble. Porphyry was first recorded in English in the late 14th century.

Nurturance “warm physical and emotional care” is a compound of the noun nurture “upbringing; development” and the suffix -ance. Nurture derives via Middle English and Middle French from Late Latin nūtrītūra “a nourishing,” which is equivalent to the Latin verb nūtrīre (stem nūtrīt-) “to feed” plus -ūra, a noun suffix. Nūtrīre is the direct source of English nutrient and nutrition as well as French nourriture “food,” and by way of French, it is the source of nourish and nurse. Notice how the t in the nūtrīt- stem was lost as Latin evolved into French; this process of losing a consonant in the middle of a word is called syncope, and it appears in English when ever and over are abbreviated as e’er and o’er, though apostrophes are not mandatory to indicate syncope. Nurturance was first recorded in English in the late 1930s.