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.
a reward, recompense, or requital.
Guerdon “a reward, recompense, or requital” is a variation of Old French werdoun, continuing a trend in which the w in Germanic-origin borrowings often becomes gu when adapted into French and other Romance languages. For other examples, compare the cognate pairs ward and guard, warranty and guarantee, and William and Guillaume. Old French werdoun comes from Medieval Latin widerdonum, which in turn was adapted from Old High German widarlōn, with a phonetic change from l to d because of the influence of Latin dōnum “gift.” Widarlōn is a compound of widar “again, back” (which survives today in the German expression auf Wiedersehen “until we meet again”) and lōn “reward” (cognate to Latin lucrum “gain, profit,” as in English lucrative). Guerdon was first recorded in English in the mid-14th century.
scattered members; disjointed portions or parts.
Disjecta membra “disjointed portions or parts” is a term from Latin that is altered from the phrase disjectī membra poētae “limbs of a dismembered poet,” which appears in the writings of Horace (known to his Roman contemporaries as Quintus Horatius Flaccus). The reason for the spelling change is simple grammar: in the original Latin, the possessive adjective disjectī “dismembered” matches the possessive noun poētae “of a poet.” The endings are different because poētae is irregular; though it looks feminine with its -ae ending, it is in fact a masculine noun. With poētae removed from the phrase, disjectī changes to match the neuter subject noun membra, becoming disjecta. Even in modern Spanish, the feminine-looking noun poeta “poet” is still masculine, and typical masculine -o adjectives modify it. Disjecta membra was first recorded in English in the early 18th century.
of or relating to marshes.
Paludal “of or relating to marshes” is based on Latin palūs (stem palūd-) “swamp, marsh,” plus the adjectival suffix -al. Palūs has one of several possible origins, inspiring significant debate among linguists. One common hypothesis is that palūs originally meant “submerged, filled (with water)” and derives from an Indo-European root meaning “to fill; many,” which would make it related to Latin plēnus “full” (as in plenty) and plēre “to fill” (as in complete) as well as cognate to English fill because of Grimm’s law; learn more from the recent Words of the Day pruinose and cordiform. Alternatively, palūs could be connected to terms related to movement of water, from Latin pluere “to rain” (compare French pleuvoir and Spanish llover) and Latin plōrāre “to weep” (compare French pleurer and Spanish llorar) to English fleet, float, flood, flotsam, and flow. Paludal was first recorded in English in the 1810s.
anoxia, or depletion of oxygen, in a body of water, along with a high level of hydrogen sulfide, a condition toxic to aquatic organisms.
Euxinia “anoxia in a body of water” is the namesake of the Latin term Pontus Euxīnus “the Black Sea,” where euxinia is often found in the deeper water. The Latin name is adapted from Ancient Greek Pontos Euxeînos, literally “hospitable sea,” but the story does not end there. It appears that the euxeînos portion, meaning “hospitable” and composed of eu- “good” and xeînos “foreign” (a variant of xénos; compare English xeno-), was originally a euphemism for Pontos Axeînos “inhospitable sea.” Alternatively, the meaning of the axeînos element could be folk etymology, that is, incorrectly derived from an unrelated term; the name for the Black Sea in Avestan, an ancient Indo-European language of the Iranian plateau, contained the element axšaēna- “blue, dark,” and speakers of Ancient Greek could have misinterpreted this word as their own axeînos. Euxinia was first recorded in English in the early 1950s.
a highly elastic solid substance, light cream or dark amber in color, polymerized by the drying and coagulation of the latex or milky juice of rubber trees and plants.
Caoutchouc “rubber” is a borrowing from French, which adapted the term from obsolete Spanish cauchuc (modern caucho), and from here is where the history becomes obscure. Because the Indigenous languages of the Americas have overall not received enough documentation and analysis, linguists assign caoutchouc to multiple possible languages, and there is substantial disagreement among sources. One proposal is that caoutchouc derives from Tupi, which we learned about from the recent Word of the Day maringouin. Another possibility is an origin in Carib, a language of the Cariban family with several thousand speakers in northern coastal South America. Some reputable sources claim a derivation from Quechua, which we learned about from the recent Word of the Day pampero, but other sources eliminate that connection outright. Perhaps the only way to find the true, incontrovertible origin of caoutchouc is to support research in Indigenous languages, especially because 2022 marks the beginning of the UNESCO Indigenous Languages Decade. What we do know is that caoutchouc was first recorded circa 1770s.
