Word of the Day

Ultramafic “containing iron and magnesium” is a compound of the combining form ultra- “going beyond what is usual or ordinary” and the adjective mafic “relating to rocks rich in ferromagnesian materials.” Ultra- is borrowed from the Latin preposition ultrā “on the far side (of), beyond,” while mafic is a coinage based on magnesium and Latin ferrum “iron.” The ultimate origin of magnesium is the Ancient Greek phrase (hē) Magnēsía (líthos) “the stone of Magnesia,” in which Magnēsía denotes an uncertain location in either modern-day Greece or Turkey. From this same source, English inherits magnet and manganese. Latin ferrum is the source of modern Romance terms for “iron” (compare French fer and Spanish hierro) and is of obscure origin, though one hypothesis connects ferrum to English brass, and another connects it to a Semitic source akin to Hebrew barzel “iron.” Ultramafic was first recorded in English in the early 1940s.

Ab urbe condita “from the founding of the city” is a phrase borrowed from Latin; spelled with the traditional macrons to indicate vowel length, the phrase is properly ab urbe conditā, literally “(in the year) from the founded city.” The preposition ab “away from, out of, since” is a common element in Latin-origin terms such as abduct (originally “to lead away”), abrupt (“to break away”), and absent (“to be away”), and its variant form abs- appears in abstain (“to hold away”) and abstract (“to draw away”). Urbe is the ablative (prepositional object) form of urbs “city,” which is also the root of urban and suburb (“under the city”), while conditā is the perfect participle of the verb condere “to build, conceal, compose,” the source of abscond, condiment, and condition. Ab urbe condita was first recorded in English in the early 17th century.

Carouse “to engage in a drunken revel” is a variant of garouse, which derives from German gar aus(trinken) “(to drink) fully out,” that is, to drain the cup. German gar “done, cooked; even, very” is a cognate of archaic English yare “quick, lively, ready,” while austrinken is a compound of aus “out” and trinken “to drink.” In this way, gar austrinken is to go “all out” while drinking. Despite the similar spelling, carouse and the related noun carousal “a noisy or drunken feast” are not related to carousel, a merry-go-round. While carouse is of German extraction, carousel derives by way of French from Italian, and there are multiple competing theories for its origin. Carouse was first recorded in English in the 1550s.

The story of harlequin “fancifully varied in color and decoration” is chock full of semantic twists and turns—creating a devilishly good time the further back in time we peer. Harlequin is borrowed by way of Middle French from Italian arlecchino, and before that, the term originated in Old French variously as halequin, hellequin, and herlekin, the name of or a term for a malevolent spirit. Despite the resemblance to English hell, these Old French words may in fact derive from an Old English name, Herla cyning “King Herle.” Herle may have been a legendary or mythological figure similar to Woden (the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Odin), or the term Herla cyning could be related to the recent Word of the Day erlking “elf king,” though there are issues with the phonology in the latter hypothesis. An alternative origin of Herla is a Germanic root meaning “army” that is also found in the names Harold, Herbert, Herman, Walter, Warner, and even Oliver. Harlequin was first recorded in English in the 1580s.

Ineluctable “incapable of being evaded” derives from Latin inēluctābilis, equivalent to the prefix in- “not” and the verb ēluctārī “to force a way out or over, surmount.” The latter is a compound of ē-, the prefix version of ex “out of, from,” and the verb luctārī “to struggle, wrestle.” Another English derivative of luctārī is the noun reluctance, which literally means “the state of struggling against,” and if you’re a fan of wrestling, you may have already connected Spanish lucha—as in the phrase lucha libre (literally “free wrestling”)—to luctārī. The evolution of Latin luctārī to Spanish lucha demonstrates a common sound correspondence, namely, that Latin -ct- often (though not always) becomes -ch- in Spanish. Also compare Latin nox (stem noct-) with Spanish noche “night,” Latin octõ with Spanish ocho “eight,” and Latin ​​prōfectus with Spanish provecho “profit.” Ineluctable was first recorded in English circa 1620.