Word of the Day

Lido “a fashionable beach resort” is the namesake of the Lido di Venezia, a chain of sandy islands in northeastern Italy that separate the Venetian Lagoon from the Adriatic Sea. Lido in Italian means “shore, beach, strand” and comes from Latin lītus “shore.” The stem of lītus is lītor-, which is the source of English littoral “of or relating to a shore” (not to be confused with literal “involving the strict meaning of a word”). Lītus becomes lītor- through a process called rhotacism, which is the change of the sound s or z to r. Though this may seem like an odd sound shift, it’s rather common in English; compare was and were, is and are (possibly), and most and more. Lido was first recorded in English in the late 1920s.

Cottagecore “an aesthetic inspired by a rural lifestyle” is a compound of cottage and the element -core. Cottage comes by way of Medieval Latin from Old English cot “small house, hut” and Old French -age, a noun-forming suffix that sometimes indicates a place of residence (compare parsonage). The element -core here is taken from hard-core, which refers to a harsh, intense style of punk rock. In the 1980s, -core came to appear in reference to subgenres of punk (such as grindcore), then broadened to describe subgenres of any non-mainstream music (such as sadcore), and ultimately began to feature in terms for subcultures and aesthetics (such as normcore). Cottagecore was first recorded in English very recently in the late 2010s. Learn more about other -core words here.

Flokati “a thick, woolen rug with a shaggy pile” is a loanword from modern Greek and is also transliterated more traditionally as phlokátē. The differences in transliteration reflect two sound changes between Ancient Greek and modern Greek: ancient ph (“puh” with a puff of air) became modern f, and ancient ē (long “eh”) became modern i (“ee”). Flokati comes—by way of Balkan Romani, dialectal Italian, or Vulgar Latin—from Latin floccus “tuft of wool.” English inherits flock in the sense “a lock or tuft of wool, hair, or cotton” from Latin floccus, while flock in the sense “a number of animals herded together” is of Old English origin. Flokati was first recorded in English in the late 1960s.

Ogham “an alphabetic script used for inscriptions in archaic Irish” is a loanword from Irish Gaelic, but the history of this word becomes murkier and murkier the farther back in time we go. A popular hypothesis is that ogham comes from Ogma, the name of a Celtic god who created the alphabet—that is, according to some legends. An alternative is that ogham derives from an ancient Irish word meaning “point,” as in the tip of a weapon, in reference to how ogham letters were inscribed on stone. The Irish Gaelic language today, as it has since the demise of ogham 1000 years ago, uses the Roman alphabet. Ogham was first recorded in English in the 1620s.

Phantasmagoric “having a fantastic appearance” is a compound of two elements. The first is phantasm “apparition, fantasy,” from Ancient Greek phántasma “image, vision.” This, in turn, comes from the verb phaínein “to bring to light, cause to appear,” which is the source of many fant- and phant- words in English, from fantastic and fantasy to hierophant and phantom. The second element in phantasmagoric is likely to be either from Ancient Greek agorá “assembly, gathering” (as in agoraphobia) or its derivative allēgoría “figurative language” (as in allegory). Phantasmagoric was first recorded in English in the early 1810s.