Word of the Day

Osculate,  "to kiss,” comes from the Latin verb ōsculārī “to kiss,” which is based on the noun ōsculum “kiss” or, literally, “little mouth.” Ōsculum comprises ōs (stem ōr-) “mouth” and -culum, a diminutive suffix that we learned about last week from the Word of the Day canicular. Ōs is the source of oral and orifice but not of any word for “mouth” in modern Romance languages; the likely reason for this is confusion between ōs and the similar-sounding os (stem oss-) “bone,” which is the source of Italian/Portuguese osso and Spanish hueso. With os winning this phonetic battle, Latin bucca “cheek” eventually evolved into modern Romance words for “mouth,” such as French bouche, Italian bocca, and Portuguese and Spanish boca. Osculate was first recorded in English in the 1650s.

Terraqueous “consisting of land and water” is a compound of Latin terra “land” and English aqueous “watery,” which is based on Latin aqua “water.” As we learned from the recent Words of the Day terrene and torrid, terra once referred specifically to dry land, and the term ultimately won out over tellūs (compare the recent Word of the Day telluric) in evolving into the words for “land” in modern Romance languages, such as French terre, Romanian țară, and Spanish tierra. In contrast, aqua did not have to compete with any synonyms in Latin, and it gave rise to French eau, Italian acqua, Romanian apă, and Spanish agua. Terraqueous was first recorded in English in the 1650s.

Ansa, “a handle-shaped region of Saturn’s rings,” is a borrowing of Latin ānsa “handle, loop, clamp.” As a regular Latin noun, the plural in Latin is ānsae, and the plural in English is ansae (sometimes stylized as ansæ). Descendants of ansa in modern Romance languages include anse in French as well as asa in both Portuguese and Spanish. Beyond Latin, ansa has few known relatives, but potential matches appear in various Indo-European languages, from Ancient Greek to Icelandic to Lithuanian. Ansa was first recorded in English in the early 15th century.

Mezzaluna, “a crescent-shaped chopping knife,” literally means “half-moon, crescent” in Italian and is a compound of mezza, feminine of mezzo “middle,” and luna “moon” (compare the recent Words of the Day lunisolar and perilune). Mezzo, which is also the source of the loanword mezzanine “the lowest balcony in a theater,” comes from Latin medius “middle,” which is a distant relative and synonym of English middle and Ancient Greek mésos. A common trend is for Latin -cae-, -di-, -te-, and similar combinations before vowels to become -zz- in Italian. Just as medius became mezzo, Latin Nīcaea “Nice” became Italian Nizza, puteus “(water) well” became pozzo, and statiō “standing-place” became stazzo “fold, pen.” Mezzaluna was first recorded in English in the early 1950s.

Areology is based on the Ancient Greek word for Ares, the god of war, plus -logy, which indicates the science or study of a topic. Some linguists have traditionally derived Ares from the Greek word for “damage, disaster, doom,” but others consider the name to come from a lost language once spoken in what is now Greece. Take care not to confuse the god Ares with the constellation Aries, which is unrelated and comes from the Latin word for “ram.” Areology was first recorded in English in the early 1880s.