Word of the Day

Will-o’-the-wisp “a flitting phosphorescent light seen at night” is an abbreviated form of the term Will with the wisp. In this term, Will is the common nickname for William, while wisp refers to a small bundle of straw or hay that is lit for use as a torch. The name William derives from a Germanic name roughly meaning “desired helmet”; compare English will “the power of control the mind has over its own actions” and helm “a medieval helmet completely enclosing the head.” The inclusion of the nickname Will in will-o’-the-wisp is for the same reason why the nickname Jack appears in jack-o’-lantern, which used to be a synonym of will-o’-the-wisp: both Will and Jack were common names in England at the time, and they were used as stock names for the mythical figure who carried a light in marshland at night. Will-o’-the-wisp was first recorded in English in the first decade of the 1600s.

Corvine “of or relating to crows” derives from the Latin adjective corvīnus, from the noun corvus “raven” and the adjectival suffix -īnus. A common misconception is that corvus shares an origin with the similar-sounding English word crow, but in fact—as we learned from the recent Word of the Day ravenous—corvus shares an origin instead with English raven. Latin c- frequently corresponds to Old English h-, and Latin corvus is therefore related to Old English hrǣfn, which became raven in modern English. This pattern also explains how Latin caput connects to English head (Old English hēafod) and how Latin cor (stem cord-) is cognate to English heart (Old English heorte). Corvine was first recorded in the 1650s.

Skookum “large, powerful, impressive” derives from Chinook Jargon, a pidgin spoken primarily during the 1800s in the Pacific Northwest that still has hundreds of speakers today. A pidgin is a simplified language variety that fuses elements from multiple languages, and Chinook Jargon is primarily based on four sources: English, French, Lower Chinook (a Chinookan language once spoken along the Columbia River), and Nootka (a Wakashan language still spoken along the western coast of Vancouver Island). However, skookum entered Chinook Jargon instead from Lower Chehalis, a Salishan language once spoken in the southwestern coastal area of the Olympic Peninsula; skookum derives from Lower Chehalis skwəkwə́m “ghost, spirit, monster.” Skookum was first recorded in English circa 1830.

Cantillate “to chant” derives from Late Latin cantillāre “to sing low, hum,” a verb formed from the stem cant- “sing” and the diminutive element -ill-. Cant- ultimately derives from the verb canere “to sing” and is the source of many words related to song, pronunciation, persuasion, and even light magic. While cant- is preserved in words such as cantor, in many stems, Latin a- often becomes e- after a prefix is added; this is how cant- becomes the cent- element in accent (from Latin accentus “speaking tone”) and in incentive (from Latin incentīvus “setting the tune”). Because Latin ca- often becomes cha- in French, the Latin stem cant- is visible today in the French-derived word enchant. Cantillate was first recorded in English in the early 1860s.

Tchotchke “an inexpensive souvenir, trinket, or ornament” is a borrowing of Yiddish tshatshke, from obsolete Polish czaczko “toy, trinket” (modern Polish cacko), which is cognate with Czech čačka and Russian cacka, of the same general meaning. These Slavic terms are all most likely of imitative origin; with the addition of the diminutive suffix -ka or -ko, the original forms (Czech čača and both Polish and Russian caca) appear to be reduplicated syllables that are typical of baby talk. In case you thought it was a little strange that a word for “toy” or “trinket” would derive from a doubled syllable, bear in mind that English contains the similarly reduplicated term knickknack. Tchotchke was first recorded in English in the late 1960s.