Word of the Day

Wistful “pensive in a melancholy way” is likely a compound of the adjective whist (also wist) “quiet, silent, attentive” and the suffix -ful, perhaps because of the influence of the adjective wishful. As an interjection, whist is used to mean “hush! silence! be still!” Whist is likely of imitative origin and belongs to a class of similar-sounding interjections, along with hist, hush, and sh, that are used to demand silence. The sibilant sounds s and sh appear to be universal sounds indicating silence that appear in disparate languages, from Latin st to Finnish hys and Swahili usu. These widespread, common sounds are not the result of baby talk, as with the recent Word of the Day selection babushka; rather, they are onomatopoeic. Alternatively, wistful could simply be an alteration of the adverb wistly “with close intention.” Wistful was first recorded circa 1610.

Cavort “to behave in a high-spirited, festive manner,” earlier cavault, is of uncertain origin. One hypothesis is a connection to curvet “a leap of a horse from a rearing position”; curvet ultimately derives via Italian corvette and French courbette from the Latin adjective curvus “crooked, bent, curved.” An alternative hypothesis is a link to vault, in the sense “to leap over,” which follows a path similar to that of curvet above: vault comes by way of French volter and Italian voltare, both meaning “to turn,” from Latin volvere, of the same meaning. Whether cavort is simply a corruption of curvet, an elaboration of vault, or a compound of curvet and vault remains unclear. Cavort was first recorded in English circa 1790.

Encumber “to impede or hinder” derives via Middle English from the Anglo-French noun combre “dam, weir”; just as encumber involves restricting action, the purpose of a dam is to restrict the movement of water. Combre ultimately comes from unattested Gaulish comberos “confluence, bringing together,” which may derive from two Proto-Indo-European roots: kom “with” (compare the Latin-derived prefix co- “together”) and bher- “to carry, bring” (compare English bear and the -fer element in the Latin-origin verbs prefer, refer, and transfer). Encumber was first recorded in English in the early 1300s.

Hiemal “of or relating to winter” comes from Latin adjective hiemālis, of the same meaning, from hiems “winter.” Another adjective related to hiems is hībernus “wintry,” which is the source of hibernal and hibernate. Hiems comes from the Proto-Indo-European root ghei- “winter,” which is also the source of Ancient Greek chiṓn “snow” and cheimṓn “winter” as well as Sanskrit hima “snow,” as in Himalayas, the mountain range in southern Asia. The English word winter, in contrast, derives instead from the same root as water and wet. Hiemal was first recorded in English in the 1550s.

Ecliptic “the circle formed by the intersection of the plane of the earth’s orbit with the celestial sphere” comes by way of Middle English and Medieval Latin from Ancient Greek ekleiptikós “of an eclipse,” from the verb ekleípein “to leave out, “to fail to appear, to forsake one’s place.” These latter senses of ekleípein inform the definition of eclipse, an event in which the sun or moon refuses to appear. Ekleípein comes from the Proto-Indo-European root leikw- “to leave” and is related to the English numbers eleven and twelve, from Old English endleofan and twelfe, literally “one left over” and “two left over” (after counting to ten). An additional relative is the Latin verb linquere “to forsake, leave, quit” (as in delinquent, derelict, and relinquish). Ecliptic was first recorded in English in the late 1300s.