Word of the Day

Paschal “of or relating to Easter or to Passover” derives from Late Latin paschālis, of the same meaning, which is the adjectival form of Pascha “Easter, Passover.” Pascha, as with many words in Latin that contain the telltale ch, is adapted from Ancient Greek Páscha, which is itself borrowed from Aramaic pasḥā. The ultimate source is Hebrew pesaḥ “Passover,” derived from the verb pāsaḥ “to pass over.” In this way, Passover is a calque of the original Hebrew term; to learn more about calques, compare the recent Word of the Day inveigle. Unlike the majority of European languages, which use derivatives of Latin Pascha for both Passover and Easter, most Germanic languages derive their term for Easter from the same source as the word east—not, per popular misconception, from a Middle Eastern goddess such as Astara or Ishtar. Paschal was first recorded in English in the early 15th century.

Indite “to compose or write, as a poem” sounds identical to the verb indict, and there’s a good reason for that: both indite and indict were originally the same word, and while indite more directly preserves the Old French spelling of enditer, indict preserves the earlier Latin spelling of indictus “having been announced.” Indictus is the perfect participle of indīcere “to announce, proclaim,” which is based on dīcere “to say, tell.” Dīcere (stem dict-) is the source of speech-related terms such as contradict, valedictorian, and (of course) dictionary, and it comes from the same ultimate source as the recent Word of the Day vendetta. Indite was first recorded in English in the mid-14th century.

Almsgiving “the act of donating to needy people” is a compound of alms “donations to needy people” and giving. The seemingly simple word alms has a complicated history; it is a contraction of Old English ælmesse, which was borrowed from Late Latin eleēmosyna, source of Word of the Day eleemosynary. While most words of Latin origin passed into Middle English by way of Old French, a minority of terms were borrowed into Old English directly from later versions of the Latin language. Other examples of early borrowings include chalk, cheese, cook, street, wall, and wine. Turning back to Late Latin, eleēmosyna derives from Ancient Greek eleēmosýnē “compassion,” from éleos “pity.” Almsgiving was first recorded in English long before the year 1000 AD.

Haček “a diacritic (ˇ) placed over a letter to indicate that a sound is palatalized” is a borrowing from Czech háček “small hook,” a diminutive of hák “hook.” The resemblance between hák and English hook is not a coincidence; hák is adapted from Middle High German hāken (compare modern German Haken) and is cognate to English hook and heckle, Dutch haak “hook” and hoek “corner,” and Icelandic haki “pick” and hækja “crutch.” An alternative name for the haček is caron, which is of unknown origin, though one hypothesis—based purely on spelling similarity, so take it with a grain of salt—is that caron is based on caret (^) and/or macron (¯). Haček was first recorded in English in the early 1950s.

Sennachie “a professional storyteller of family history” is borrowed from Scottish Gaelic seanachaidh, which comes from Old Irish senchae or senchaid “historian.” The sen- element in these Old Irish terms means “old, ancient” and is cognate with Latin senex “old; an elder.” From senex (stem sen-), English inherits senate, senescent, and senile, all of which pertain to elders, either in age or in society. The comparative form of senex is senior “older,” which is the source of senior, sir, and surly as well as French seigneur, Italian signore, and Spanish señor. Sennachie was first recorded in English in the 1530s.