Word of the Day

Perse “of a very deep shade of blue or purple,” despite the similar spelling, is not related to per se “by itself” or purse “handbag.” Instead, perse comes from Latin perseus “kind of blue,” which does not come from Perseus, the Ancient Greek hero, but rather likely derives from Persicus “Persian.” The connection here is that fabrics containing the hue in question were imported from the Middle East. Perse is far from the only color named after an Asian country; compare turquoise, after Turkey, and indigo, after India. A fruity word with the same origin as perse is peach, which comes by way of French and Latin from Ancient Greek mêlon persikón “Persian apple.” Perse was first recorded in English in the mid-14th century.

Ukiyo-e “a style of painting that depicts leisure activities” is equivalent to ukiyo “transitory world, floating world” combined with e (also we) “picture.” Ukiyo itself is formed from uki “floating” and yo “world,” while e is also found in emoji, which literally means “picture character, pictograph.” E is a borrowing from Middle Chinese and therefore has cognates in modern Chinese, including Mandarin huì and Cantonese kui “to draw.” The hyphen in ukiyo-e is merely to prevent readers from mispronouncing the yo-e portion as a single syllable, “yoh,” instead of as the correct “yoh-ey”; other transliterations include ukiyoe, ukiyoé, and ukiyo-we. Ukiyo-e was first recorded in English in the late 1890s.

Wizen “to wither” comes from Old English wisnian, of the same meaning. Despite the similar spelling, wizen is not related to wise or wizard—though many wizards are certainly both wise and wizened. Wise is also of Old English origin (spelled as wīs) and is closely related to wisdom and wit. All three of these words come from an ancient Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to see, know” that is also the source of Druid (from Celtic), history (from Ancient Greek), Veda (from Sanskrit), and vision (from Latin). Meanwhile, wizard is formed from wise and the noun-forming suffix -ard. Wizen was first recorded in English before the year 900.

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.