Word of the Day

Heliotropic “turning toward the light” is a compound of the forms helio- “sun” and -tropic “turned toward.” Helio- comes from Ancient Greek hḗlios “sun,” which is also the source of the word helium, named for its presence in the chemical composition of the Sun. Meanwhile, -tropic is based on Ancient Greek tropikós “pertaining to a turn,” from trópos “turn.” This same root word is behind English tropical, which we tend to associate today with hot weather and the naming of storms, but the literal sense of tropical describes the zone in which the Sun travels directly overhead in the sky. Heliotropic was first recorded in English in the early 1870s.

Approximate “to estimate” is based on Late Latin approximātus “drawn near to, approached,” which is based on the verb proximāre “to near, approach,” combined with the prefix ad- “to, toward.” Proximāre ultimately comes from the Latin adjective proximus “next,” which is the superlative of prope “near.” Prope is the source of the verb propiāre “to draw near,” which combined with ad- and passed through a couple of sound changes in French, such as -pi- to -ch- because of a phenomenon called palatalization, eventually becoming English approach. Approximate was first recorded in English in the early 15th century.

Keiretsu “a loose coalition of business groups” is a compound of Japanese kei “series” and retsu “line, row.” As with many words in Japanese, both kei and retsu are originally borrowings from Middle Chinese, which exerted substantial influence on other languages in East Asia, from Japanese and Korean in the north to Vietnamese in the south. Kei is cognate with Mandarin xì, while retsu is cognate with Mandarin liè—though the common origin is clearer if we compare kei and retsu with Cantonese hai and lit. Because Mandarin gradually lost the majority of final consonants present in Middle Chinese, liè ends with a vowel, while Japanese retsu and Cantonese lit preserve the final “tuh” sound that existed in Middle Chinese. Keiretsu was first recorded in English in the late 1970s.

Laureate “having special recognition for achievement” is adapted from Latin laureātus “crowned with laurel,” ultimately from laurus “bay tree, laurel.” Though laurus is of uncertain origin and may come instead from a long-lost language of the Mediterranean, a popular theory is that laurus is related somehow to Ancient Greek dáphnē. This theory is partially based on the occasional change of Old Latin d into Classical Latin l, as with lacrima “tear” from earlier dacrima and lingua “tongue” from earlier dingua. Laureate was first recorded in English in the late 14th century.

Abseil “to descend down an incline by means of a rope” is a borrowing of German abseilen, which is a compound of ab- “down” and seilen “to rope.” Because German and English are related, German ab- is a cognate of English of and off; this makes German Ablaut, which refers to the vowel change in the verb sing–sang–sung, equivalent to English off loud. However, German seilen does not have a relative in modern standard English. Old English had sāl “rope,” but this survives today only in dialectal English as sole “a rope for tying up cattle.” Abseil was first recorded in English in the early 1930s.