Word of the Day

Voltaic “pertaining to electric currents” is the namesake of Alessandro Volta (1745–1827), an Italian physicist who experimented with electricity and is credited with inventing the battery. The Italian surname Volta has multiple possible origins, though many of the most popular hypotheses all circle back to the noun volta “turn; vault.” The noun volta ultimately comes from the Latin verb volvere “to roll, wrap,” which is the source of the elements containing vol- in evolution, involve, revolt, and volume. Another option is that the surname Volta derives from volpe “fox,” from Latin vulpēs. Voltaic was first recorded in English circa 1810.

Monsoon “rainy season” is a borrowing by way of obsolete Dutch monssoen from Portuguese monção (earlier moução), and prior to Portuguese, the term arose as Arabic mawsim “season.” Mawsim is a noun formed from the verb wasama “to mark,” which comes from an ancient Semitic root meaning “to become fitting.” This root also appears in Sivan, a month of the Jewish calendar that tends to overlap with May and June. Sivan (Hebrew sīwān) is adapted from the Akkadian word for “season,” so the similarity between Sivan and English season is merely a happy coincidence. Monsoon was first recorded in English circa 1580.

Mano a mano “a direct confrontation” is a loanword from Spanish, in which it means “hand to hand”—not “man to man,” per the common misconception. Spanish mano “hand” comes from Latin manus “hand,” which is also the source of a wide variety of English words, from manicure (“hand care”) and manuscript (“handwritten”) to maintain (“to hold with the hand”) and both maneuver and manure (“to work by hand”). Latin manus and Spanish mano are grammatically feminine nouns with masculine endings. This means that a “bad hand” in Latin is a manus mala (Spanish mano mala), with feminine mala agreeing only in grammatical gender with manus. In contrast, to use the masculine Latin noun lupus “wolf,” a “bad wolf” is a lupus malus (Spanish lobo malo), with masculine malus agreeing in gender and spelling with lupus. Mano a mano was first recorded in English in the early 1950s.

Adze “an ax-like tool” dates back more than 1000 years to the days of Old English, when it was spelled adesa, but before then, its origins are unknown. Some linguists have noted the similarity between adze and ax (or axe), but the resemblance is flimsier in Old English, in which ax is spelled æx or æces, and cannot explain a sound change from x to des. Another loose hypothesis is that adze is related to, if not derived from, Latin ascia “axe” (compare French asse “pickax”), but it seems likelier instead that English ax and Latin ascia share a common, distant origin. One clue to the potential origin of adze may lie at the other end of Europe, specifically in Turkey, where the Hittite language was spoken over 3000 years ago. English and Hittite are both members of the Indo-European language family, which may explain why English adze looks a bit like Hittite atešša “ax.” Adze was first recorded in English before 900.

Convivial “friendly, agreeable” comes from Latin convīvium “feast,” which is based on the verb convīvere “to live together, dine together.” The prefix con- “with, together” may also appear as co-, col-, com-, or cor- depending on the letter that follows, as in coincidence, colleague, comfortable, and correct, respectively. The verb vīvere “to live” and its adjective equivalent, vīvus “alive,” are the source of vivacious, vivid, revive, and survival. Of the same origin is the Latin noun vīta “life,” which is the root of vital and vitamin. Convivial was first recorded in the 1660s.