Word of the Day

Volplane “to glide toward the earth in an airplane with no power” is an adaptation of the French noun vol plané “glided flight.” French vol can mean either “flight” or “theft” depending on the context, which gives the name of the nearly invincible villain Voldemort from the Harry Potter series the double meaning of “flight from death” or “theft of death.” Vol comes from the Latin verb volāre “to fly,” which is the source of volatile as well as the recent Word of the Day volant. French plané is the past participle of planer “to glide,” which ultimately comes from the Latin adjective plānus “flat,” likely in reference to how gliding is a horizontal motion. Of course, airplane is related to volplane, but airplane comes instead by way of the French adjective plan “flat.” Volplane was first recorded in English between 1905 and 1910.

Inamorata “a female sweetheart or lover” comes from Italian innamorata, the feminine past participle of the verb innamorare “to inflame with love,” which is the Italian equivalent of the French-origin verb enamor (from Old French enamourer). Both verbs ultimately come from the Latin noun amor “love,” combined with the prefix in- and a verbal suffix. It is important to note here that the prefix in- here does not make inamorata mean “unloved”; Latin has two in- prefixes, one of which is negative and translates as “not” or “un-,” and the other of which is an intensive, indicating increased emphasis or force. The similarity between the two in- prefixes also explains why flammable and inflammable have the same general meaning—and why non-flammable is often used to clearly mean “not flammable.” Inamorata was first recorded in English circa 1650.

Zooid “any organic body capable of independent existence” is a compound of two combining forms: zo- and -oid. While -oid comes from the Ancient Greek element -oeidēs, meaning “having the form of,” the stem zo- (also zoo-) comes from Ancient Greek zôion “animal.” Other common words containing this stem are zodiac (literally meaning “animal sign”), Protozoa (“first animals”), and zoology (“animal study”)—and, of course, zoo. A related word in Ancient Greek is zōḗ “life,” which is the source of the name Zoe. Zooid was first recorded in English in the early 1850s.

Churrasco “meat cooked over an open fire” is a loanword from Brazilian Portuguese and, beforehand, from the varieties of Latin American Spanish spoken in Argentina and Uruguay. The term appears to be related to or even derived from Spanish chamuscar “to scorch, singe,” churruscar “to begin to burn,” and/or socarrar “to scorch, singe,” but the connections are unclear. Chamuscar is a borrowing from Portuguese and may be distantly related to Latin flamma “flame” (compare Portuguese chama) or ustus “burnt” (compare English combustion). Churruscar and socarrar may be of pre-Roman origin, but alternative theories claim that churruscar is simply an imitation of the sound of grilling or roasting, while socarrar is connected to Basque (Euskera) words related to fire, such as su “fire” and gar (or karra) “flame.” Churrasco was first recorded in English in the late 1910s.

Cygnet “a young swan” was spelled during the Middle English period as signet but is based on Latin cygnus “swan,” plus the French suffix -et “little, small” (as in owlet “little owl” and tablet “little table”). This habit of changing the spelling of words to reflect their origins, also called restored spelling, is hardly limited to cygnet; take a gander at arctic, asthma, debt, homily, horizon, receipt, and symptom, which were respectively spelled in Middle or Early Modern English as artik, asma, dette, omelie, orizonte, receite, and sinthoma but changed to reflect their earlier forms in Latin or Ancient Greek. Despite the spelling of cygnet as signet in Middle English, cygnet is not related to the modern English word signet “a small seal, as on a finger ring,” which is a compound of sign and the suffix -et. Cygnet was first recorded in English in the early 15th century.