Word of the Day
Learn a new word every day! The Dictionary.com team of language experts carefully selects each Word of the Day to add some panache to your vocabulary.
a highly elastic solid substance, light cream or dark amber in color, polymerized by the drying and coagulation of the latex or milky juice of rubber trees and plants.
Caoutchouc “rubber” is a borrowing from French, which adapted the term from obsolete Spanish cauchuc (modern caucho), and from here is where the history becomes obscure. Because the Indigenous languages of the Americas have overall not received enough documentation and analysis, linguists assign caoutchouc to multiple possible languages, and there is substantial disagreement among sources. One proposal is that caoutchouc derives from Tupi, which we learned about from the recent Word of the Day maringouin. Another possibility is an origin in Carib, a language of the Cariban family with several thousand speakers in northern coastal South America. Some reputable sources claim a derivation from Quechua, which we learned about from the recent Word of the Day pampero, but other sources eliminate that connection outright. Perhaps the only way to find the true, incontrovertible origin of caoutchouc is to support research in Indigenous languages, especially because 2022 marks the beginning of the UNESCO Indigenous Languages Decade. What we do know is that caoutchouc was first recorded circa 1770s.
(of rocks) containing iron and magnesium, with little or no silica.
Ultramafic “containing iron and magnesium” is a compound of the combining form ultra- “going beyond what is usual or ordinary” and the adjective mafic “relating to rocks rich in ferromagnesian materials.” Ultra- is borrowed from the Latin preposition ultrā “on the far side (of), beyond,” while mafic is a coinage based on magnesium and Latin ferrum “iron.” The ultimate origin of magnesium is the Ancient Greek phrase (hē) Magnēsía (líthos) “the stone of Magnesia,” in which Magnēsía denotes an uncertain location in either modern-day Greece or Turkey. From this same source, English inherits magnet and manganese. Latin ferrum is the source of modern Romance terms for “iron” (compare French fer and Spanish hierro) and is of obscure origin, though one hypothesis connects ferrum to English brass, and another connects it to a Semitic source akin to Hebrew barzel “iron.” Ultramafic was first recorded in English in the early 1940s.
from the founding of the city (Rome, about 753 b.c.).
Ab urbe condita “from the founding of the city” is a phrase borrowed from Latin; spelled with the traditional macrons to indicate vowel length, the phrase is properly ab urbe conditā, literally “(in the year) from the founded city.” The preposition ab “away from, out of, since” is a common element in Latin-origin terms such as abduct (originally “to lead away”), abrupt (“to break away”), and absent (“to be away”), and its variant form abs- appears in abstain (“to hold away”) and abstract (“to draw away”). Urbe is the ablative (prepositional object) form of urbs “city,” which is also the root of urban and suburb (“under the city”), while conditā is the perfect participle of the verb condere “to build, conceal, compose,” the source of abscond, condiment, and condition. Ab urbe condita was first recorded in English in the early 17th century.
to engage in a drunken revel.
Carouse “to engage in a drunken revel” is a variant of garouse, which derives from German gar aus(trinken) “(to drink) fully out,” that is, to drain the cup. German gar “done, cooked; even, very” is a cognate of archaic English yare “quick, lively, ready,” while austrinken is a compound of aus “out” and trinken “to drink.” In this way, gar austrinken is to go “all out” while drinking. Despite the similar spelling, carouse and the related noun carousal “a noisy or drunken feast” are not related to carousel, a merry-go-round. While carouse is of German extraction, carousel derives by way of French from Italian, and there are multiple competing theories for its origin. Carouse was first recorded in English in the 1550s.
fancifully varied in color, decoration, etc.
The story of harlequin “fancifully varied in color and decoration” is chock full of semantic twists and turns—creating a devilishly good time the further back in time we peer. Harlequin is borrowed by way of Middle French from Italian arlecchino, and before that, the term originated in Old French variously as halequin, hellequin, and herlekin, the name of or a term for a malevolent spirit. Despite the resemblance to English hell, these Old French words may in fact derive from an Old English name, Herla cyning “King Herle.” Herle may have been a legendary or mythological figure similar to Woden (the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Odin), or the term Herla cyning could be related to the recent Word of the Day erlking “elf king,” though there are issues with the phonology in the latter hypothesis. An alternative origin of Herla is a Germanic root meaning “army” that is also found in the names Harold, Herbert, Herman, Walter, Warner, and even Oliver. Harlequin was first recorded in English in the 1580s.
