Word of the Day

Porphyry “a very hard, dark, purplish-red rock” derives via Middle English from Medieval Latin porphyreum, from Ancient Greek porphyrī́tēs (líthos) “purplish (stone).” The Ancient Greek word for “purple” is pórphyros, which comes from the noun porphýra “kind of shellfish yielding purple dye, the dye, cloth so dyed,” which is of uncertain origin. However, some linguists consider porphýra to have been a loanword from a pre-Greek language or a Semitic source. Porphýra was later borrowed into Latin as purpura and then into Old English as purpure, which became purple in a process known as dissimilation, when a sound in a word changes to become less like another nearby sound. Dissimilation also explains how Latin marmor becomes Old English marmel and then English marble. Porphyry was first recorded in English in the late 14th century.

Nurturance “warm physical and emotional care” is a compound of the noun nurture “upbringing; development” and the suffix -ance. Nurture derives via Middle English and Middle French from Late Latin nūtrītūra “a nourishing,” which is equivalent to the Latin verb nūtrīre (stem nūtrīt-) “to feed” plus -ūra, a noun suffix. Nūtrīre is the direct source of English nutrient and nutrition as well as French nourriture “food,” and by way of French, it is the source of nourish and nurse. Notice how the t in the nūtrīt- stem was lost as Latin evolved into French; this process of losing a consonant in the middle of a word is called syncope, and it appears in English when ever and over are abbreviated as e’er and o’er, though apostrophes are not mandatory to indicate syncope. Nurturance was first recorded in English in the late 1930s.

Tatterdemalion “unkempt or dilapidated,” first written tatter-de-mallian, is of uncertain origin, but there are some potential leads. The first element is likely tatter “a torn piece hanging loose from a garment,” from Old Norse tǫturr “rag,” but an alternative proposal based on outdated uses of tatterdemalion connects the term to Tatar or Tartar, a member of one of many ethnic Turkic groups of northwestern and central Asia, and both words once meant “wanderer, vagabond.” The second element, de (also ti), appears to be a common element in fanciful, elaborate, and nonsensical terms, from gobbledegook, hobbledehoy, and slubberdegullion to flibbertigibbet and dandiprat. The significance of the final element, malion, is unfortunately lost to history. Tatterdemalion was first recorded in the first decade of the 17th century.

Disambiguate “to remove the ambiguity from” is based on the adjective ambiguous “open to or having several possible meanings or interpretations,” plus the affixes dis-, indicating reversal, and -ate, indicating a verb. Ambiguous, from Latin ambiguus, is derived from the verb ambigere “to dispute, contend,” which is a compound of the prefix ambi- “both” and the verb agere “to do, drive.” Ambi- crops up in English terms such as ambidextrous (literally “both right-handed”), ambient (“going both (directions)”), ambivalent (“both strong”), and past Word of the Day ambivert (“turned both ways”). Agere is a rather productive verb with numerous stems: ag- appears in agenda, agent, and agile; -ig- is found in litigate, navigate, and castigate and its synonym past Word of the Day fustigate; and finally act- is found in action, activity, and exact. Disambiguate was first recorded in English in the early 1960s.

Paso doble “a two-step” is a loanword from Spanish, in which the term means “double step.” Spanish doble and English double are clear cognates—both derive from Latin duplus (literally “two more”) or duplex (literally “twofold”)—while paso is a cognate of English pace and pass, and all three derive from the Latin noun passus “step.” Passus also serves as the past participle of the verb pandere “to spread,” which is the source of English words such as expand. While Spanish simply uses no to mean “no” or “not,” its sister language French uses the phrase ne…pas, which literally means “not a step” and descends from Latin nec passum. Paso doble was first recorded in English in the late 1920s.