Word of the Day

You may recognize Xanadu from the notorious cult classic film of the same name that starred Olivia Newton-John and spawned a Tony Award-nominated musical, but the word dates not to the ’80s but rather to 800 years ago. Xanadu is an English transliteration of the name of the summer palace belonging to Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan and emperor during the Yuan dynasty; the palace’s name in Mandarin is Shàngdū “upper capital,” and its remains are still visitable today in the Inner Mongolia region of northern China.

Yiddish mishpocha derives from Hebrew mishpakhá “family,” as Hebrew is the source of a good portion of Yiddish vocabulary. Hebrew belongs to the Semitic family of languages and isn’t related to English, but we’ve nevertheless inherited numerous culture- and religion-related words from Hebrew, such as amen, cherub, jubilee, and hallelujah. Like its Hebrew source, mishpocha means more than just “immediate family”—it’s the collection of all blood relatives and relatives by marriage.

Rapprochement is a direct borrowing from French, in which the word means “reconciliation” or, more literally, “a state of approaching again.” If you were thinking that rapprochement sounded like reapproach, you’re exactly right; rapprochement is essentially the word approach with the French equivalent of the prefix re- “again,” plus the noun-forming suffix -ment.

Prelapsarian ultimately derives from Latin prae “before” and lāpsus “fall,” which are a reference to the biblical fall from grace and expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Lāpsus, from the verb lābī (stem lāps-) “to fall,” is the ultimate source of the English words lapse, elapse, and relapse, which all have to do with falling, whether it’s time falling away or a person falling back to old behaviors.

It should come as no surprise that beastie literally means “little beast”; the ending -ie is what is known as a diminutive suffix, a suffix that indicates smallness or, in certain contexts, either affection or condescension. Diminutive suffixes exist in many world languages; you may recognize the suffix -ito in Spanish burrito “little donkey,” or Italian graffito, the singular of graffiti—or the French suffix -ette in kitchenette “little kitchen,” or statuette “small statue.” English has several diminutives, such as -kin, as in napkin “little nape (tablecloth),” and -ling, as in darling “little dear” and gosling “little goose,” but it’s the suffix -ie, which also appears as -y, that’s the most widespread and the most productive.