Word of the Day

Belvedere, “a building, or architectural feature of a building, designed and situated to look out upon a pleasing scene,” comes straight from Italian belvedere “beautiful view,” a compound of bel, bello “beautiful” (from Latin bellus “pretty, charming”) and the infinitive vedere “to see” (from Latin vidēre), here used as a noun meaning "view or sight." In Italian architecture a belvedere is an upper story, or part of one, or even a small tower or kiosk that is open to the air on at least one side, affording a pleasing view and an opportunity to enjoy the cool air of the evening. Belvedere entered English in the first half of the 16th century.

Shivoo “a loud party” is an Australian colloquialism of uncertain origin. An earlier spelling, shiveau, appears at the end of the 18th century in the U.K. The nearly 20 spelling variants, including chevaux and cheveaux, lead some scholars to suggest that the origin of shivoo may be from the French phrase chez vous “at your house.” The Australian spelling shivoo dates from 1881.

Paucity “smallness of quantity; scarcity; scantiness,” comes via Old or Middle French paucité from Latin paucitāt-, the inflectional stem of paucitās “smallness of quantity; scarcity; scantiness,” a derivative of the adjective paucus “few” (because of its intrinsic meaning, paucus is usually used in the plural). Paucus is also the source of Italian poco “a little,” i.e., the musical direction meaning “somewhat, a little,” and of poco a poco “little by little, gradually.” The Proto-Indo-European root underlying the Latin words is pau-, pōu-, pəu-, pu- (with still more variants) “few, a few, little, low,” which also usually is extended by consonant suffixes. Latin pau- with a suffixed -l forms the adjective paulus, paullus “little, small,” the Roman surname Paullus, and the English forename Paul. The variant root pu- with a suffixed -er forms the Latin noun puer “boy, child”; the diminutive of puer is puellus “a young boy,” and puella, the feminine of puellus, therefore means “girl.” The root pau- becomes the Proto-Germanic root faw-; its derived adjective fawaz “few, a little,” becomes fēawa, fēa in Old English, and few in modern English. Paucity entered English in the first half of the 15th century.

Neophyte "a beginner or novice" ultimately comes from Greek neóphytos “newly planted” (grains, vines), a compound of neo-, a combining form of the adjective néos “new,” and -phytós “planted,” a derivative of phýein “to make grow, bring forth, beget.” Neóphytos first appears in the works of the Athenian comic dramatist Aristophanes (died ca. 385 b.c.), and it keeps its literal, agricultural sense down to the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible that was completed by the 1st century b.c. Neóphytos in the sense “new convert” (to Christianity) first appears in I Timothy, one of the Pastoral Epistles traditionally ascribed to St. Paul. Neóphytos in its new sense was adopted by Christian Latin authors as neophytus; neophytus was sufficiently established for St. Jerome to use it in his Latin translation from the Greek I Timothy. The general, modern sense “beginner” first appears in Ben Jonson’s play Every Man out of His Humor (1600). Neophyte entered English in the 15th century.

The Latin sentence non sequitur, “it doesn’t follow” in English is used as a noun whose original meaning was “an inference or a conclusion that does not follow from the premises,” i.e., a logical fallacy, a usage established by Cicero in the 1st century b.c. A typical example of such a fallacy is: “If X is true, then Y is true. But Y is true. Therefore, X is true.” Nowadays non sequitur mostly means “a statement containing an illogical conclusion,” especially a conclusion that is amusing, whether intentional or not, or "something said or written that is unrelated to what immediately precedes."