Word of the Day

Fiddlesticks originally was the plural of fiddlestick, “the bow used to play a violin or fiddle,” which dates to the first half of the 15th century. By the second half of the 18th century, the phrase fiddlestick’s end meant “nothing” (a fiddlestick ends in a point); fiddlestick’s end, reduced also to fiddlestick and fiddlesticks, was used as an expression of mild annoyance or dismissal.

Dissilient, “bursting apart or open,” is primarily a botanical term referring to ripe pods or capsules of some plants bursting apart. Dissilient comes from Latin dissiliēns (inflectional stem dissilient-), the present participle of dissilīre, “to leap apart,” a compound of the prefix dis- “apart, asunder, away” and -silīre, a derivative of the simple verb salīre “to leap, jump, spurt.” Dissilient entered English in the second half of the 17th century.

The English adjective picaresque, “pertaining to or resembling rogues,” is modeled on Spanish picaresco “pertaining to or resembling a pícaro” (i.e., a rogue or vagabond), which first appears in print in Spanish in 1569. Picaresque in the sense “pertaining to a kind of narrative fiction” first appears in print in English in 1810; Spanish picaresco in the same sense appears in 1836. The etymology of pícaro is contested: it may come from the verb picar “to prick, pierce,” from Vulgar Latin piccāre, and be related to Latin pīcus “woodpecker.” Pícaro first appears in print in Spanish in the first half of the 16th century in the phrase pícaro de cozina “kitchen knave”; it was not a literary term. Pícaro in the sense “hero of a genre of novel” first appears in English in the first half of the 17th century.

Ravelment, “entanglement; confusion,” is a compound of the verb ravel “to tangle, entangle” and the noun suffix -ment, here denoting a resulting state. Ravel most likely comes from Dutch ravelen “to become entangled or confused, (of fabric or thread) to fray.” Ravelment entered English in the first half of the 19th century.

Predilection, “a tendency to think favorably of something; partiality; preference,” has several origins. One is Middle French prédilection, from the second half of the 15th century; another is Italian predilezione from the early 17th century ; and the final source is the rare Medieval Latin noun praedīlectiō (inflectional stem praedīlectiōn-), dating from the 10th century. Praedīlectiō is a derivative of the verb praedīligere, “to prefer over others,” a compound of the preposition and prefix prae, prae- “before” and dīligere “to love” (usually not as strong as amāre). Dīligere in turn is a compound of the prefix dis- “apart” and the simple verb legere “to choose, select.” Predilection entered English in the first half of the 17th century.