Word of the Day

The noun nonesuch (also spelled nonsuch), “someone or something without equal,” is a compound of the pronoun none and the adjective such. The word’s earliest sense was as an impersonal term or neuter word meaning “something unparalleled,” a sense it still has. By the mid-17th century, nonesuch came to mean “a person without equal, beyond compare.” Nonesuch entered English in the second half of the 16th century. Middle English had the compound word non-swich, an adjective meaning “no such,” and a pronoun meaning “no such person, no such thing,” but not “someone or something without parallel.” Nonesuch entered English in the late 16th century.

The verb obnubilate, “to cloud over; obscure,” comes straight from Latin obnūbilātus, the past participle of the verb obnūbilāre “to become cloudy, to darken (the mind),” a compound verb formed from the prefix ob- “towards, in the face of, against” and the simple verb nūbilāre “to become cloudy, overcast, opaque,” a derivative of the adjective nūbilus “cloudy, overcast,” which in its turn is a derivative of the noun nūbēs “cloud.” In Latin, nūb- is a regular phonetic development from the Proto-Indo-European root sneudh- “mist, cloud” (sneudh- > snoudh- > nūb-), the source of Avestan (the language of the Zoroastrian scriptures) snaodha- “clouds, cloud cover” and Welsh nudd “fog.” Obnubilate entered English in the second half of the 16th century.

The adjective lackadaisical, “lacking interest or determination; listless; lazy; indolent,” comes from the interjection, adjective, and noun lackadaisy. Lackadaisy as an interjection expresses dismay, sorrow or disapproval; as an adjective it means “given to crying lackadaisy; and as a noun, “a person given to crying lackadaisy.” Lackadaisy is a variant of the archaic interjection lackaday, a shortened variant of alack the day. Middle English has the interjection alacke (also alagge), possibly related to the noun lak, lack(e) “a lack, fault, shortcoming,” and alack the day may have originally meant “shame on the day (for turning out like this),” like alas the day. Lackadaisical weakened in meaning from a person who cried lackadaisy to someone who complained about trivialities, then still further to someone who was sentimental, and finally to someone who was just lazy. Lackadaisical entered English in the second half of the 18th century.

The English verb machinate comes from Latin māchinātus, the past participle of the verb māchinārī “to invent, contrive, devise artfully, plot.” Māchinārī has both neutral and pejorative senses, but English machinate has mostly pejorative or hostile senses. Māchinārī is a derivative of the noun māchina “apparatus, mechanism, machine,” a borrowing from Doric Greek māchanā́ “contrivance, machine, crane.” Machinate entered English in the first half of the 16th century.

Hardscrabble, “yielding a meager return for much effort,” is an Americanism that originally began as two separate words: the adjective hard “difficult, arduous” and the noun scrabble “scratching, clawing, scramble”; the phrase meant “painful effort under hard conditions,” later applied particularly to farmland that required much work for little reward. By the first half of the 19th century, Hard-Scrabble (variously spelled) was used as a placename for a remote town or region where life was difficult. The current sense “yielding meager results” dates from the second half of the 19th century. Hardscrabble entered English in the second half of the 18th century.