Word of the Day
Learn a new word every day! The Dictionary.com team of language experts carefully selects each Word of the Day to add some panache to your vocabulary.
of marriage or wedlock; matrimonial; conjugal.
Connubial “of marriage or wedlock” derives from Latin cōnūbiālis, from cōnūbium “wedding,” plus the adjective-forming suffix -ālis. Cōnūbium, in turn, is a compound of com- “together, with” and nūbere “to wed,” and nūbere (stem nupt-) is the source of marriage-related words such as nubile, nuptial, and prenup. Nūbere is of obscure origin, but one theory is that its original definition was “to cover oneself with a veil,” which would suggest a derivation from nūbēs “cloud.”
a suspension of activity.
Moratorium “a suspension of activity” comes directly from Late Latin morātōrius “tending to delay,” a derivative of the verb morārī “to delay,” from the noun mora “delay, hindrance, pause.” The ending -ōrius “tending to” is also found as -orium or -ory in English terms for places in which a certain action occurs regularly, such as auditorium, a place where something is heard, and dormitory, a place for sleeping.
something that attracts strongly.
Lodestone, “a variety of magnetite that possesses magnetic polarity” in its non-figurative sense, is a compound of lode and stone. While lode most often refers to a metal-bearing deposit or, in dialectal English, a waterway, its original meaning in Old English, as lád, was “way, course,” and from there, its definition expanded to indicate something to follow, such as a channel or a vein of ore. Lode is a variant spelling of load, which went in a different semantic direction, shifting from a travel route to the heavy objects to be carried along such a route, likely with influence from the unrelated yet similar-sounding verb lade “to put a load or burden on.”
a school, college, or university at which one has studied and, usually, from which one has graduated.
Alma mater “a school where one has studied” comes from a Latin phrase that means “nourishing mother.” The first half, alma “nourishing” or “kind,” derives from an Indo-European root appearing variously as al-, el-, ol-, or ul- that is found frequently in words connected to nourishment or, more generally, the life cycle. Alumnus means “nourished one” in Latin, while alimony derives from the noun alimōnia “feeding” or “nourishment,” and the verb coalēscere, the source of coalesce, literally means “to grow up together.” Adolescent and adult come from the same Latin verb, adolēscere, and respectively mean “becoming mature” and “having matured,” and prolific and proliferate derive from prōlēs “offspring.” This same Indo-European root found in alma appears in English as well, in words such as old, elder, and alderman, and in the Scots phrase auld lang syne.
hypnotize; petrify.
Gorgonize is ultimately derived, via Latin, from Ancient Greek Gorgṓ, which comes from the adjective gorgós “dreadful” and is the original Greek name for each of the Gorgons, the triumvirate of mythic sisters with snakes for hair and whose appearance was so frightful that anyone who looked at them directly would turn to stone. The Gorgons were named Euryale, Medusa, and Stheno, and Medusa is the most famous of the three because of her mortality, which allowed for Perseus to behead her by using her reflection in his shield to guide his sword.
