Word of the Day

Tchotchke “an inexpensive souvenir, trinket, or ornament” is a borrowing of Yiddish tshatshke, from obsolete Polish czaczko “toy, trinket” (modern Polish cacko), which is cognate with Czech čačka and Russian cacka, of the same general meaning. These Slavic terms are all most likely of imitative origin; with the addition of the diminutive suffix -ka or -ko, the original forms (Czech čača and both Polish and Russian caca) appear to be reduplicated syllables that are typical of baby talk. In case you thought it was a little strange that a word for “toy” or “trinket” would derive from a doubled syllable, bear in mind that English contains the similarly reduplicated term knickknack. Tchotchke was first recorded in English in the late 1960s.

Bildungsroman “a novel concerned with the maturing of a young protagonist” is a direct borrowing from German. The word comprises two nouns: Bildung “formation, education” and Roman “novel.” Despite its “formation” sense, Bildung is not related to English building; rather, it derives from German Bild “image, picture,” which is cognate to Old English bilithe “image,” a term with no descendants in modern English. Roman derives via a long chain of semantic shifts from Latin Rōmānus “of or relating to Rome.” Rōmānus yielded the adjective Rōmānicus “in the Roman style or pattern,” and this became Old French romanz “story in the vernacular language” and then French roman “novel,” which German borrowed as Roman. English Roman preserves the original meaning of Rōmānus. Bildungsroman was first recorded in English in the first decade of the 1900s.

Wintle “to tumble over; capsize” is a Scottish English verb derived from early Dutch/Flemish windtelen “to revolve” (compare modern Dutch wentelen, of the same meaning). The verb windtelen is a frequentative of winden “to wind,” which makes wintle a close relative of the recent Word of the Day selection wynd; both wintle and wynd come from a Germanic source roughly meaning “to twist.” A frequentative is a type of verb that expresses repetition of an action, and while English no longer creates its own frequentatives, we used to add the suffix -le to mark this aspect. Just as winden becomes the frequentative windtelen, English scuff, sniff, and spark become scuffle, sniffle, and sparkle. Wintle was first recorded in English circa 1780.

Kinesthetic “needing to move” is a compound of the Ancient Greek verb kīneîn (stem kīnē-) “to move, set in motion” and esthetic, the adjective form of the English noun esthesia “capacity for sensation or feeling.” The verb kīneîn is also the source of terms such as kinetic, a type of energy, and telekinesis, the superhuman ability to move objects with one’s mind. The noun esthesia ultimately derives from the Ancient Greek verb aisthánesthai (stem aisthë-) “to perceive,” which is the root of terms such as aesthetics, the philosophy of beauty, and synesthesia, the instinctive visualization of colors when hearing sounds. Kinesthetic was first recorded in English in the late 1870s.

Distelfink “a stylized bird motif traditional in Pennsylvania German art” is an adaptation of the Pennsylvania Dutch word dischdelfink “goldfinch,” a compound of dischdel “thistle” and fink “finch.” Although it contains the word Dutch, Pennsylvania Dutch is in fact a dialect of German, which is why it is also known as Pennsylvania German. A common misconception is that Dutch appears in this dialect’s name as an anglicized form of the German word Deutsch “German,” but in fact, the use of Dutch here reflects an archaic definition in English: “continental Germanic.” Distelfink was first recorded in English in the 1930s.