Word of the Day

Coronach “a song for the dead” is a borrowing from either Irish Gaelic coránach or Scottish Gaelic corranach, both meaning “dirge.” These two words are compounds of the prefix comh- “together” and Scottish Gaelic rànach “outcry.” If comh- looks a little familiar to you, there’s a good reason for that; comh- is cognate to Latin con- (also co-, col-, com-, cor-), also meaning “together, with.” Irish and Scottish Gaelic are both Celtic languages, which constitute a branch of the Indo-European family; Latin is also an Indo-European language, but it belongs to the Italic branch. As Indo-European languages, Irish and Scottish Gaelic are bound to share numerous cognates with Latin, but the high degree of similarity between the Celtic and Italic branches has prompted some linguists to propose an Italo-Celtic grouping within the Indo-European family. Coronach was first recorded in English in the 1490s.

Barchan “a crescent-shaped sand dune” is a borrowing by way of Russian barkhan from Kazakh barxan, of the same meaning. Kazakh is a member of the Turkic language family, which is found in large pockets from the eastern Mediterranean to central Siberia, as we learned about in the etymology for the recent Word of the Day yurt. Because most Turkic language-speaking countries today were once part of the former USSR, the Russian language has absorbed numerous loanwords from Turkic tongues, from Abkhaz and Azerbaijani in the west of Asia to Kazakh and Kyrgyz in the center. Barchan was first recorded in English in the late 1880s.

Oenology “the science of viniculture” derives from Ancient Greek oînos “wine,” plus the suffix -logy, which derives from Ancient Greek lógos “word, saying” but is often used in English to denote a field of study. Oînos (earlier woinos) is a cognate of Latin vīnum “wine,” and as we learned about in the etymology for the recent Word of the Day violescent, oînos and vīnum belong to a small family of cognate pairs (along with íon/viola “violet” and elaíā/olīva “olive”) that demonstrate how Ancient Greek dropped its w sound (represented by the letter digamma) while Latin retained its v (pronounced as w). In the field of linguistics, one never knows how the presence of a sound in one language can hint at the loss of an entire letter in another language. Oenology was first recorded in English circa 1810.

Guillemet “a mark used in French to enclose quotations” is a diminutive of the name Guillaume, the French cognate of William. As we learned in the etymology for the recent Word of the Day will-o’-the-wisp, William comes from a Germanic name roughly meaning “desired helmet.” Although guillemets first appeared in 1527, they may have been named after the French printer Guillaume Le Bé, who would have been a toddler in the late 1520s when guillemets emerged in print. When an item is named after its inventor, it is often called a namesake or an eponym, but in the case of the guillemet, which takes its name from someone incorrectly assumed to be its inventor, it is a misnomer “a misapplied or inappropriate name or designation.” Guillemet was first recorded in English in the early 20th century.

Togated “clad in a toga” comes by way of Latin togātus, of the same meaning, from toga, the one-piece robe-like garment that typifies the people of the Roman Empire. Toga belongs to a family of Latin words spelled variously as tect-, teg-, and tog- that all pertain to covering, such as through clothing or architecture. To see this family of words in action, compare integument, a technical term for the skin; protect, from Latin tegere (stem tect-) “to cover”; and even tile, derived by way of Old English from Latin tēgula “roof-tile.” As we learned from the recent Word of the Day cordiform, according to a rule known as Grimm’s law, Latin t often corresponds to English th, and if you want to find a cognate of togated in English, look no further than thatch “a material for covering roofs.” Togated was first recorded in English in the early 17th century.