Word of the Day

Brummagem, an adjective and noun meaning “showy but inferior and worthless; something of that kind,” comes from the local Birmingham (England) pronunciation of Birmingham. The original (and standard) spelling and pronunciation of the city is bir-; the nonstandard or dialect spelling bru- is an example of metathesis, the transposition of sounds, a very common phenomenon. Compare Modern English bird with Middle English brid (brid was the dominant spelling until about 1475; the spelling bird is first recorded about 1419). The name Birmingham is first recorded as Bermingeham in William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book (1086); spelling variants with Br- first appear in 1198 as Brumingeham. In the mid-17th century Birmingham was renowned for its metalworking and notorious for counterfeit coins. Brummagem entered English in the second half of the 17th century.

Longanimity, “patient endurance of hardship or offense; forbearance,” comes via Middle English and Old French longanimite from Late Latin longanimitāt-, the inflectional stem of the noun longanimitās “long-suffering, patience,” a derivative of the adjective longanimis, which is a compound of the adjective longus “long” and animus “spirit, soul, mind.” Latin longanimis and longanimitās were coined by Christian Latin writers as calques or loan translations of Greek makróthymos (adjective) and makrothymía (noun) used in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible completed sometime between the 3rd and 1st centuries b.c. Longanimity entered English in the early 15th century.

Specious, “apparently good but lacking real merit; superficially pleasing or plausible; pleasing to the eye but deceptive; pleasing to the eye, fair,” comes from Latin speciōsus, which has the same ambivalent meanings. Speciōsus is a derivative of the noun speciēs, which also has the same wide range of meaning, but even the literal meaning “sight, view,” as in the common Latin phrase prīmā speciē “at first sight,” implies a “but.” Speciēs is a derivative of the verb specere “to see, look at, observe,” from the Proto-Indo-European root spek-, spok-, with the same meaning. The root appears in Sanskrit spáśati “he sees” and Avestan spasyeiti “he watches out (for), looks out (for).” In the Germanic languages spek- appears as spähen “to scout, look out” in German, and in Old Norse as spā “prophecy” (i.e., something that one has looked out for). Greek not infrequently goes its own way: it metathesizes (switches the positions of) the p and k, resulting in the Greek root skep-, skop-, as in sképtesthai “to look around, survey, spy, contemplate” (source of English skeptic and skeptical); skop- appears in Greek skopós “spy, scout; target, goal, purpose” (English scope). The Greek combining form -skopion, -skopeion “instrument for viewing” appears in microscope and telescope. Specious entered English in the late 14th century.

Pandiculation, “stretching” (as when waking up),” comes via French pandiculation from the Latin verb pandiculārī “to stretch, grimace.” Pandiculārī is a derivative of pandere “to spread out, extend.” In Latin pandiculārī occurs only twice: the first time in a play by the Roman comic playwright Plautus (d. 184 b.c.), and the second time in the Epitoma Festi by the Benedictine monk Paulus Diaconus (Paul the deacon), who died about a.d. 799. Pandiculation entered English in the early 17th century.

Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1340-1400) was the first English writer to use ydre, the nine-headed serpent. Middle French ydre derives from Latin hydra, itself a borrowing of Greek hýdra “water-serpent.” Hýdra is closely related to Greek hýdōr “water,” and both words come from the Proto-Indo-European root wed-, wod-, ud- “wet, water.” This same root is the source of wet, water, and wash in Germanic (English); of voda “water” and vodka “vodka” in Slavic (Czech), of Hittite wātar “water.” Ud- is the variant of the root for both Greek hýdōr and Old Irish uisce “water” (from unattested ud-skio-) and the immediate source of English whisky/whiskey.