Word of the Day

Tocsin, “a signal, especially an alarm sounded on a bell,” comes via Old French toquesin, touquesaint, tocsaint from Provençal tocasenh. Tocasenh is a compound made up of the verb tocar “to strike” (French toucher, English touch), from Vulgar Latin toccāre “to touch” and senh “a bell, note of a bell,” from Medieval Latin signum “a bell,” from Latin signum “a mark or sign; a signal.” Tocsin entered English in the second half of the 16th century.

Irrefragable, “not to be disputed or contested,” comes from Late Latin irrefragābilis, literally “unable to be broken back,” and an easy word to break down into its components. The prefix ir- is the variant that the Latin negative prefix in- (from the same Proto-Indo-European source as English un-) takes before r-. The element re- means “back, back again,” thoroughly naturalized in English; here re- forms part of the verb refragārī “to oppose (a candidate); resist; militate against” (fragārī is possibly a variant of frangere “to break”; refragārī means “to break back”). The suffix -ābilis is formed from the connecting vowel -ā- and the adjective suffix -bilis, which shows capability or ability, and is the source of English -able. Irrefragable entered English in the first half of the 16th century.

Celerity, “swiftness; speed,” comes via Middle French célérité from Latin celeritās (inflectional stem celeritāt-) “swiftness, quickness, speed,” a derivative of the adjective celer. Celer comes from the Proto-Indo-European root kel- “to drive, incite to quick motion” and the suffix -es- (Old Latin keles- regularly changes to Classical Latin celer-). The Latin adjective celeber, also celebris “busy, crowded, frequented” (source of English celebrate, celebrated) is also formed from kel-. The root also appears in Greek kélēs “runner, racer, racehorse, fast ship.” Celerity entered English in the second half of the 15th century.

Fletcherize, “to chew (food) slowly and thoroughly so as to extract its maximum nutrition,” is named after Horace Fletcher (1849-1919), a self-taught U.S. nutritionist and author. During his lifetime Fletcher was known as the “Great Masticator” for his insistence that food be chewed until liquefied before swallowing and for his slogan "Nature will castigate those who don't masticate." Other food reformers of the 19th century include Sylvester Graham (1794-1851), who inspired the graham cracker. Herman Melville refers to graham crackers in his novel Pierre; or The Ambiguities (1852): “They went about huskily muttering the Kantian Categories through teeth and lips dry and dusty as any miller's, with the crumbs of Graham crackers." And John Harvey Kellogg (1852-1943) was a U.S. physician and nutritionist best known today for his invention of corn flakes. Fletcherize entered English in the early 20th century.

Noetic, “relating to the mind; originating in or comprehended by the reason,” is very common in all genres of Greek literature, but especially in Platonic, Aristotelian, and Neoplatonic philosophy. The word comes straight from the Greek adjective noētikós “intellectual,” a derivative of the noun nóēsis “thought, intelligence.” Nóēsis is a derivative of the verb noeîn, which in turn comes from the noun noûs, the Attic Greek contracted variant of general Greek nóos “mind, sense, intellect” (Attic Greek, the dialect of Attica, whose capital was Athens, was the basis for Koine or standardized Greek after the late 4th century). As with about 60 percent of ancient Greek vocabulary, there is no convincing etymology for noûs, nóos. In colloquial British usage, nous (rhyming with mouse, not with moose) also means “common sense, practical intelligence.” Noetic entered English in the middle of the 17th century.