Word of the Day

The British adjective gormless, “lacking in vitality or intelligence; stupid, dull, or clumsy,” with the variant spellings gaumless and gawm(b)less, is probably a respelling of gaumless by r-less speakers. Gaumless comes from the Northern English and Scots noun gaum “heed, attention,” from Old Norse gaumr, with the same meaning. Gormless entered English in the mid-18th century.

The rare noun droke has two meanings: “a valley with steeply sloping sides” and “a thicket of small trees or bushes.” Droke is restricted pretty much to Canada—the Atlantic Provinces (New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island) and the Northwest Territories. Droke has no established etymology; but the dialects of the West Country, a loosely defined area of southwest England comprising Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset (at least), record the nouns drock "a wooden part of a plow" and droke "a furrow or ditch; an underground watercourse." Droke entered English in the second half of the 18th century.

Infinitesimal comes from New Latin infīnītēsimālis, infīnītēsimus, a compound of Latin infīnītus “unspecified, indefinite, unrestricted, unlimited, infinite” and the adjective suffix -ēsimus, which was extracted from vīcēsimus “twentieth” (where the suffix is original) and applied to form ordinal numbers from 20 to 1,000; thus infinitesimal literally means “infinitieth.” Infinitesimal entered English in the mid-17th century.

Omnium-gatherum, “a miscellaneous collection,” has a pretty long history, considering its awkward etymology. A similar word, omnegadrium, occurs about 1430 in Middle English with the meaning “a miscellaneous collection of items in a manuscript.” Omnegadrium is a compound of the familiar Latin combining form omni- “all,” the Middle English verb gaderen “to assemble” (English gather), and the familiar Latin noun suffix -ium. Omnegadrium was re-formed to modern omnium-gatherum, which is a compound of Latin omnium “of all” (the genitive plural of omnis) and the pseudo-Latin word gatherum “a gathering,” formed from gather and the Latin noun suffix -um. Omnium-gatherum entered English in the first half of the 16th century.

Fantast, “a visionary or dreamer,” comes via German Fantast, Phantast (with the same meaning), via Medieval Latin phantasta, from Greek phantastḗs “an ostentatious person, boaster” (that is, someone who talks about their exaggerated fantasies). Phantastḗs ultimately derives from the verb phantázein “to make visible, present to the eye or mind” and phantázesthai “to become visible, appear.” Fantast entered English in the second half of the 16th century.