Word of the Day
Learn a new word every day! The Dictionary.com team of language experts carefully selects each Word of the Day to add some panache to your vocabulary.
of or relating to military operations by both land and naval forces against the same object.
Amphibious and amphibian have several overlapping meanings in zoology and botany, but in the sense “relating to combined military operations by land and naval forces against a common target,” only amphibious is used. In the mid-1930s, at a time when air power was rapidly developing, the neologisms triphibian and triphibious were coined very useful for describing combined land, sea, and air operations, but an abomination—two abominations, even, for purists. Amphibious ultimately comes from Greek amphíbios “having a double life,” used by science writers about frogs and plants. In later Greek the Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus used amphíbios metaphorically to describe the human soul as an inhabitant of two worlds. Amphíbios is composed of two very common Proto-Indo-European roots, ambhi- “on both sides, around” and gweiə-, gwey-, gwī-, gwi- (with many other variants) “to live.” Ambhi- becomes amphí in Greek, as in amphithéātron “amphitheater,” literally, “a place for watching from both sides.” Ambhi- becomes amb(i)- in Latin, a prefix meaning “around, both..,” as in ambiguus “unsettled, undecided.” \ The Greek combining form bio- comes from bíos “life,” from Proto-Indo-European gwios (gw- becomes b- in Greek under certain conditions). The root variant gwī- is the source of Latin vīta “life." Amphibious entered English in the 17th century.
a jumbled cluster or mass of varied parts.
The English noun agglomeration, “a jumbled cluster or mass of varied parts,” comes from Latin agglomerātus, the past participle of agglomerāre “to mass together, pile up, join forces,” a derivative of glomerāre “to roll into a ball, collect into a dense mass.” Glomerāre in turn is a derivative of the noun glomus (inflectional stem glomer-) “a ball, a skein or ball of yarn.” Glomus is related to the Latin nouns globus “round body, round cake, sphere” (English globe) and glēba (also glaeba) “lump or clod of earth” (English glebe “soil, field”). Agglomeration entered English in the second half of the 17th century.
to melt away.
Deliquesce, “to melt away; become liquid,” comes straight from Latin dēliquēscere “to become liquid, dissipate one’s energy,” a compound of the preposition and prefix dē, dē-, here indicating removal, and the verb liquēscere “to melt, decompose, putrefy.” Liquēscere is an inchoative verb (also called an inceptive verb), meaning that the verb indicates the beginning, the inception of an action. In Latin (and in Greek) the suffix -sc- (Latin) and -sk- (Greek) changes a verb of state, such as liquēre “to be liquid, be clear,” to an inceptive verb. Derivatives of liquēre include liquidus “clear, fluid” (English liquid) and liquor “fluidity, liquid character” (English liquor). Deliquesce entered English in the mid-18th century.
to render absurdly or wholly futile or ineffectual, especially by degrading or frustrating means.
Stultify comes straight from Late Latin stultificāre, “to turn into foolishness,” a compound verb formed from the adjective stultus “stupid, dense, foolish” and the combining form -ficāre “to make, make become” (source via Old French -fier of the English verb suffix -fy), formed from facere “to do, make.” Stultus and stolidus “dull, brutish, stupid” come from the root stel-, stol- “to (make) stand, put.” One odd thing about stultify is that its original meaning in English was as a legal term “to allege or prove (oneself or another) to be of unsound mind,” that is, if one stultified oneself, one could evade responsibility for one’s actions. Stultify entered English in the second half of the 18th century.
taking place, coming together, or published once every seven days; weekly.
Hebdomadal, “occurring or published every seven days; a weekly publication,” comes via the Late Latin adjective hebdomadālis “weekly,” from Greek hebdomás (inflectional stem hebdomád-) “a group of seven, a seven-day cycle, a week, a fever recurring every seven days.” Hebdomás is a derivative of the adjective hébdomos (also hébdemos) “seventh,” a complicated but regular derivative of the cardinal number heptá “seven.” Original Proto-Indo-European s is lost before a vowel in Greek, becoming h; heptá is the Greek result of Proto-Indo-European septṃ, which becomes septem in Latin, sapta in Sanskrit, secht in Old Irish, sibun in Gothic, seofon in Old English, seven in English, septynì in Lithuanian, sedm in Czech, sedem in Slovak, and siedem in Polish. Hebdomadal entered English in the first half of the 17th century.
