Word of the Day

Anorak “a hooded pullover jacket made of fur” is an adaptation of Greenlandic Inuit annoraaq. Though anoraks were originally made from fur, over the past century, additional fabric options have emerged as alternatives. The Inuit groups of Greenland developed anoraks, while parkas, which are similar garments, arose among the peoples of northern Russia who speak one of the Nenets languages. An additional sense of anorak in British slang—and a very specific sense at that—refers to socially awkward people who are passionate about hobbies that others find tedious. Anorak was first recorded in English in the early 1920s.

Epilogue “a concluding part added to a literary work” derives via Middle English and Latin from Ancient Greek epílogos “conclusion of a speech,” a compound of the preposition epí “in addition to, over, on” and the noun lógos “word.” While an epilogue comes at the end of a book, a prologue comes at the beginning. The element epí, appearing in English as the prefix epi-, is also found in terms such as epidemic, originally meaning “among the people,” and epidermis, originally meaning “on the skin.” Lógos comes from the verb légein “to gather, choose, speak” and is the source of words such as apology, dialogue, and logarithm; this noun is also the source of the combining form -logy “science,” as in biology, geology, and zoology. Epilogue was first recorded in English at the turn of the 15th century.

Nebbish “a pitifully ineffectual person” is a variant of the Yiddish term nebekh “poor, unfortunate.” Unlike the majority of words in Yiddish, which are of Germanic extraction, nebekh is most likely from a Slavic source such as Czech nebohý “poor.” The original meaning of this Slavic source was “unendowed,” and it derived from a negative prefix (compare English not and non-) and the Proto-Indo-European root bhag- “to share, apportion.” This same root is also found in Ancient Greek phagein “to eat,” as in esophagus. Nebbish was first recorded in English in the early 1890s.

Unguinous “containing fat or oil” derives from Latin unguen “fat, grease,” plus the suffix -ōsus “full of.” Unguen, in turn, comes from the verb unguere “to smear” (stem unct-), which is also the source of English terms such as unction “an act of anointing,” unctuous “having an oily feel,” and unguent “a salve applied to wounds.” The stem unct- regularly became oint in French, leading to words such as anoint and ointment. Unguinous was first recorded in English at the turn of the 17th century.

Ankh “a tau (T-shaped) cross with a loop at the top” is a borrowing from Egyptian ʿnh̬ “live; life, soul.” In this word, ʿ represents a voiced throaty sound that does not exist in English, and h̬ represents the sound spelled as ch in German Buch, Hebrew Chanukah, and Scottish loch. While Arabic is the official language of Egypt today, the Egyptian language was spoken in the country for thousands of years until its latest form, Coptic, became largely extinct in the 1700s. Although the Egyptian source of ankh is transliterated today as ʿnh̬, while its spelling remained consistent in Egyptian hieroglyphics, its pronunciation during the several stages of the Egyptian language varied greatly. Ankh was first recorded in English in the late 1880s.