Word of the Day

"Well begun is half done” about sums up the verb inaugurate. Inaugurate derives from Latin inaugurātus, the past participle of inaugurāre “to consecrate by augury (as by observing the flight of birds).” The Romans were addicted to religion, law, farming, the military, and the accompanying rituals to ensure the successful beginning and completion of an undertaking. Inaugurāre is a derivative of the noun augurium “soothsaying, divination,” a derivative of augur, an official who observes and interprets the flight of birds. The Romans themselves interpreted augurium to be derived from avis “bird” (pronounced awis and thus resembling the first syllable of augurium). It is more likely that augur and its derivatives derive from the verb augēre “to make grow, increase (crops, cattle),” the source of augment and auction in English. Inaugurate entered English in the early 17th century.

Mammonism “the greedy pursuit of riches,” derives from the Late Latin mammon (also mammōnas and mammōna) “wealth, personification of wealth,” from Greek mamōnâs, from Aramaic māmōn “riches, wealth, profit.” Mamōnâs occurs only in the Greek New Testament and is left untranslated, a usage that the Latin Vulgate also follows. By medieval times (for instance in the Old English Lindisfarne Gospels of the early 8th century) Mammon was a proper name for the Devil as the instigator of covetousness. In Piers Plowman (late 14th century), Mammon is the proper name for the devil of greed, and John Milton used Mammon as the name of one of the fallen Angels in Paradise Lost. Mammonism entered English in the first half of the 19th century.

All of the elements of the adverb inextricably, “in a way that cannot be disentangled,” come from Latin, except the final adverb suffix -ly. The adjective inextricable comes from Latin inextrīcābilis, clearly composed of the negative prefix in- (from the same Proto-Indo-European source as English un-, as in unclear) and the compound verb extrīcāre “to set free, loose, solve (a problem),” which is formed from the preposition and prefix ex, ex- “out, out of” and the plural noun trīcae “knot of problems; nonsense” (which has no definite etymology). The last element of inextrīcābilis is the adjective suffix -ābilis, completely naturalized in English -able. The English adverb suffix -ly comes from Middle English -li, -lich, -liche, from Old English -līce, an adverb suffix formed from the adjective suffix -līc. The suffix -līc is related to the Old English noun līc “a body (usually dead),” which survives in English lich gate, the roofed gate to a cemetery where the coffin is set for the arrival of the clergyman. In English, therefore, clearly means “with a clear body”; in Romance (French, for example), the usual adverb suffix is -ment, from Latin mente “(with the) mind”; so the French adverb clairement "clearly" literally means “with a clear mind.” Inextricably entered English at the end of the 16th century.

You can be forgiven for thinking that beamish “bright, cheerful, optimistic” is a creation of Lewis Carroll’s: in his poem “Jabberwocky” in Through the Looking Glass (1871), Carroll wrote: “'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? / Come to my arms, my beamish boy! / O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' / He chortled in his joy.” Carroll was only the second English author to use beamish: the first one was John Palsgrave (ca. 1485-1545), classicist, linguist, lawyer, textbook author, and--most “interesting”--a priest serving at the court of King Henry VIII. As tutor to King Henry’s sister, Princess Mary, Palsgrave wrote and dedicated to King Henry a 1000-page French-English bilingual dictionary and contrastive grammar of English and French, Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse (1530) “The Clarification of the French Language.” In his “Clarification,” Palsgrave translated and defined the French adjective radieux, “Beamysshe as the sonne is, radieux.”

Terrene ultimately comes, via Middle English terrene, terrain, from Anglo-French terreine, terren, from Old French terrïen, from Latin terrēnus “belonging to or living on dry land, earthly, earthy, pertaining to the material part of humans, belonging to this mortal world (as opposed to the celestial or divine).” Terrēnus is a derivative of the noun terra (from unrecorded tersa) “land, dry land, mainland, surface of the earth,” from the Proto-Indo-European root ters- “to dry,” from which Greek derives térsesthai “to become dry,” Albanian ter “to dry (in the open air),” and Old English thurst “dryness,” English “thirst.” Terrene entered English in the 14th century.