Word of the Day

Curlicue “an ornamental, fancy curl or twist” is a compound of the adjective curly and the noun cue. Curly, from the verb curl, appears in Middle English as crulled “curled” and is either derived from or related to Middle Dutch crul “curl,” of Germanic origin and related to the name of the rolled pastry cruller. The -ru- of crul became the -ur- of curl as the result of metathesis, a linguistic phenomenon in which sounds switch places. Metathesis is also responsible for creating third, thirteen, and thirty from Old English thridda, thrēotēne, and thrītig. The cue part of curlicue is most likely from French queue “tail,” via Old French from Latin cauda or cōda “tail,” which we discussed in the recent Word of the Day podcast about codicil. Alternatively, this cue could be in reference to the letter Q and its easily identifiable loops when written in cursive. Curlicue was first recorded in English circa 1840.

Crapulous “characterized by gross excess in drinking or eating” derives from Late Latin crāpulōsus “inclined to drunkenness,” from Latin crāpula “drunkenness,” either derived from or related to Ancient Greek kraipálē “drunkenness, hangover.” A common misconception is that crapulous is connected to a certain word for “excrement,” but the resemblance between these two words is a happy coincidence. While crapulous has a clear history, the more colorful term crap is in fact of uncertain origin—perhaps from Middle Dutch krappe “something cut off or separated,” perhaps via Old French from a Frankish cognate of English scrape, perhaps from Medieval Latin crappa “chaff,” or perhaps related to English crop. Crapulous was first recorded in English in the 1530s.

Brasserie “an unpretentious restaurant or tavern” is a borrowing from French, in which the term means “brewery,” though it is not related to the English word brew. Brasserie comes from the Middle French verb brasser “to brew,” which likely derives via Gallo-Latin bracem from a word for a kind of grain used to make malt in Gaulish, an extinct Celtic language once spoken in France. Similar words for “malt” still exist today in modern Celtic languages, such as Irish Gaelic braich and Welsh brag. The French suffix -erie in brasserie indicates location and is also found in terms such as patisserie “pastry shop” and boulangerie “bread shop,” and the suffix’s English cognate, -ery, is present in bakery, distillery, fishery, and refinery. Brasserie was first recorded in English in the early 1860s.

Serein “fine rain falling after sunset from a cloudless sky” is a borrowing from French, from Middle French serain “evening, nightfall.” If you listened to our recent Word of the Day podcast about serotinal “occurring in late summer,” the ultimate origin of serein should look familiar: the term derives from Latin sērum “a late hour,” from the adjective sērus “late.” A common misconception is that serein is related to serene “peaceful, clear, unclouded,” but while the words are similar in appearance and definition, they are likely unconnected. Serene instead derives from Latin serēnus “cheerful, tranquil; (of weather) clear, unclouded,” and a derivative noun, serēnum, means “fine weather.” Serein was first recorded in English in the late 1860s.

Angakok “a shaman in Inuit society” is a borrowing, by way of a Germanic source such as Danish or German, from Greenlandic Inuit angeqok. Because Inuit, a continuum of dialects spoken from Alaska through Greenland, uses multiple writing systems, the transliteration of angeqok has numerous alternative spellings, such as angakok, angakkoq, and angekkok. Inuit belongs to the Eskimo–Aleut language family, which includes languages spoken throughout the North American part of the Arctic Circle. While Inuit is the most extensively spoken, there are two other major branches of the Eskimo–Aleut family: Aleut dialects are spoken in the Aleutian archipelago off the coast of Alaska, and the Yupik languages are spoken in southwestern Alaska and the easternmost coast of Siberia. Angakok was first recorded in English in the 1760s.