Word of the Day

Columbarium “a sepulchral vault with recesses in the walls for cremation urns” is a direct borrowing from Latin, in which the term means “a nesting box for pigeons” or, more simply, “a place for doves,” from columba “pigeon, dove” and the suffix -ārium, which denotes a location where something is stored or regularly found. A columbarium was originally an oversized birdhouse containing small alcoves in which pigeons could build their nests. From there, while the name and general shape was kept, a columbarium became a place in which the alcoves could house cremation urns. While columba itself is of uncertain origin, it is the source of given names such as Callum and Malcolm (by way of Celtic languages); surnames such as Coleman, Colombo, and Colón; and geographic names such as Colombia and Columbia—both the Canadian province and the American district. Columbarium was first recorded in English in the 1840s.

Grisly “causing a shudder or feeling of horror” is of Germanic origin, from Old English grislīc “horrible.” A widespread assumption is that grisly is related to grizzly or to French gris “gray,” but for the second time this week, we have a common misconception on our hands. Grizzly and gris are in fact related to one another but not to grisly; grizzly is a derivative of gris, which is a borrowing from Frankish, if not another Germanic source, that was also borrowed into Italian as grigio, as in the white wine Pinot Grigio, which is made from grapes with grayish-blue skin. Gris is not, in fact, likely related to English gray, which derives from a similar-sounding yet distinct root with the same meaning. Grisly was first recorded in English before the 12th century.

Sepulchral “proper to or suggestive of a tomb,” the adjectival counterpart of the noun sepulcher, spelled sepulchre in British English, derives from Latin sepulcrālis “relating to a tomb,” from sepulcrum “tomb.” There is no clear reason for the addition of the h to these two Latin terms as they passed via Old French into English, though it is possible that influence from the similar-sounding adjective pulcher “beautiful” may have been the culprit. Alternatively, because spelling rules became lax in Medieval Latin (which was roughly contemporaneous with Old French) and the letter h had become silent, h started cropping up in words where it had no reason to appear, and the change of Middle English sepulcre to sepulchre in the 1200s could have followed this trend. A similar phenomenon occurred with cāritās “dearness, charity,” which was often misspelled in Medieval Latin as charitas by conflation with Ancient Greek kháris “grace, charm.” Sepulchral first appeared in English in the early 1600s.

Nyctophobia “fear of night or nighttime darkness” is a compound of the combining forms nycto- “night” and -phobia “fear.” Nycto- derives from Ancient Greek nýx, of the same meaning, and comes from the same Proto-Indo-European root, nekwt-, found in English night, German nacht, and the Latin-derived terms equinox and nocturnal. In Greek mythology, Nyx was the primordial goddess and personification of nighttime who mated with Erebus, the god of darkness, to create Aether, the god of the upper air, and Hemera, the goddess of daytime. The ending -phobia is commonly used to indicate fear, and the opposite is -philia; while nyctophobia is fear of darkness, nyctophilia is love of darkness. The ending –phobia derives from Ancient Greek phóbos “fear” (but originally “flight”), which is related to Latin fugere “to flee,” as in fugitive.  Nyctophobia was first recorded in English in the early 1890s.

Sanguivorous “feeding on blood” is a compound of the combining forms sangui- “blood” and -vorous “devouring.” Sangui- derives from Latin sanguis, of the same meaning, but the story does not stop there. Continuing a common pattern in the Indo-European language family, the Romans had two words for “blood”—sanguis and cruor—and while sanguis implicitly referred to blood inside the body, cruor referred to blood outside the body, particularly in violent contexts. In this way, it should come as little surprise that cruor is distantly related to English raw (Old English hrēaw) and Ancient Greek kréas “raw flesh,” while sanguis may be a compound of the Proto-Indo-European roots for “blood” and “to pour.” While cruor survives today to some extent in modern Romance languages, it is sanguis that serves as the root of most Romance words for “blood,” such as French sang, Italian/Portuguese sangue, and Spanish sangre. Sanguivorous was first recorded in English in the mid-1800s.