Word of the Day

Apothegm, “a short, instructive saying; a terse remark,” is hard enough to pronounce even in its simplified spelling, which is based on the pronunciation of the word. The original spelling, still used, is apophthegm. Apothegm was the usual spelling until Dr. Johnson settled on apophthegm in his dictionary (1755). Apophthegm ultimately comes from the Greek noun apóphthegma, a derivative of the verb apophthéngesthai “to speak out, speak one’s opinion plainly,” a compound of the prefix apo- “forth” and the simple verb phthéngesthai “to speak, raise one’s voice.” Apothegm and apophthegm entered English within two years of each other, in the second half of the 16th century.

Those who suffer from rose fever in the spring or hay fever in the fall may be familiar with polliniferous “producing or bearing pollen,” the cause of their discomfort. Polliniferous, also spelled polleniferous, comes from Latin pollen (inflectional stem pollin-) “fine flour, mill dust, dust” and the combining form -ferous “bearing, producing.” The pol- in Latin pollen is a derivative of the Proto-Indo-European root pel-, pol- “dust, ground grain, meal”; Latin pol(l)enta “barley meal, groats” becomes Italian polenta, originally “grain made of barley or chestnuts,” but now “cornmeal, corn flour, cornmeal porridge,” which English adopted in the 18th century. The combining form -ferous is a derivative of the Latin verb ferre “to bear, carry,” from the widespread Proto-Indo-European root bher-, bhor-, bhṛ-, appearing in Sanskrit bhárati “he carries,” in Greek as phérein “to carry,” in Proto-Germanic as beran (Old English beran, Modern English “to bear”), Old Irish biru “I carry,” Armenian eber “he carried,” and Old Church Slavonic berǫ “I carry.” Polliniferous entered English in the beginning of the 19th century.

Arboreal, “relating to trees; treelike; living in or among trees,” comes from the Latin adjective arboreus “pertaining to trees; wooden,” a derivative of the noun arbor (inflectional stem arbor-) “tree, tree trunk, trees, timber, gallows, (ship’s) mast, (wooden) beam or post.” Latin arbor has no reliable etymology. The original meaning of arboreal is “relating to trees”; the sense “living in or among trees” dates from the first half of the 19th century. One must not confuse the Latin noun with arbor “leafy, shady recess formed by tree branches,” which comes from Old French herbier, erbier “grassy place,” with Late Latin herbārium “dried plants, herbarium,” a derivative of herba “grass, small plant, herb.” Arboreal entered English in the second half of the 17th century.

Refractory, “stubborn, obstinate,” is a respelling (or even a misspelling) of earlier refractary, which comes straight from Latin refractārius, with the same senses. Refractārius is a derivative of refractus, the past participle of the verb refringere “to break, break back, break open,” a compound of the prefix re- “again, back again, back” and the simple verb frangere “to break, shatter, smash.” Refractary entered English in the second half of the 16th century; the spelling refractory first occurs in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida (1602).

Mammock, a noun and verb meaning “a fragment; to break,” has several spellings, including mommick, mommock, mammick. Unfortunately, the word has no reliable etymology: the only thing scholars agree on is the suffix -ock, used to form diminutive nouns such as hillock (“a small hill”). The noun sense of mammock entered English in the first half of the 16th century; the verb sense first appears in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus (1623).