Word of the Day

Ravenous “extremely hungry” is a borrowing from Old French that derives ultimately from the Latin noun rapīna “plunder, robbery, pillage”; the sense shifted in Old French from “plunder” to describe people who are likely to plunder and then to the associated personality traits of plunderers, such as “violent” and “greedy,” and eventually came to mean “hungry.” Rapīna comes from the verb rapere “to seize,” which is the source of words such as rapacious, rapid, rapt, ravish, surreptitious, and usurp. A common misconception is that ravenous is related to raven, the black-feathered bird, but raven is of Germanic origin, from Old English hrǣfn, and may be a distant relative of Latin corvus “raven” and Ancient Greek kórax “raven, crow.” (In addition, despite the similar spelling and meaning, crow is not related to corvus—though crows and ravens are part of the genus Corvus.) Ravenous was first recorded in English in the late 1300s.

Revenant “a person who returns as a spirit after death” is a direct borrowing from French, in which the word is a present participle meaning “coming back, returning.” The infinitive, revenir, is a combination of the prefix re- “back, again” and venir “to come,” the latter from Latin venīre, of the same meaning. Venīre is the source of English terms such as adventure, avenue, convenient, eventual, and invention, all of which originally related to movement, gathering, or discovery (i.e., coming across something); the Latin verb derives from the same Proto-Indo-European root, gwā- “to go, come,” that gives us come, become, welcome, and the Ancient Greek-derived terms acrobat and basis (from baínein). Revenant was first recorded in English in the 1820s.

Faustian “sacrificing spiritual values for power, knowledge, or material gain” is derived from the name of the part-historical, part-legendary figure Johann Georg Faust, whose surname often appears instead as the more Latin-sounding Faustus. The surname Faust is of uncertain origin but may derive either from the Latin adjective faustus “fortunate, lucky,” a cognate of favorable and favorite, or from the German noun Faust “fist.” Faust’s first notable appearance in the English-speaking world was as the main character of Christopher Marlowe’s play The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, in which Faust makes a deal with the Devil that leads to an unfortunate end. Though originally written in German, another famous play featuring this character was Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which was published almost 200 years after Marlowe’s earlier work. Faustian was first recorded in English in the late 1870s.

Prestidigitation “sleight of hand” is a borrowing from French, in which it literally means “nimble-fingeredness.” From there, the etymology becomes a bit murky. The -digit- element is clear; it derives from Latin digitus “finger,” which is also the source of digital (literally “of or relating to fingers”). For the presti- element, in contrast, there are at least three theories. The first is that presti- comes from Latin praestō “at hand,” a compound of prae “before” and a derivation from the Proto-Indo-European root ghes- “hand.” A second theory derives Latin praestō instead from prae and stāre “to stand,” which would make prestidigitation a distant relative of words such as stable, stand, state, and static. The third theory asserts that prestidigitation is a coinage based on or at least influenced by French prestigiateur “juggler, conjurer,” from Latin praestīgiae “juggler’s tricks,” a compound of prae and stringere “to bind fast,” which would make prestidigitation a distant relative of strait, stress, strict, and stringent. Prestidigitation was first recorded in English in the 1840s.

Verst “a Russian measure of distance equivalent to 3,500 feet” is borrowed by way of either French or German from Russian verstá, from Old Russian vĭrsta “age; measure of length.” Though these two definitions are rather different, their connection is measurement, whether of time or distance. Vĭrsta derives from the Proto-Indo-European root wert- “to turn,” which is also the source of a profusion of words related to turning, twisting, and bending. The English suffix -ward (as in forward, inward, outward, and toward) is one such derivative, as are warp, worm, wrangle, wrap, wreath, wrench, wrestle, wring, wrinkle, wrist, and writhe. This root is also found in words that figuratively indicate turning in a negative direction, such as awry, weird, worry, wrath, and wrong. By way of Latin, English has inherited terms such as diversion, introvert, versatile, versus, vertebra, and vertex (from vertere “to turn”); reverberate (from verber “whip”); and converge and diverge (from vergere “to be inclined”). Several Ancient Greek-origin terms, such as rhapsody (from rháptein “to stitch”) and rhombus (from rhémbein “to revolve”), also derive from the same root. Verst was first recorded in English in the mid-1500s.