Word of the Day

Verbum sap is short for Latin Verbum sapientī sat(is) est “a word to the wise is sufficient.” Verbum comes from the Proto-Indo-European root wer- (with variants) “to speak,” the same source as English word, German Wort, Old Prussian wirds “word,” and Lithuanian vardas “name.” Sapientī is the dative singular of sapiēns “rational, sane, understanding,” the present participle of sapere “to taste, taste of, have good taste; to be intelligent, know, understand.” Sapere is the source of the Romance verbs savoir (French), saber (Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan), and Italian sapere, all meaning “to know.” The participle sapiēns is also the specific epithet for the genus Homo “human being.” Sat or satis “enough, sufficient” is by origin an indeclinable noun, i.e., the noun has no inflections. Satis comes from the Proto-Indo-European root sā-, sə- “to satisfy, fill,” and its derivative noun sātis “satiety, fullness” (also the source of Old Irish sāith “satiety”). The variant sə- is the source of Gothic saths “full,” German satt, Old English sæd “grave, heavy, full,” originally “sated, full” (English sad), and Greek hádēn “enough” (in Greek, original initial s before a vowel becomes h). Est is related to Old English and English is, German and Gothic ist, Greek estí, Sanskrit ásti, Old Irish is, Old Lithuanian esti, Old Church Slavonic jestĭ, and Hittite eszi, all meaning “is,” from Proto-Indo-European esti. Verbum sapienti entered English in the second half of the 16th century, verbum sap in the first half of the 19th century.

Tirrivee “a tantrum, a display of bad temper” is another perplexing Scots word with no secure etymology. It may be a variant or corruption of the verb tailyevey “to move from side to side, rock” another Scots word of no known etymology. Sir Walter Scott used tirrivee in his Waverley novels, enough to ensure the word’s survival. Tirrivee entered English in the early 19th century.

Antediluvian “occurring before the biblical Flood (in Genesis); very old, old-fashioned, or out of date,” comes from the Latin preposition and prefix ante, ante- “before” (naturalized in English) and the noun dīluvium “flood, deluge, inundation,” a derivative of the verb dīluere “to dissolve and wash away” (dīlūtus, the past participle of dīluere, is the source of English dilute). The original meaning of antediluvian was to biblical events or people before the Flood, such as the patriarchs between Adam and Noah; the exaggerated sense “very old, old-fashioned, out of date” developed in the first half of the 18th century. Antediluvian entered English in the first half of the 17th century.

Doomscrolling, one our top word trends in 2020, sounds something like the Doomsday Machine in Stanley Kubrick’s movie Dr. Strangelove (1964). (The phrases doomsday machine and doomsday bomb actually date to 1960.) Doomscrolling and its verb doomscroll are very recent neologisms, modeled on doomsday, the day of the Last Judgment, a belief common to Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism. Scroll and scrolling are used in their computer sense “moving text up, down, or across a display screen.”

Hebetude comes straight from the Late Latin noun hebetūdō, a derivative of the adjective hebes (inflectional stem hebet-) “blunt, dull (physical or mental), obtuse (angle or person).” Hebetūdō first appears in the Commentary on the “Dream of Scipio” (ca. a.d. 430) by the pagan author Macrobius. Macrobius’ Commentary was so popular and influential in late antiquity and the Middle Ages and so important and invaluable a source for Neoplatonic philosophy that its numerous manuscripts cannot be sorted into families. Hebes has no known etymology; scholars cannot even blame hebes on the Etruscans (their usual go-to for strange Latin words). Hebetude entered English in the first half of the 17th century.