Word of the Day

Bounteous comes from Middle English bountevous, bounteuous, bontivous (and other variant spellings) “good, worthy, virtuous; knightly, valiant; generous, liberal,” from Old French bontieus, bontif (masculine), bontive (feminine) “benevolent, full of goodness, from Old French bonté, bontet (source of Middle English bounte, English bounty “generosity, generous gift”), from Latin bonitās (stem bonitāt-) “goodness, excellence.” The spelling bounteous arose in the early 15th century as if the etymology were bounte plus the adjective suffix -ous. Bounteous entered English in the second half of the 14th century.

The English adjective ambrosial comes from the Greek noun ambrosía “immortality; elixir of life, food of the gods." (Néktar is “the drink of the gods, nectar”). The initial a- of ambrosía is a variant of the prefix an- meaning “not, without, lacking,” as in atheist or anarchy. The b in ambrosía is a glide consonant between the m and the r. The mro is a derivative of mŗ-, a variant of the very common Proto-Indo-European root mer-, mor-, mŗ- “to die.” The variant mŗ- is also the source of Latin mors (stem mort-) “death,” Morta “goddess of death,” and morī “to die,” Armenian mard “man,” Sanskrit mŗtá- “dead,” and Slavic (Polish) martwy “dead.” The root variant mŗ- regularly becomes mur- in the Germanic languages, yielding murder in English and Mord “murder” in German. The root variant mor- is the source of Greek mortós and Sanskrit márta- “human (being), mortal,” and Old Persian martiya- “mortal, man.” The root variant mer- is the source of Hittite mert “died.” Ambrosial entered English in the second half of the 16th century.

All the authorities agree that pother “commotion, uproar; heated argument” has no reliable etymology; indeed, even the words that pother may be related to, like bother, have no trustworthy etymology. (The fact that an early citation of pother is spelled bother just makes things worse.) Pother originally rhymed with other and brother; it acquired its current pronunciation by the beginning of the 19th century.

Ingenious comes from late Middle English ingenious “intelligent, resourceful, quick-witted,” from Old French ingenïos, engeignos, from Latin ingeniōsus “clever, talented, gifted." Ingeniōsus is a derivative of the noun ingenium “natural disposition, temperament, mood; natural ability, cleverness,” and the adjectival suffix -ōsus, the source via Old French and Anglo-French of the English suffix -ous. Ingenious entered English in the second half of the 15th century.

Regale “to entertain lavishly; delight” comes from the French verb régaler “to feast, entertain,” from the Old French noun regale, rigal(l)e, a derivative of gale “festivity, feast, lavish meal.” The prefix re- or ri- is borrowed from the verb (se) rigoler “to amuse (oneself)”; (se) rigoler in its turn is a derivative of galer “to make merry.” The French present participle of galer is galant, which in Middle English becomes galaunt, galant “merry, gay, gaily dressed,” English gallant. Regale entered English in the second half of the 17th century.