Word of the Day

Chernozem “a soil common in cool or temperate semiarid climates, very black and rich in humus” is a borrowing from Russian chernozëm, a compound of chërnyĭ “black” and zemlyá “earth.” The first element derives from a root also found in the Slavic names Chernobog “black god” (also spelled Chernabog and Czernobog), one of two gods of fate in Slavic mythology, and Chernobyl, the site of a nuclear disaster in Ukraine, whose name derives from Russian chernobyl “wormwood” or, literally, “black herb.” This same root also appears in Sanskrit as the Hindu god Krishna, whose name means “black.” The latter part of chernozem derives from the Proto-Indo-European root dhghem- “earth,” which is the source of several land-related words, such as chthonic (from Ancient Greek khthōn “earth”), exhume and humble (from Latin humus “earth”), and chameleon and chamomile (from Ancient Greek chamaí “on the ground”). Further derivatives of this root include person-related terms such as bridegroom (from Old English guma “man”), hominid (from Latin homō “man”), and human (from Latin hūmānus, of the same meaning). Chernozem was first recorded in English in the mid-1800s.

Perfidy “deliberate breach of faith or trust” derives from Latin perfidia “faithlessness,” from the adjective perfidus, literally meaning “through faith” but more accurately translated as “beyond the limits of faith.” The base of perfidus is fidēs “trust, honesty, faith,” which is related to the verb fīdere “to trust,” and both terms are the source of numerous trust-related words, such as confidence, defiance, fealty, and fidelity. Perfidy was first recorded in English in the late 1500s.

Codicil “any supplement; appendix” derives via Late Latin cōdicillus from Latin cōdex (stem cōdic-) “bound book” or, earlier, “piece of wood” or “tree trunk.” This semantic shift from “part of a tree” to “book” is rather common in world languages; the word book is likely connected to the beech tree, and Latin liber “book” originally referred to the inner bark of a tree. Cōdex is a variant of caudex, with the same meaning, of uncertain origin, though a connection to Latin cauda or cōda “tail” has been suggested. An additional theory is a derivation from the Proto-Indo-European root kau- “to hit, strike,” as a tree must be struck and cut down to obtain wood; if this theory is correct, caudex would be a cognate of the English words hew “to strike forcibly with an ax” and hay “grass cut and dried for use as forage.” Codicil was first recorded in English in the late 1300s or early 1400s.

Butte “an isolated hill or mountain rising abruptly above the surrounding land” is a borrowing from French, in which it means “small hill, mound.” ​​In Old French, butte referred specifically to a mound or structure used for archery practice and also to the target itself, which is why modern French but means “aim, goal.” Despite its enduring place in the French language, butte was originally a borrowing from a Germanic source such as Frankish or Old Norse, in which the word meant something like “piece” or “end part.” Butte was first recorded in English in the mid-1600s.

Trident “a three-pronged instrument or weapon” derives from the Latin adjective tridēns “having/with three teeth” and is often associated with Neptune, known to the Greeks as Poseidon, the god of the sea and earthquakes. A similar symbol is the bident, a spear with two prongs, which was associated with Pluto, known to the Greeks as Hades, the god of the underworld. Trident’s two Latin sources, trēs and dēns (stem dent-), are cognates of their respective English translations three and tooth. A common trend in the Indo-European language family is for t in Latin to correspond to th in native English words, and this pattern is also visible when comparing Latin frāter, māter, and pater to English brother, mother, and father. Trident was first recorded in English in the late 1500s.