Word of the Day

Honcho is mostly an American term, entering the language in 1945, toward the end of World War II. It comes from Japanese hanchō “squad leader, group leader” and was picked up by American prisoners of war in the POW camps.

Sweven means “a vision; a dream.” It comes from Middle English sweven (with nearly 20 variant spellings) “a dream in sleep, a dream-vision or supernatural vision appearing while one is awake,” all of which occurred in Old English swefen, swefn (in Old English especially as regards revelatory or premonitory dreams in the Bible). Sweven is related to Old Norse svefn, Sanskrit svápna-, Old Church Slavonic sŭnŭ, Greek hýpnos, Latin somnus, Old Irish suan, Welsh hun, all meaning “sleep and/or dream.” All of the “daughter” forms derive from the Proto-Indo-European root swep-, swop-, sup- “to sleep.”

Unless you like studying ancient Greek metrics, you are not likely ever to see proceleusmatic. The term entered English in the early 18th century as a noun referring to a metrical foot consisting of four short syllables (and also more reasonably called a tetrabrach, literally “four shorts”). Proceleusmatic comes via Latin proceleu(s)maticus from Greek prokeleusmatikós (also prokeleumatikós) the name of the foot, a derivative of the verb (pro)keleúein “to give orders.” One of the derivatives of keleúein, the agent noun keleustḗs, means “coxswain, one who beats time for the rowers,” referring specifically to the very quick rhythm to incite rowers of triremes (light, fast warships) charging into battle to ram enemy ships. Four shorts constantly beating would do the trick.

Grubstake “money or other assistance furnished at a time of need or of starting an enterprise,” was originally American mining slang that first appeared in the Far West of the U.S. (Montana) in 1863. It originally referred to provisions or gear furnished to a prospector on condition of participating in the profits of any discoveries. The grub in grubstake is British and American slang for food; stake is “something wagered in a game, or race or a monetary or commercial interest or investment in an enterprise in hope of gain.”

Confabulate comes from Latin confābulātus, the past participle of confābulārī “to talk together, converse, talk about,” a compound verb formed from the prefix con- “together, with” and the simple verb fābulārī “to talk casually, chat.” Vulgar Latin changed the deponent verb fābulārī to the active verb fābulāre (a deponent verb is one that is passive in form but active in meaning). Syncope, the loss of an unaccented vowel from the middle of a word, was active at all stages of Latin, and fābulāre regularly becomes fāblāre “to speak.” In the Vulgar Latin of Spain and Portugal, on the western fringe of the Roman Empire, fāblāre becomes hablar in (Castilian) Spanish (with typical Castilian change of f- to h-), and falar in Portuguese. The central part of the empire, however, France and Italy, adopted the Christian Latin term parabolāre “to talk in parables, talk using comparisons, talk, speak,” a derivative of Latin parabola, parabolē “explanatory comparison” (from Greek parabolḗ). The noun parabola, parabolē becomes parole in French, parola in Italian, palabra in (Castilian) Spanish, and palavra in Portuguese (the Spanish and Portuguese words show the typical metathesis, or transposition of sounds, of l and r). Confabulate entered English in the early 17th century.