Word of the Day

Lodestone, “a variety of magnetite that possesses magnetic polarity” in its non-figurative sense, is a compound of lode and stone. While lode most often refers to a metal-bearing deposit or, in dialectal English, a waterway, its original meaning in Old English, as lád, was “way, course,” and from there, its definition expanded to indicate something to follow, such as a channel or a vein of ore. Lode is a variant spelling of load, which went in a different semantic direction, shifting from a travel route to the heavy objects to be carried along such a route, likely with influence from the unrelated yet similar-sounding verb lade “to put a load or burden on.”

Alma mater “a school where one has studied” comes from a Latin phrase that means “nourishing mother.” The first half, alma “nourishing” or “kind,” derives from an Indo-European root appearing variously as al-, el-, ol-, or ul- that is found frequently in words connected to nourishment or, more generally, the life cycle. Alumnus means “nourished one” in Latin, while alimony derives from the noun alimōnia “feeding” or “nourishment,” and the verb coalēscere, the source of coalesce, literally means “to grow up together.” Adolescent and adult come from the same Latin verb, adolēscere, and respectively mean “becoming mature” and “having matured,” and prolific and proliferate derive from prōlēs “offspring.” This same Indo-European root found in alma appears in English as well, in words such as old, elder, and alderman, and in the Scots phrase auld lang syne.

Gorgonize is ultimately derived, via Latin, from Ancient Greek Gorgṓ, which comes from the adjective gorgós “dreadful” and is the original Greek name for each of the Gorgons, the triumvirate of mythic sisters with snakes for hair and whose appearance was so frightful that anyone who looked at them directly would turn to stone. The Gorgons were named Euryale, Medusa, and Stheno, and Medusa is the most famous of the three because of her mortality, which allowed for Perseus to behead her by using her reflection in his shield to guide his sword.

Nostrum is a direct borrowing from Latin and is the neuter form of the singular possessive adjective noster “our”; this neuter version is often found today in the Latin phrase mare nostrum “our sea,” which the Romans used in reference to the Mediterranean Sea. The shift from a possessive adjective to a noun that means “remedy” happened by way of the unattested phrase nostrum remedium “our medicine,” with the latter half chopped off. Nostrum’s primary meaning in English is “​​a medicine sold with false or exaggerated claims,” and it gained the additional sense of “a remedy for all problems” when applied to non-medical topics such as politics.

Memoriter is a direct borrowing from Latin, in which the word has the same meaning, formed from the adjective memor “remembering” and the adverbial suffix -ter. Memor is the source of English commemorate, memorize, memorial, and many other words related to recollection. While English uses -ly to create adverbs from other parts of speech, Latin uses suffixes such as -ter, as we can see in other Latin-derived adverbs such as instanter “immediately.” Another such suffix is -ātim, as in verbatim “word for word” and literatim “letter for letter.”