Word of the Day

The French adverb phrase au fond, “thoroughly; in reality; fundamentally,” literally “at the bottom, to the bottom,” has been in English for more than 200 years; yet its French pronunciation in English shows that it is still unnaturalized. The French phrase is composed of au “at the, to the,” from Old French al, which is a contraction of a le, from Latin ad “to” and illum “that” (illum and its relatives become the definite article in most Romance languages). The French noun fond “bottom, floor, background (for lacework)” comes from Latin fundus “bottom, base, depths, farm, country estate.” The Latin noun is the source of the verb fundāre “to lay a foundation,” which becomes fonder in Old French, founden, fonden, funden in Middle English, and found, i.e., “establish firmly,” in modern English. Au fond entered English toward the end of the 18th century.

The verb spangle, "to decorate with any small, bright drops, objects, spots, or the like," comes from the noun spangle, “a small, thin piece of glittering metal used for decorating cloths” or “a small, bright object or spot” (such as one of the stars on the Star-Spangled Banner), which is formed from the noun spang “a small, glittering ornament” and the diminutive suffix -le, as in bramble or thimble. Spang may come either from Middle Dutch spange, spaenge “brooch, clasp” or from Old Norse spǫng “clasp, buckle, spangle.” Spangle entered English in the first half of the 15th century.

Girandole, “a firework that rotates and spreads out,” comes via French girandole from Italian girandola, a diminutive of giranda “a revolving jet.” Giranda is a derivative of girare “to turn in a circle, revolve,” from Late Latin gyrāre “to turn in a circle, wheel around.” Gyrāre comes from the noun gyrus “a circular track (for horses); circular movement; celestial orbit.” Gyrus in turn comes from Greek gŷros “ring, circle, circular trench.” Gŷros also appears in gyroscope, an instrument typically used in navigation; in modern Greek gýros “a turn” is also the name of the Greek dish made of meat roasted on a vertical rotisserie, our gyro. Girandole entered English in the first half of the 17th century.

Lilt, “a rhythmic swing or cadence; a light and merry song or song or tune,” comes from the Middle English verb lilten, lulten “to sound an alarm; lift up (one’s voice).” Lilten seems to be related to the Middle English verb lulle(n), lullien, loulen “to induce a baby to sleep by rocking or singing; lull.” All of these words are possibly related to Dutch and Low German lul “pipe,” lullen “to lull,” and Norwegian lilla “to sing,” and are likely to be imitative in origin. Lilt entered English in the 14th century.

Stalwart “strong and brave; valiant” or "firm, steadfast, or uncompromising" is in origin a Scots form of Middle English stalworth “strong, sturdy, serviceable.” Stalworth has many variant spellings in Middle English because its second syllable was confused with the adjective worth “having monetary value.” In fact, stalworth comes from Old English stǣlwirthe “able to stand a person in good stead; serviceable (of ships).” Stǣl is probably a contraction of stathol “base, support, bottom (of a haystack)”; the Old English adjective suffix -wirthe, with the variants -wierðe, -wyrðe, -weorðe “good, worthy,” survives in modern English worth. Stalwart in the sense “serviceable” entered English before 900; the other senses date from the late 12th century.