Word of the Day

Eidetic “pertaining to visual images vividly experienced and readily reproducible” is a technical term used in psychology. It comes via German eidetisch from the equally technical Greek adjective eidētikós, whose senses include “constituting an image; (of a number) capable of being represented by a mathematical figure; formal (cause).” Eidētikós is a derivative of eídēsis, one of the several Greek nouns meaning “knowledge.” Eidetic entered English in the first half of the 20th century.

Amity “friendship; peaceful harmony; peaceful harmony between states” comes via Middle English amite, amitie, amiste from Old French amistié, amisté, amistet “friendship, affection,” from the unrecorded Vulgar Latin noun amīcitāt-, the inflectional stem of amīcitās, equivalent to Latin amīcitia “friendship.” (The same Vulgar Latin noun becomes amistad in Spanish, which may be familiar to Americans from the Steven Spielberg movie Amistad, 1997.) Amīcitia is a derivative of the noun amīcus “friend, lover,” which in its turn is a derivative of the verb amāre “to love, be in love, fall in love with,” which has no further etymology. Amity entered English in the first half of the 15th century.

The English adjective and noun fainéant “indolent, idle; an idler, a do-nothing” is plainly French. The earlier French spelling fait-nient, literally meaning “he does nothing,” is a folk etymology of Old French faignant “idler, sluggard,” the present participle of faindre, feindre “to shirk,” source of English faint and feign. Fainéant entered English in the first half of the 17th century.

Fistic “pertaining to the fists or boxing” is a transparent compound of the English noun fist and the adjective suffix -ic. Fist comes from Old English fȳst and is closely related to Dutch vuist and German Faust. The thoroughly naturalized suffix -ic derives from Latin -icus and Greek -ikos and was originally applied to Latin or Greek nouns (such as metallic, music, poetic, public). Fistic is a facetious synonym of pugilistic, which is a derivative of Latin pugil “fist fighter, boxer.” Pugil is akin to pugna “fist” and its derived verb pugnāre “to fight,” ultimate source of English pugnacious. All of the Latin words are related to the Greek adverb pýx “with the fist,” and the noun pygmḗ “fist, fistfight, boxing,” also a measure of length from the elbow to the knuckles (of the fist). Fistic entered English in the early 19th century.

Merrymaking “participating in a festive occasion” comes from the verb merrymake, from the verb phrase to make merry. The adjective merry, which these days quickly calls to mind the winter holidays, dates from Old English. Interestingly, the well-known Christmas carol God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen dates from the 16th century, if not earlier, and its first line (notice the position of the comma) originally meant “God keep you joyful, Gentlemen.” During the 18th century, the transitive sense of the verb rest “to keep, preserve” became obsolete, and rest acquired the transitive sense “to grant rest to,” which required a change of punctuation to “God rest you, Merry Gentlemen.” Merrymaking entered English in the first half of the 17th century.