Word of the Day

The English adjective and adverb de facto, “in fact, really, in actuality (whether legal or illegal),” comes from the Latin phrase dē factō, from the preposition dē “of, from” and the noun factum “deed, act.” De facto is frequently contrasted with de jure, from the Latin phrase dē jūre “according to law, legally.” De facto entered English in the early 17th century.

There is nothing sinister about sinistrality: the word simply means “left-handedness” (as opposed to right-handedness) or “left-sidedness.” Sinistrality is a derivation of the adjective sinistral, whose current sense is “on the left-hand side, left” (in Middle English sinistralle meant "unlucky, adverse”). Sinistrality entered English in the mid-19th century.

Rodomontade, “vainglorious boasting, bragging,” is also occasionally spelled rhodomontade (as if it were from Greek rhódon “rose”) and rodomontado; it comes from Middle French rodomont, from Italian rodomonte “bully,” from Rodomonte, the name of the courageous but boastful king of Algiers in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso “Roland in Frenzy, Raging Roland,” 1516. Orlando Furioso is a continuation of an earlier Renaissance Italian epic Orlando Innamorato “Roland in Love,” by Matteo Boiardo, one of whose major characters is Rodomonte, also spelled Rodamontre, and popularly interpreted to mean “mountain roller,” from Italian rodare, from Latin rotāre, from rota “wheel,” and Italian monte, from Latin mons (stem mont-) “mount, mountain.” Rodomontade entered English in the late 16th century.

The extremely rare Scottish and northern English dialect adverb backlins, “back, backward,” comes from the equally rare Old English adverb bæcling, used only in the adverbial phrase on bæcling “on the back, behind, backward.” On bæcling, moreover, occurs only in the Rushworth Gospels (ca. 975), in the Northumbrian dialect of Old English—not even in late West Saxon, the standard literary dialect of Old English. Backlins is formed from the noun back, the uncommon adverb suffix -ling, as in middling, and the native English adverb suffix -s, as in always, sometimes.

The noun plaudit, “a round of applause; an enthusiastic expression of approval,” first appears in print in English in 1600. It comes from the slightly earlier noun plaudite (pronounced as three syllables and probably pronounced plawditee), which appears in 1567. Plaudite comes straight from Latin plaudite “applaud!”, the second person plural imperative of the verb plaudere “to clap, clap (in approval), pat (on the back), beat (wings).” Roman comic actors would cry plaudite to the audience at the end of a play. Plaudere, which has no reliable etymology, has an alternative form plōdere, as in explōdere, “to drive off the stage (by clapping, hissing, hooting), reject, eject” (the modern sense "to burst violently; blow up" does not exist in Latin).