Word of the Day

The noun tome comes from Middle French tome, from Latin tomus “a cut, slice, or bit; a piece or length of papyrus; a book (in general).” Tomus is a borrowing of Greek tómos “a slice” (e.g., of ham, cheese), (in geometry) “the frustum” (e.g., of a cylinder), “a beam” (of wood). By the 3rd century b.c. and in the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures, dating between the 3rd and 1st centuries b.c.), tómos had also come to mean “(papyrus) roll,” and by the 1st century a.d. “tome, volume” (in the modern sense). Tómos is a derivative of the verb témnein “to cut,” from the Proto-Indo-European root tem-, tom- (with its extensions tend-, tond-) “to cut.” From the variant tem-, Latin derives templum “shrine, temple” (because the property has been cut out from, set apart from profane use). The variant tond- forms Latin tondēre “to cut or clip (hair), shear (a sheep)” and the agent noun tonsor (stem tonsōr-) “barber,” with its derivative adjective tonsōrius, from which English derives the not very serious adjective tonsorial "of or relating to a barber or barbering." Tome entered English in the first half of the 16th century.

Diphthong is hard enough to spell and pronounce, let alone define. Diphthong ultimately comes from Greek díphthongos, literally “with or having two sounds,” a compound of the Greek prefix di- “two, twice, double” and the noun phthóngos “voice, sound,” a derivative of the euphonious verb phthéngesthai “to utter a sound, raise one’s voice, call, talk.” Phthéngesthai is also the root of the Greek verb apophthéngesthai “to speak one’s opinion plainly,” whose derivative noun apóphthegma “a brief, pointed saying” comes into English as apothegm or apophthegm, even harder to spell and pronounce than diphthong. Phthéngesthai has no convincing etymology, but some scholars point to “phonetically convincing” Lithuanian žvéngti “to neigh” and speñgti “(in the ears) to resound, hum, drone.” (The Lithuanian and Greek words derive from the Proto-Indo-European root ghwen-, ghwon- “to sound.”) Diphthong entered English in the second half of the 15th century.

Axiomatic ultimately comes from the Greek adjective axiōmatikós, which originally meant “dignified (of persons or literary style); worthy, high in rank”; as a technical term, axiōmatikós in Stoic philosophy meant “employing logical propositions” (not a cocktail party term!); its adverb axiōmatikôs meant “self-evidently.” Axiōmatikós is a derivative of the noun axíōma, literally “something worthy of someone,” hence “esteem, honor, reputation, rank.” As a scientific term, axíōma meant “something assumed as the basis of a demonstration, a self-evident principle” (Aristotle), and in geometry, “axiom.” Some people may remember axiom from high school geometry (Euclidean), e.g., “If A is equal to B, and B is equal to C, then A is equal to C.” Axíōma is a derivative of the adjective áxios “of like value, worth as much as, worthy,” literally “counterbalancing.” Áxios in its turn derives from the verb ágein, one of whose dozens of meanings is “to weigh on a scale, weigh.” Axiomatic entered English in the late 18th century.

Faux pas, from French and still unnaturalized in English, literally means “false step,” nowadays referring to a breach in good manners, a social blunder. French faux comes from Old French fals, faus, from Latin falsus, past participle of the verb fallere “to deceive, mislead.” The French noun pas, source of English pace, comes from the Latin noun passus “a step, stride, pace,” a derivative of the verb pandere “to spread (legs, arms, wings), spread out, open.” Faux pas entered English in the second half of the 17th century.

Esurient, “hungry, greedily hungry, greedy,” comes from Latin ēsuriēns (stem esurient-), the present participle of the verb ēsurīre “to feel hunger, suffer from hunger,” formed from ēs(us), past participle of edere “to eat” and the desiderative suffix -urīre (of unknown origin); thus ēsurīre literally means “to desire to eat.” Esurient may be familiar to those who like Johann Sebastian Bach’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), which contains the verse Ēsurientēs implēvit bonīs et dīvitēs dīmīsit inānēs, “He [God] hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He hath sent empty away.” Esurient entered English in the second half of the 17th century.