Home »

• Word of the Day Index

April 6, 2008

Tiffany (noun)

Pronunciation: ['ti-fê-ni]

Definition: A thin, transparent gauze of silk or cotton muslin.

Usage: Today's word is a popular female name as well as a family name drenched in artistic history: Charles Tiffany founded Tiffany & Co., the posh New York City jewelry store and his son, Louis, created some of this country's most striking Art Nouveau lamps—Tiffany lamps—whose style has again become highly visible in fashionable American homes.

Suggested Usage: "Tiffany" is a beautiful word afloat in a history of beauty, as soft and subtle as the fabric itself—reason aplenty to not lose sight (or sound) of it: "Manon walked slowly down the aisle, her face all but hoodwinked in a tiffany veil." The metaphorical possibilities are endless: "It was a bright, clear day with only a few tiffany clouds adorning the horizon."

Etymology: As befits a word of its stature, the ancestry of today's word is positively celestial: it is an ancient French word, tiphanie "Epiphany," a descendant of Late Latin "theophania" with the same meaning. (It may have originally referred to a special material worn on Epiphany or other church holidays.) The Latin word was taken from Greek "theophaneia," based on theo- "god" + phan- from phainein "to show," hence, an appearance of God. The Greek root "theo-" is akin to Latin festus "festive" and fanum "temple," whence our "festival," "fete," and "fanatic" (shortened to "fan" in sports), "profane," respectively.

April 7, 2008

Vestige (noun)

Pronunciation: ['ves-tij]

Definition: A very small, surviving trace.

Usage: Today's word is one of the prettier words in English but the adjective, "vestigial" [ves-'ti-jêl], is prettier yet: "The book showed only vestigial evidence of having ever been read." The adverb is "vestigially" and plural is "vestiges."

Suggested Usage: This word is most often used in reference to suggestive remains of something all but obliterated by time: "30 years of dissolute living had left Farouk but a vestige of the handsome youth Cora remembered." However, the term is too beautiful only to be used pejoratively: "The vestiges of her presence—the last iotas of her perfume disintegrating on the air, the lip prints on her wine glass—would have to suffice Llewellyn until the weekend."

Etymology: Most appropriately, Latin vestigium "footprint, trace" is the last vestige of the Proto-Indo-European word from which it derives, leaving the ultimate origin of today's word in a complete fog. There is one other vestige in the Latin verb, investigare "to track, track down," from which English "investigate" derives. But that is all.

April 8, 2008

Tortfeasor (noun)

Pronunciation: ['tort-fee-zê(r)]

Definition: One who is guilty of wrong-doing that is not in violation of a contract; a wrong-doer, or trespasser for which a civil remedy may be sought.

Usage: A tort is a wrong or harm other than breach of contract, not to be confused with a torte (from Latin torta "twisted loaf"), the European cake, or a tart, the tasty pastry or the tasteless one. Examples include negligence, product liability, cooking the company books (but not tarts), traffic violations, assault. Intentional torts are uninsurable crimes, libel and slander, the exceptions. Companies and individuals may insure themselves against unintentional torts.

Suggested Usage: This word is brought to you as part of yourDictionary's unrelenting Campaign Against Profanity. Now you may say to people who mistreat you, "You dirty tortfeasor!" rather than resort to socially unapproved vocabulary. Remember, if the offense is a violation of a contract, you will misspeak yourself using this term. We might remember 2002 as the Year of the Tortfeasor in US business.

Etymology: From French tort "wrong, evil" + -fesor, faiseur "doer" from Medieval Latin tortum, the neuter past participle of torquere "to twist," which also underlies "torque" and "torture." The English word evolving from the same source is "thwart."

April 9, 2008

Nonplus (verb)

Pronunciation: [nahn-'plês]

Definition: To place someone at a loss as to what to say, do, or think.

Usage: The state of being at a complete loss for a response is also called "nonplus," so one can be at a nonplus or be brought to one by the actions of someone else. We also often say that we are "nonplussed" by something. (This is another orphan negative, which means you cannot "plus" anyone by raising their consciousness.)

Suggested Usage: This is a state the events of the day bring us to all the more often, so we should prepare ourselves to use it properly. Do you know what to say on occasions such as this: "Frieda nonplussed the whole family when she parachuted into the backyard during Dad's birthday party." My friend Shirley came to a complete nonplus at Roland's response to her question whether he liked cheap wine. "I didn't know sheep gave wine," he said.

Etymology: The etymology is very simple though its semantic improbability leaves many etymologists, well, nonplussed. It is from Latin non "not" + plus "more" via the 17th century French phrase mettre a nonplus "to put at nonplus." "Plus" comes from the same root (*pel-/*pol-) as plenus "full" from which we borrowed "plenty." This root came to English as "full" and German as "voll." In Russian the same root emerges as polny "full."

April 10, 2008

Abate (verb)

Pronunciation: [ê-'beyt]

Definition: (1) Lessen, let up, subside, reduce or be lessened, reduced, as to abate the rent by $100; (2) to demolish, destroy, as to abate a condemned building; (3) (Law) to put an end to, render null and void, as to abate a writ in court.

Usage: This word was brought to mind by a misuse of it heard recently in a TV news story on a storm: "the storm will ameliorate." While weather can get better, it is not clear what "the storm will ameliorate" (the storm will get better) could possibly mean: it will become a better storm? It will get stormier? Does this mean that its unhealthy condition will improve? Weather ameliorates; storms abate. The noun for today's word is "abatement."

Suggested Usage: Today's word may be used transitively or intransitively, so the weeds in your garden may abate on their own but, if they don't, you may abate them yourself with an appropriate herbicide. Anything fast, powerful, or uncontrollable may abate, "M. T. Head set out on a world-class shopping spree that did not abate until she had leveled the raised print on her credit card." (The downtown stores were offering price abatements across a wide range of goods and products.)

Etymology: Today's word comes from Old French abattre "to beat down" composed of a- "to" (from Latin "ad") + battre "to beat." The verb "battre" is a descendant of Latin battuere "to beat," related to English "beat," Russian bit' "to hit," and Sanskrit batati "to hit." The place where animals are slaughtered, the abattoir, is also a cousin of today's word.

April 11, 2008

Forte (noun)

Pronunciation: ['fort]

Definition: A strong point, a strength.

Usage: The origin of this word in English is French fort "strong, strength" but it has been confused with the Italian musical term forte "strong, loud" and is now spelled with an "e" and mispronounced ['for-tey]. "Piano" comes from Italian pianoforte "(the) soft-loud", which the Paduan harpsichord-maker Bartolomeo Cristofori, called "gravi-cembalo col piano e forte "harpsichord with soft and loud." In French the word is "fort," pronounced [for], so the French pronunciation does not help. It should be spelled and pronounced "fort" in English but we will concede the spelling but the final "e" must be silent.

Suggested Usage: Here is an example demonstrating the two pronunciations of today's word: "The pianist woke me up by playing the forte ['for-tey] opening of Beethoven's Fifth right after Braham's Lullaby. I guess recital programming is not his forte [fort]." "Brandon is not an academic leader; attendance seems to be his forte." One of the fortes of all Word-of-the-Day subscribers is vocabulary.

Etymology: From Latin fortis "strong" via French "fort" and Italian "forte," the word also behind English "fort(ress)" and "fortify." The ultimate root from which "fortis" derived is probably *bhergh-, the source of German Berg "mountain" and Russian bereg "bank, shore." It turns up in Old English "burg" that gave modern "borough" and was borrowed into French as bourg "town" from which "bourgeois" and "bourgeoisie" are derived.

April 12, 2008

Par (noun)

Pronunciation: [pahr]

Definition: (1) A normal or standard level, or a level equal to some other, as to be up to par or on a par with; (2) (Finance) the face value of a stock or bond, as to sell at par; (3) (Golf) the number of strokes an expert would need to complete a hole or all the holes in a course, as to go over par or par for the course.

Usage: There are no derivatives of this word but it may be used as a verb (Lars parred every hole on the course but the last 15) or an adjective (Lars sold his stock at par value.)

Suggested Usage: Here is the sort of thing, combining meanings (1) and (3) above, that you should say to keep your golfing partners from focusing on their game: "When I'm playing above par, I can play this hole under par." Yogi Berra couldn't put it better. Just make sure you are at least playing on a par with whomever you are talking to.

Etymology: Today's word is Latin par "equal to." The original Proto-Indo-European root was *per- "to grant, allot, or get in return." The suffixed form in Latin, *par-ti-, became part and parcel of "part" and "parcel"—no surprise there. With the suffix –tion, it became portio(n) "part" thence English "portion." The root is also visible in many Latin words borrowed into English, such as "parse," "particle," "party," "participate" from Latin pars, part-"a share, part."