latin words

cruciverbalist (krüsəˈvərbələ̇st)

The first crossword puzzle was created by Arthur Wynne, editor of the New York World, and published in 1913. (Image from commons.wikimedia.com)

If you’ve been passing time conquering crossword puzzles during quarantine, you can thank Arthur Wynne. In 1913, Wynne, the editor of the New York World, decided that readers needed a new challenge in the Fun section of the newspaper. Wynne designed a Word-Cross (later changed to Crossword) to engage and amuse readers.

However, it wasn’t until 1924, when Simon and Schuster published the first collection of crosswords that solving these puzzles became a national craze. The Cross Word Puzzle Book, a compilation of crosswords from the New York World, was a huge success, selling over 100,000 copies. Newspapers clamored to get crosswords published in their pages in an effort to feed the public’s newfound obsession.

The New York Times decided to publish its first crossword on Sunday, February 15, 1942 in an effort to provide civilians with an escape from troubling WWII news. The crossword became a daily feature on September 11, 1950. Today, cruciverbalists consider the crosswords published in The New York Times the best puzzles in the world.

Cruciverbalist comes from the Latin words crux, meaning cross and verbum meaning word. A cruciverbalist is someone who is adept at creating or solving crossword puzzles.

Margaret Petherbridge Farrar, the first crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times, once stated, “You can’t think of your troubles while solving a crossword.” If you would like to escape into a crossword puzzle, try The New York Times daily mini crossword puzzle.

The solution to Wynne’s crossword puzzle can be found here.

1 CommentLeave a comment

toxology (täks-älə-jē)

Happy National Archery Day!

I’ve been on my school’s Varsity Archery team for two years now and find the sport highly challenging, yet relaxing. Our team qualified for the State tournament this year for the first time in school history! Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus, the competition was cancelled.

The Greek word for bow is toxon. The ancient Greeks often shot poison arrows at enemy troops. When Rome conquered Greece, the Romans adopted toxon into Latin. However, the meaning of the word changed – in Latin, toxon came to mean poison.

Very rarely, the Greek definition of toxon appears in English. So far, I’ve only encountered two words that have retained the meaning – toxophilite and toxology. You can read my post about the word toxophilite here.

Toxology is the study of archery and projectiles. The word comes from the Greek word toxon meaning bow and -logy meaning study of. Toxology is commonly confused with the word toxicology, which uses the Latin meaning and refers to the study of poisons. In fact, many familiar words in English use the Latin meaning of toxon.

1 CommentLeave a comment

araçari (ärəˈsärē/ärəˈkärē)

Hi everyone!

When my family was in Costa Rica during spring break, we had a chance to visit the Toucan Rescue Center near San Jose. The Rescue Center cares for injured animals and in some cases, rehabilitates them and releases them back into the wild. The Rescue Center doesn’t just limit its efforts to toucans as its name suggests but also, sloths, owls, and monkeys.

The common name for the toucan featured in today’s post is Collared Araçari. Araçaris are small brightly colored toucans that belong to the genus Pteroglossus.

The genus name Pteroglossus comes from the Greek roots pter- meaning wing/feather and -gloss meaning tongue/language. Unfortunately, my pictures do not show the feathery tongue of the toucan. However, feel free to do a simple internet search to convince yourself that they do indeed have feather-like tongues!

The species name of this araçari is Torquatus. A torque (or torq/torc) is a twisted metal necklace worn by ancient Gauls, Germans, and many other ancient cultures. Torque comes from the Latin verb torquere meaning to twist or turn. If you look closely at the pictures of the araçari, you will notice a beautiful ring resembling a torq around its body.

The ‘Snettisham Great Torc’, is a treasure of the ancient world. It is made from an alloy of gold, silver and copper, and weighs over 1 kg. Image from http://www.britishmusuem.org

Can you think of any other words that contain the roots mentioned in this post? Be sure to comment and let me know!

0 CommentsLeave a comment

eradicate (ə̇ˈradəˌkāt) vs. irradicate (ə̇ˈradə̇ˌkāt)

Hello everyone! To continue our homonym theme, let’s take a look at this confusing pair of homophones – eradicate and irradicate. You may remember from an earlier post that homophones are words that sound the same, but are spelled differently.

Both eradicate and irradicate come from the Latin word radix, which means root. However, these words have opposite meanings due to their prefixes. Eradicate contains the Latin prefix e- which means out of, giving rise to its meaning “to uproot” or “root out”. One could use the word “eradicate” in terms of a cure for a disease (the disease was completely eradicated).

Irradicate on the other hand means to root deeply within. It refers to something that cannot be “rooted out” or “destroyed.” This word has gone through assimilation, the process by which the final letter of the prefix is dropped, and the first letter of the root is doubled. In this case, the prefix “in” (meaning in or within), has changed to ir-radicate. Even though assimilation has occurred, the meaning of the original prefix remains. Assimilation often occurs with words derived from Latin in which a prefix is linked to a root. 

I hope you enjoyed reading about this interesting pair of words!

 

 

 

 

1 CommentLeave a comment

One of my favorite things to eat is pasta. I could eat fettuccine, linguine, penne and farfalle every day and not ever get tired of it!

Stewart Edelstein, the author of Dubious Doublets: A Delightful Compendium of Unlikely Word Pairs of Common Origin, from Aardvark/Porcelain to Zodiac/Whiskey has created a fun pasta quiz on Merriam-Webster online. As you take the quiz, you’ll notice that the origins of many of the Italian words for the various pastas derive from Latin. This is because Italian is a Romance language. Other Romance languages include Spanish, French, and Portuguese. Romance languages come from Vulgar Latin (vulgus is a Latin noun that means “common people” or “general public”), a form of Latin that was spoken by commoners in Rome during the 2nd – 4th centuries.

Take the quiz and be sure to let me know how you did!

 

2 CommentsLeave a comment

discreet (də̇ˈskrēt) vs. discrete (dəˈskrēt)

 

Invisible braces are discreet; they are unnoticeable and unobtrusive.
“Discrete” is used commonly in math or science. Discrete data is distinct and separate, it can be counted as in this set of pears and peaches.

This is a guest post by Aisha R. from California who participated in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2016 and 2017.

Hi everyone! My name is Aisha and I am a 12 year old 7th grader. When Tara announced that she was doing a homonym theme on her blog, I was quick to volunteer to write a guest post.

An interesting pair of homonyms that I found are discrete (detached or separate) and discreet (prudent, modest, or unobtrusive). Both words come from the Latin verb discernere which means to separate or to distinguish. Unfortunately, the shared etymology makes these words difficult to differentiate.

A good way to remember the definition for the word discrete is that the two e’s in the word are separated by the t. Here is a picture to help you remember this trick.

discrete memory trick

Thank you Aisha, for taking the time to share this pair of homophones with us and your trick to remembering how to spell discrete. It is  interesting to note that the word “discern” (to recognize or identify as separate or distinct) also comes from the Latin verb discernere.

 

 

1 CommentLeave a comment