Latin

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

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

complacent (kəm-plā-sənt) vs. complaisant (kəm-plā-sənt)

 

The squirrels were destroying our vegetable garden, but Coco remained complacent, completely unconcerned about what was happening outside.
Coco is always complaisant when she knows she will be rewarded with a treat for good behavior.

Let’s kick off our homonym theme with a pare pair of adjectives that I find to be particularly tricky. The words complacent and complaisant are homophones as well as heterographs. As you may recall, homophones are words that sound the same, but are defined differently, while heterographs have the same pronunciation but different spellings and meanings.

Both words are derived from the Latin infinitive complacere meaning to please. Complaisant means “a desire to please,” whereas complacent means “pleased with one’s self” or “self-satisfied,” and usually has a negative connotation. To make it more confusing, one of the definitions of complacent IS complaisant! However, if you use the word complacent to mean “willingness to please or oblige others”, linguists will probably label it incorrect.

Stay tuned for another tricky homonym pear pair soon!

 

 

 

2 CommentsLeave a comment

-tara (tarə)

Hello everyone! As I study for the 2017 Scripps National Spelling Bee, there are certain words that naturally catch my attention. I am particularly intrigued by words that contain my name. I didn’t realize that tara could be found in so many words originating from different languages.

Tarantism (tarən‧ˌtizəm) is an uncontrollable urge to dance, and tarantella (tarən‧ˈtelə) is an Italian folk dance. Both these words are named after Taranto, a city in Italy.  A taradiddle (tarəˈdidəl) is a small fib. No one knows where this word originates from, but it was first used around 1796.

One of my favorite words is taramosalata (tärəˌmōsəˈlä-tə). This is a Greek fish spread and it originates from Greek. A tuatara (tüəˈtärə) is a large reptile commonly found in New Zealand. This word originates from Maori, a Polynesian language.

The word tarantara is an imitative word that mimics the sound of a bugle. This is actually a variation of the Latin word tantara (tan‧ˈtarə).

Tara means star not only in Sanskrit, but also in many other Indian languages, such as Hindi and Telugu. So there you have it, a post all about my name! I hope you enjoyed this post and I hope you will indulge my narcissism especially since I recently celebrated my birthday!

4 CommentsLeave a comment