Tag: Word origin

Q: My wife and I belong to a group of 15 couples that celebrate each couple’s wedding anniversary divisible by five—the fifth, tenth, fifteenth, and so on. Can you invent a word for this? My attempts include “cincoversary,” “quinqueversary,” and “cinqueversary.” Any clever ideas?

A: There’s already a word, “quinquennial,” which is both a noun (“we’re celebrating our quinquennial”) and an adjective (“our quinquennial celebration”).

This isn’t exactly a household word, so it’s understandable that you didn’t know it. Only three of the standard dictionaries we checked recognize both the noun and the adjective.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.) and the online Collins English Dictionary say the noun “quinquennial” can mean either “a fifth anniversary” or a period of five years.

The Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary doesn’t use the words “fifth anniversary,” but it describes a “quinquennial” as “something that occurs every five years.”

All three say the adjective “quinquennial” means occurring once every five years or lasting for five years.

Some other dictionaries recognize the adjective but not the noun.

For instance, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) and Webster’s New World College Dictionary (4th ed.) give the usual definitions for the adjective “quinquennial.”

Those two dictionaries don’t recognize the noun “quinquennial.” But they do have entries for “quinquennium,” a noun that came into English in the early 1600s and means simply a period of five years, not something occurring every five years.

The Oxford English Dictionary, a comprehensive dictionary that traces the historical development of the language, has examples for the adjective “quinquennial” dating back to the 15th century.

The earliest OED citations for the noun “quinquennial” are from the 19th century, but the dictionary has examples of a noun “quinquenal” dating back to the 15th century, when it meant “an ecclesiastical office held for five years.”

For a time in the 1500s and 1600s, an adjective spelled “quinquennal”  meant the same thing as “quinquennial”—that is, occurring once every five years or lasting for five years.

Eventually the “-ennial” spelling won out for both the noun and the adjective when used in the sense you’re asking about—a five-year anniversary.

The OED says the English word “quinquennial” is derived from Latin, either from quinquennalis (occurring every five years or lasting five years) or from quinquennis (of five years or five years old). The roots are quinque (five) and annus (year).

The OED’s many written examples of “quinquennial” extend well into modern English. However, most of the noun uses are described as “rare” today, including the one meaning a fifth anniversary. Here are two of the OED’s citations for that usage:

“The hospital only begs widely every five years, and this year is our quinquennial” (from the Westminster Gazette, 1903).

“She does not wait for quinquennials or decennials. She celebrates every anniversary with all the zest of a child” (from a Tennessee newspaper, the Kingsport Times, 1934).

For the most part, according to OED citations, “quinquennial” is used as an adjective to mean covering a period of five years, lasting for five years, or occurring every fifth year. Here are modern citations for each meaning:

“He was a realist. Quinquennial Plans, Personal Development Schemes, Bribes, marriage deals—the barbarians are vanquished” (from Andrew Waterman’s poetry collection The End of the Pier Show, 1995).

“Each of the 163 minority groups documented … was scored for the most widespread and intense event reported during each quinquennial period” (from the Journal of Peace Research, 2000).

“A quinquennial valuation of the ‘Royal’ life and annuity business was made at December 31” (from the Times, London, 1955).

Despite the “rare” label in the OED, “quinquennial” is listed without comment in American Heritage, Collins, and Random House as a noun for a five-year anniversary or occurrence. So you can certainly use it.

But this is your celebration—you invented it, and you can call it what you want (we rather like the sound of “cinqueversary”). Whatever you decide, here’s a toast to all 30 of you!

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Q: What do you call a character created to represent a class of people? I remember roaring with laughter many years ago when I read an article that referred to Marvin Moped, a generic rude moped rider. It doesn’t take much to make me crack up.

A: We don’t know of a technical term for such a character, but there are many common words or phrases with that sense: “stereotype,” “caricature,” “archetype,” “generic character,” “cartoon character,” “stock character,” and so on.

In Aspects of the Novel, E. M. Forster says there are two basic character types, the flat character and the round character.

The flat character is the simple, two-dimensional stereotype you’re talking about, while the round character is a complex one with various characteristics.

Forster says a flat character, sometimes called a “type” or “caricature,” is “constructed round a single idea or quality.”

As an example, he cites Mrs. Micawber from Dickens’s novel David Copperfield. Her flat character, Forster says, can be described in one sentence: “I never will desert Mr. Micawber.”

Of the various terms for such a character, we find “stereotype” the most common in linguistic literature.

In “The Notion of Stereotype in Language Study” (an article posted to the Internet on May 22, 2013), the Russian linguist Elena L. Vilinbakhova notes “two major traditions” in linguistics for understanding stereotypes.

“The first approach defines stereotype as a fixed form, fixed expression, or even fixed text,” she writes. “According to the second approach, stereotype is seen as a fixed content, a fixed mental image of a person, an object or an event.”

Other linguists have referred to “formal stereotype” versus “semantic stereotype,” “‘stereotype of speech” vs. “stereotype of thought,” and “stereotype of language” vs. “stereotype of thought.”

Many writers have categorized character types, going back at least as far as the fourth century BC, when Theophrastus listed 30 types, including kolakeia (a sycophant), kakologia (a scandalmonger), and alazoneia (a braggart).

Interestingly, George Eliot borrowed his name for the scholarly narrator of her last published work, Impressions of Theophrastus Such, a meditation on life in the form of character sketches.

When the noun “character” showed up in English in the 14th century it referred to “a distinctive mark impressed, engraved, or otherwise made on a surface; a brand, stamp,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

However, the OED indicates that the word was used from the start both in the literal sense of an actual mark and in the figurative sense of “the indelible quality which baptism, confirmation, and holy orders imprint on the soul.”

English borrowed the term from Middle French, where it was spelled caractere, carrectere, or charactere. But the ultimate source is the Latin noun character, which could refer to a branded or impressed letter or mark as well as a characteristic.

In the early 17th century, the English noun took on the sense of one’s individuality and personality. But it took a few decades more for it to develop the meaning you’re asking about—a fictional portrayal.

The earliest example of the usage in the OED is from The Rival Ladies, a 1664 play by John Dryden: “He may be allow’d sometimes to Err, who undertakes to move so many Characters and Humours as are requisite in a Play.”

As for “stereotype,” it showed up in the late 18th century as a noun for a method of printing in which a solid plate is formed from a mold of composed type. It’s ultimately derived from the classical Greek words for “solid” and “type.”

As we wrote in a May 8, 2013, post on the blog, the modern sense of a preconceived and oversimplified idea of someone or something showed up in the early 20th century.

When “caricature” appeared in the mid-1700s, according to the OED, it referred to “a portrait or other artistic representation, in which the characteristic features of the original are exaggerated with ludicrous effect.” That’s pretty much what it means today.

Is “caricature” derived from character, the Latin source of the English word “character”?

No, “caricature” comes from the late Latin carricare (to load) and the classical Latin carrus (wagon), the source of the English word “car.”

One might assume that “car” and “cart” are related. Not so. “Cart” comes from Germanic sources: cræt in Old English; cratto, Old High German; kart-r, Old Norse.

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Q: After seeing a Puerto Rican license plate with the motto Isla del Encanto, a thought struck me: encanto … cantar, and that of course led me to “enchantment” … “chant.” Are all these words related?

A: Yes, they’re all ultimately derived from canere, a Latin verb meaning to sing, and its frequentative, cantare. A frequentative is a verb form indicating repeated action.

In Spanish, as you know, encanto means enchantment, while cantar means to sing, but let’s look at the two English words, “enchantment” and “chant.”

When “enchantment” showed up in the late 13th century, it referred to a magic spell. The earliest example in the Oxford English Dictionary is from the Chronicle (1297), Robert of Gloucester’s account of British, English, and Norman history:

“A clerk þoru enchantement hym bi gan to telle” (in modern English, “A cleric through enchantment begins to tell him”).

The OED says English adopted “enchantment” from the Old French enchantement, but the ultimate source is the Latin incantare (in-, upon, plus cantare, to sing). With the addition of the prefix, the verb meant to chant a magic spell upon someone, according to the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology.

It wasn’t until the 17th century that the noun “enchantment” took on the figurative sense of “alluring or overpowering charm,” according to the OED.

The dictionary’s earliest example of the new usage is from Hudibras (1678), a satirical narrative poem by Samuel Butler: “Th’ Inchantment of her Riches.”

When the verb “chant” showed up in the late 14th century, it meant simply to sing. No magic here.

The earliest example in the OED is from “The Miller’s Tale” in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (circa 1390):

“Herestow noght Absolon / That chaunteth thus vnder oure boures wal” (“Don’t you hear Absalom chant this way under our bedroom wall?”).

The noun “chant” meant a song or melody when it showed up in Milton’s Paradise Regained (1671): “Chaunt of tuneful Birds.”

It didn’t take on its religious sense of a simple melody in a psalm, canticle, or dirge until the late 18th century.

The OED‘s first citation is from Charles Burney’s General History of Music (1789): “The Chants, or Canto Fermo, to some of the hymns of the Romish church.”

We have cantare and incantare to thank for many other terms, including “canticle” (1250), “enchantress” (about 1380), “incantation” (1390), “enchant” (bewitch, 1377; delight, 1593), “cantor” (before 1552), “enchanting” (magical, 1555; charming, circa 1607), and “cantata” (1724).

As for “cant,” in its jargony, insincere, or sanctimonious senses, the usage is probably derived from cantare, but the etymology is fuzzy.

Those senses of “cant” developed in the 16th, 17th, and early 18th centuries, first as a verb and later as a noun.

John Ayto’s Dictionary of Word Origins says, “It is usually assumed that the usage derives from an ironic transference of the singing of church congregations or choirs to the wheedling ‘song’ of beggars.”

The OED points out that the Latin cantare and its Romance offshoots “were used contemptuously in reference to the church services” as early as the late 12th century.

The dictionary notes that Thomas Harman, a 16th-century writer, suggested that the usage might have been influenced by the language of religious mendicants or the jargon of itinerants.

Oxford also cites theories that “cant” may be derived from the Irish and Gaelic word cainnt, or from the name of Andrew Cant or his son Alexander Cant, Presbyterian ministers in the 17th century.

However, the OED generally supports the idea that the noun “cant” comes from cantus, a derivative of cantare.

“This and its accompanying verb presumably represent Latin cantus singing, song, chant,” the dictionary says, but adds, “the details of the derivation and development of sense are unknown.”

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Q: England (Poms) recently “murdered” Australia (Aussies) on the cricket field. The response in the Australian press was to coin the word “Pomicide.” But surely, if we follow the pattern of “homicide,” “fratricide,” “matricide,” etc., this means the opposite of what was intended. So wouldn’t a better coinage be “Aussicide”?

A: Of course you’re right—those “-cide” formations are composed from the word for the victim.

“Fratricide” refers to the murder of a brother, “regicide” to that of a king, and so on. Logically, “Pomicide” would refer to a trouncing of the Poms, not by the Poms.  So the usage displayed in the Australian press just wasn’t cricket.

The word-forming element “-cide” (plus the connective “i”) is used in “forming nouns with the sense ‘the killing of (the person, animal, etc., indicated by the initial element),’ ” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

However, such words have had dual meanings in the past, when “-cide” was used in reference to the slayer as well as the slaying.

Yes, the formation was once used in “forming nouns with the sense ‘a person who kills (the person, animal, etc. indicated by the initial element),’ ” the OED says.

In that sense, a person who killed a human being was a “homicide,” a person who killed his mother was a “matricide,” and so on.

But even with this interpretation, a “Pomicide” would be a killer of Poms, not a Pom who was a killer.

There are two sources of “-cide” in English: the classical Latin –cīda (for a cutter, killer, or slayer) and –cīdium (for the cutting or killing itself).

In classical Latin, Oxford says, the words “homicida, parricida, matricida, fratricida, sororicida, tyrannicida” meant the “slayer of a man, father, mother, brother, sister, tyrant.” And there were corresponding  words for the act itself: homicidium, parricidium, matricidium, etc.

Most of these Latin words—both sets of them—passed into French, then on into English, with the uniform ending “-cide,” whether they meant the slayer or the slaying.

For example, in the Middle Ages “homicide” was used to mean the killer as well as the killing of a human being.

We still sometimes refer to someone who takes his own life as “a suicide,” but today most of these words mean the act of taking life, not the responsible party.

Since the 16th century, similar English words have been created that use “Latin first elements,” Oxford says. The dictionary mentions “regicide,” from the Latin rex (“king”), and “suicide,” from sui (“of oneself”).

Here are some of the most common words of this kind, and the dates when they were first recorded in writing.

“homicide”: one who kills a human being (1382, used adjectivally); the act of killing a human being (circa 1386).

“fratricide”: one who kills a brother (c1450); the act of killing a brother (1569).

“parricide”: one who kills a near relation (perhaps 1545); the killing of a close relative (1559). Later used in reference to a father.

“regicide”: one who kills a king (1548); the killing of a king (1579).

“patricide”: one who kills his or her father (1593); the act of killing one’s father (1576).

“matricide”: one who kills his or her mother (1594); the act of killing one’s mother (1632).

“suicide”: one who takes his or her life (1727); the taking of one’s own life (1656).

“insecticide”: a person or thing that kills insects; the act of killing insects (both 1865).

“germicide”: something that kills microorganisms, especially bacteria (1870).

“fungicide”: something used to kill fungi (1889).

“herbicide”: something that kills weeds or other unwanted plants (1899).

“pesticide”: something used to kill pests, especially insects (1933). Some dictionaries also accept its use in the sense of “herbicide.”

“genocide”: the systematic killing of a national or ethnic group. The term was coined, probably in 1943, by the legal scholar Raphael Lemkin and appeared in print the following year in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. It incorporates the Greek genos (race or kind) and originally referred to the extermination of Jews by the Nazis.

In addition to the usual suspects, creative formations have been cropping up since the early 19th century. The OED has entries for inventions like “deericide” (1832), “suitorcide” (1839), “birdicide” (1866), and “verbicide” (1858), a coinage of Oliver Wendell Holmes.

In The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, Holmes declared: “Homicide and verbicide—that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life—are alike forbidden.”

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Q: Why is the verb “doff” almost exclusively linked to hats of one sort or another? It’s a great word and I was wondering about its history.

A: The verb “doff” has been used with all sorts of clothing since it showed up in English in the 1300s.

The Oxford English Dictionary describes “doff” as “a literary word with an archaic flavour,” and defines it as “to put off or take off from the body (clothing, or anything worn or borne); to take off or ‘raise’ (the head-gear) by way of a salutation or token of respect.”

The earliest example of the usage in the OED is from The Romance of William of Palerne, a poem written around 1375 and edited in the 19th century by the English philologist Walter William Skeat:

“Dof bliue þis bere-skyn” (“Doff quickly this bearskin”). The reference here is to a wrap made from the skin of a bear; the term “bearskin” didn’t refer to a hat until the 19th century.

In fact, most of the citations for the verb in the OED refer to doffing items of clothing other than hats.

In the history play King John (believed written in the 1590s), Shakespeare refers to a cloak of lion’s hide: “Thou weare a Lyons hide! doff it for shame.”

And in the epic poem Marmion (1808), Sir Walter Scott uses the term for both outerwear and headgear: “Doffed his furred gown, and sable hood.”

There are even examples for doffing things other than clothing. Shakespeare’s Macbeth (late 1500s to early 1600s) refers to making Scottish women fight “to doffe their dire distresses.” And in Romeo and Juliet (1590s), Juliet says, “Romeo doffe thy name.”

As for today, the verb “doff” is often associated with hats, but not “almost exclusively,” as you seem to believe. Here are the results of two Google searches: “doffed his hat,” 41,100 hits; “doffed his shirt,” 26,600.

We’ve checked eight standard dictionaries and all but one say “doff” may refer to any type of clothing. However, most of them note its specific use for tipping or removing a hat in greeting or to show respect.

Etymologically, the word “doff” is a “coalesced form of do off,” according to the OED. It’s derived from the expression “to do off,” meaning “to put off, take off, remove (something that is on).”

Similarly, the verb “don” (to put on), which dates from the 1560s in written English, is a contracted form of “do on.”

Oxford says the expression “do off,” which dates from early Old English, is now archaic. However, it has a recent example from The Sharing Knife: Legacy, a 2007 fantasy novel by Lois McMaster Bujold: “She wriggled up to do off her boots and belt.”

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Q: How did “traduce” come to mean translate in Spanish and denigrate in English? Maybe there are zillions of such deviations, but I just stumbled upon this one.

A: The verb “traduce” once meant translate in English too, but that sense of the word is now considered obsolete or an affectation, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The OED has examples of the usage from the early 1500s to the mid-1800s. The most recent is from Alton Locke, an 1850 novel by Charles Kingsley about a young tailor who educates himself with the help of a Scottish bookseller:

“If ye canna traduce to me a page o’ Virgil by this day three months, ye read no more o’ my books.” (We’ve expanded the Oxford citation to add context.)

When the verb “traduce” showed up in English in the 16th century, it meant “to convey from one place to another; to transport,” according to the OED, but that sense is also considered obsolete.

The dictionary says the English word is derived from the Latin traducere, meaning “to lead across, transport, transfer, derive; also, to lead along as a spectacle, to bring into disgrace.”

The sense of “to lead across, transport, transfer, derive” inspired the translate meaning in the Romance languages (traducir in Spanish, traduire in French, tradurre in Italian, and so on).

As we’ve noted, English speakers used “traduce” similarly for a couple of centuries, but the OED considers that sense now obsolete or “an affectation after French traduire or Latin traducere.”

In the late 1500s, according to Oxford citations, the English word took on a new meaning: “to speak evil of, esp. (now always) falsely or maliciously; to defame, malign, vilify, slander, calumniate, misrepresent.”

The first example of the usage in the dictionary, dated 1586-’87, is from The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland: “To detract, traduce and utter speichis full of dispyte.”

The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology says the defame sense of “traduce” is probably derived from the use of the Latin traducere to mean “lead along as a spectacle, exhibit or expose (esp. captives, prisoners, etc.) to scorn or disgrace.”

So English borrowed one sense from traducere and the Romance languages borrowed another.

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Q: I teach a class in how to use a risk-mitigation tool that assigns a number between 1 and 10 to potential problems. The documentation refers to this number as a “ranking.” I think a “ranking” is a position on a list, and use the less specific term “rating” in my class. Am I causing needless confusion over a picayune statistical distinction?

A: Standard dictionaries generally agree with you that a “ranking” is a position on a list or scale based on achievement, as in “a number-three tennis ranking,” while a “rating” is merely a classification based on quality, as in “a four-star restaurant rating.”

Although some of these dictionaries use the word “rating” in defining “ranking” and “ranking” in defining “rating,” the examples given fall into the two categories above.

Oxford Dictionaries online, for example, defines a “ranking” as a “position in a scale of achievement or status,” and gives this example: “Victory at the Deutsche Bank championship lifts Singh to number one in the world rankings.”

Oxford defines “rating” as a “classification or ranking of someone or something based on a comparative assessment of their quality, standard, or performance,” and offers this example: “The hotel regained its five-star rating.”

Yes, the difference is subtle, but there is a difference. Vijay Sing was the best of the best golfers in the world, while the hotel was one of those with five stars.

Are you causing needless confusion over a picayune statistical distinction?

Well, you may be causing confusion and the distinction may be something less than earth-shattering. But you’re the teacher and it’s your call.

If you think it’s important enough to maintain this distinction in your class, then maintain it. You have the lexicographers at most standard dictionaries on your side.

Both nouns showed up in English in the 1500s, according to citations in the Oxford English Dictionary. “Ranking” then referred to the act of classifying people or things, and “rating” meant assessing for taxation.

It wasn’t until several hundred years later that the two terms developed the meanings you’re asking about.

In the early 1800s, “ranking” came to mean a position on a scale of comparison, OED citations indicate, and in the early 1900s, “rating” took on the sense of a measurement of one’s achievement. Here are the first examples for each usage.

● “A preparation too well known to require describing, except in regard to its mode of formation, which the preparer, in spite of his ranking as a scientific druggist, has hitherto kept a profound secret” (from the April 1836 issue of the American Journal of Pharmacy).

● “He has been elected President of the Blanker Banking Co., which means that his rating is first-class in the business world” (from Out of the Ashes: A Possible Solution to the Social Problem of Divorce, by Harney Rennolds, 1906).

The word “ranking” is an offspring of “rank,” which in turn comes from ranc, Old French for row or rank, but the ultimate source is khrengaz, a prehistoric Germanic root meaning circle or ring, and source of the English word “ring.”

How did that prehistoric Germanic word give English both “ring” and “rank”?

The OED suggests that “the sense of the French word apparently arose from application originally to a circular or cross-shaped disposition of forces in battle.” So a rank of soldiers may once have been in a circle, not in a row.

The ultimate source of “rating” is the Latin phrase pro rata parte (according to a fixed part, or proportionately), John Ayto writes in his Dictionary of Word Origins.

Ayto notes that rata is the feminine form of ratus, past participle of reri (to think or calculate), which has given English “ratio,” “ration,” “reason,” and similar words.

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Q: I’m curious about how “smart” came to mean intelligent as well as stylish. Which came first?

A: The adjective “smart” has meant fashionable since the 1700s and intelligent since the 1500s, but it’s meant painful much, much longer—since Anglo-Saxon days.

When the adjective first showed up, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it meant biting or stinging, like the pain from a rod or whip. The verb “smart” (to hurt or sting) appeared about the same time.

The earliest example of the adjective in the OED is from Sermo ad Populum Dominicis Diebus, an Old English homily: “Ic wylle swingan eow mid þam smeartestum swipum” (in Modern English, “I want to beat you with that smart whip”).

Although “smart” can still mean painful (“a smart slap in the face”), it’s used more often these days in the sense of intelligent, fashionable, neat, impertinent, or technically advanced (like a smart phone or a smart missile).

Some standard dictionaries describe the intelligent sense as chiefly American and the neat sense as chiefly British, though both usages can be heard on either side of the Atlantic.

Middle English writers widened the original painful sense of the adjective to include mental as well as physical pain.

In The Book of the Duchess (1369), for example, Chaucer writes: “Hym thought hys sorwes were so smerte” (“He thought his sorrows were so smart”).

Around the same time, the adjective took on a new sense—fast, rapid, brisk. Why? We haven’t seen an explanation, but it could be because the sting of a whip prompts a riding horse or a draft animal to speed up.

The earliest OED example of this speedy sense is from an English law, written sometime before 1325, that discusses novel disseisin, an old legal remedy to recover dispossessed lands:

“Þer nis no writ … ware-þoru þe plaintifs habbez smarttere riȝt þane þoru þe writ of nouele disseisine” (“There is no writ through which plaintiffs have faster justice than through the writ of novel disseisin”).

Later in the 1300s, the adjective “smart” came to mean lively, active, or prompt. And by the start of the 1400s, it meant forward, impudent, cheeky, or pert.

As you can see, the sense of being quick of foot was quickly evolving to mean quick of mind. By the 1570s, according to OED citations, the evolution was complete.

The dictionary’s first example of “smart” used to mean intelligent is from a 1571 poem by the Scottish ballad writer Robert Sempill: “Smart in my schuitting [shooting] & singular in my Science.”

This later example is from Argenis, a 1628 book by the Scottish satirist John Barclay: “For he, a smart young man, and of great iudgement … held vp the Kings side.”

In the early 1700s, the adjective took on the sense of neat and stylish. The OED’s first citation, referring to a stylish wig, is from The Lying Lover, a 1704 comedy by the Irish writer Richard Steele: “What shall I do for Powder for this smart Bob.”

In a few years, “smart” was being used in the sense of fashionable, elegant, and sophisticated. The first example in the OED is from a description of a painting in the March 27, 1719, issue of the Free-Thinker:

“In the rising Scale is a Cluster of smart Men, in tawdry Dresses, with little Rapiers, cocked Hats, and tied Wigs; holding divers Sorts of Mathematical instruments.”

In this better-known example, from Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility (1811), Edward Ferrars is speaking to Mrs. Dashwood:

“I always preferred the church as I still do. But that was not smart enough for my family. They recommended the army. That was a great deal too smart for me.”

So how did an adjective meaning painful and intelligent come to mean fashionable?

Our guess is that it might have evolved along the lines of “cute,” an abbreviated version of “acute” that progressed from clever, sharp, and shrewd to attractive, pretty, and charming.

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Q: I assume that “miser” and “miserly” are relations of “miserable,” but how exactly are they related?

A: All three are ultimately derived from miser, a Latin adjective meaning wretched or unfortunate.

The use of the “adjective in the sense ‘miserly’ is not recorded in Latin, but may have existed,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

In fact, the OED says, the Romans sometimes used miser in the sense of “wretched in one’s social or financial circumstances.” Could those “financial circumstances” have sometimes been “miserly”?

The words “miserable” and “miser” both showed up in English around the same time in the 15th century.

The OED’s earliest example of “miserable,” meaning living in a wretched condition, is from a poem by Thomas Hoccleve written around 1422: “To helle goon tho soules miserable.”

However, the dictionary has a question mark in front of the Hoccleve citation, indicating that it’s not sure of the exact meaning of “miserable” here.

The OED’s first definite example—written sometime in the 1400s and cited in Liber Pluscardensis, a history of Scotland—refers to the “mynd of miserabile humanite.”

When “miser” first showed up in English, according to Oxford, it was as an adjective meaning miserly or parsimonious, but that sense of the word is primarily heard now in Scottish.

The dictionary’s first example, also from the 1400s, is a citation in the Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, a German literary and linguistic journal:

“Of his plentevous bloode he was not misser, / For he sufferd his manhod to be slayne.”

When “miser” showed up as a noun in the 16th century, it referred to “a miserable or wretched person,” but that sense is now obsolete, according to the OED.

The dictionary’s first example is from Nicholas Udall’s 1542 translation of Apophthegmes of Erasmus: “So did the philosophier call hym a miser, that had no qualitee aboue the commen rate of manne.”

It wasn’t until the late 16th or early 17th century that the noun took on its modern meaning of someone who hoards his wealth or is stingy.

The earliest Oxford example is from Shakespeare’s Henry V. In the play, written around 1600, the King of France’s son says stinting on defense “Doth like a Miser spoyle his Coat, with scanting / A little Cloth.”

Finally, the adjective “miserly” meant stingy and parsimonious from the moment it first showed up in print, according to the dictionary’s citations.

The OED’s earliest example is from Christ’s Teares Ouer Ierusalem, a 1593 work by the Elizabethan pamphleteer Thomas Nashe:

”If there were any that had dudgen-olde coughing miserly Fathers they could not endure.”

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Q: When I was growing up in Philadelphia, we used to call a car with only one headlight a “padoodle.” I can’t find it in my Webster’s dictionary. Could this have been some highly local slang?

A: The word you’re thinking of is usually spelled “padiddle,” though it’s sometimes seen as “bediddle,” “padungle,” “perdiddle,” “perdiddo,” and “padoodle,” according to the Dictionary of American Regional English.

The slang term, which refers to a car with only one working headlight, is also an exclamation shouted in a courting game played by young couples out for a drive.

DARE has examples of the usage from the Midwest, the West, and the East, though we hadn’t heard of the word before you wrote (Pat grew up in Iowa, Stewart in New York).

The regional dictionary has this 1959 explanation of the usage cited in Folklore From Kansas (1980), edited by William E. Koch:

“If a fellow sees a car coming with only one light and says ‘padiddle,’ he may kiss his girl. If she sees it first and says ‘padiddle,’ she may slap the boy.”

DARE also has examples from California, Washington, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, New Jersey, and Long Island, NY.

The usage seems to have originated in the 1940s. The Oxford English Dictionary describes it as a US colloquialism of unknown origin.

The OED’s earliest example is from an “Archie” comic strip in the May 23, 1948, issue of the Nevada State Journal:

“Let’s play ‘padiddle.’ … When a car goes by with one headlight if I say padiddle you have to give me a kiss!”

However, we’ve found a Library of Congress catalog that lists the Feb. 10, 1940, copyright for an unpublished song, “Let’s play padiddle; w Donna Mae Carlson,” suggesting that the usage dates at least as far back as the early ’40s.

The word sleuth Grant Barrett has described a less romantic version of the game played by children. In this version, according to an April 16, 2008, post on his blog, “If you shout first, you get the right to punch another passenger on the arm.”

Finally, DARE cites a third version of what happens when a padiddle comes into view, from an unpublished letter to the Newsletter of the American Dialect Society:

“If you see one coming, you’re supposed to kiss any handy members of the opposite sex and pinch any of the same sex.”

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Q: I’m troubled by the word “nonplussed.” It still means perplexed here in Australia (as it does in England). But in the USA, it’s evolved to have two incompatible meanings. Does this ambiguity render it less usable?

A: The participial adjective “nonplussed” has meant perplexed or disconcerted since it showed up in written English in the early 1600s, but a lot of people—and not just Americans—now think it means the opposite: unfazed or indifferent.

We’ve checked six standard dictionaries—three American, three British—and none of them consider the new usage standard English.

In fact, only two of them (Oxford Dictionaries online and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th ed.) take note of the recent usage, which began showing up in print half a century ago.

Oxford labels this unperturbed sense as “North American informal,” and adds in a usage note, “It is not considered part of standard English.”

American Heritage lists the indifferent sense as a “usage problem,” and notes, “This usage is still controversial and should probably be avoided, since it may well be viewed as a mistake.” In a 2013 survey, a majority of AH’s usage panel rejected this sense.

“Nonplus” began life in the late 1500s as a noun meaning a state of perplexity in which no more can be said or done. In classical Latin, non plus means no more.

The earliest example in the Oxford English Dictionary is from a 1582 treatise by the English Jesuit priest Robert Parsons: “Beynge now brought to a non plus in argueing.”

An adjectival version of “nonplus” (probably short for “at a nonplus,” according to the OED) showed up in 1589 in Albion’s England, a historical poem by William Warner: “Soone his wits were Non plus, for his wooing could but spell.”

When the term is used adjectivally today, however, it’s usually in the form of the participial adjective “nonplussed.”

The verb “nonplus,” meaning to perplex or confound, first showed up (as a past participle) in Joshua Sylvester’s 1605 translation of the poetry of Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, according to OED citations.

We’ll skip ahead, however, to a clearer example from The Historie of the Holy Warre (1639), by Thomas Fuller: “I know it will non-plus his power to work a true miracle.”

The first appearance of the participial adjective “nonplussed” in OED citations is from A Continuance of Albion’s England, a 1606 addition to Warner’s lengthy historical poem: “As lastly did the non-plust Nunne vnto her Charmes agree.”

The OED describes the recent use of “nonplussed” to mean unperturbed rather than perturbed as “orig. and chiefly U.S.” It suggests that the usage probably arose because of confusion with other “non-” words.

The earliest example of the usage in the dictionary is from the Aug. 2, 1960, issue of the Oakland (Calif.) Tribune: “The Rev. Dr. Braddeley remained nonplussed. ‘I don’t intend to make a habit of going to the races.’ ”

And here’s an example, from Flying (1974), by Kate Millett: “He is nonplussed. Has probably been in this bind a hundred times.”

Although the OED and Oxford Dictionaries online consider the recent usage American (or chiefly American), we’ve found many examples in the British news media.

The website of The Independent, for example, used the term in a recent story about an explosion during the destruction of 10 tons of confiscated beer in Kenya.

As politicians hurry from the scene, the report says, the sign-language interpreter “appears nonplussed by the explosion and barely reacts.”

We’ve even found some examples from Down Under, including a recent report on Nine News Australia about a Canadian pilot who took his four-year-old daughter on a flight of aerial gymnastics.

“Nonplussed at first as she sits strapped in behind her dad, the young girl begins squealing and laughing uncontrollably when her dad guides the aircraft through the sky in thick, undulating loops.”

Why are so many English speakers using “nonplussed” to mean the opposite of the traditional sense?

The linguist Mark Liberman suggested in an Aug. 6, 2008, post on the Language Log that the recent usage may have been influenced by words with meanings similar to those of the traditional and newer senses.

“The other words that mean something similar to the traditional sense of nonplussed—perplexed, confounded, confused, addled, befuddled, bewildered, muddled, etc.—are generally un-negated, while there are quite a few words with a sense similar to the new meaning of nonplussed that include a negative element: impassive, unperturbed, nonchalant, unfazed.”

Getting back to your question, is the recent usage making “nonplussed” unusable? Not yet. As we’ve said, we couldn’t find a single standard dictionary that accepts the new sense of “nonplussed” as standard English.

But stay tuned. English is a living language. And words have a way of surprising us.

(Note: This expands and updates a Feb. 2, 2007, post on the Grammarphobia Blog.)

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Q: Did the word “hamlet” mean a town in Shakespeare’s day?

A: The noun “hamlet” referred to a small village in Elizabethan times. But that sense of the word probably had nothing to do with Shakespeare’s naming of the title character in The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

English adopted “hamlet” in the 1300s from Old French, where hamelet was a diminutive of hamel (village), according to the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology.

Chambers notes that hamel itself was a diminutive of ham, a word for home in many old Germanic languages, including Old English. (No, it’s not related to the cut of meat.)

Interestingly, the Old English sense of ham as home survives in such place names as Birmingham and Nottingham, where the term originally referred to a manor.

The two earliest examples of “hamlet” in the Oxford English Dictionary are from a chronicle written around 1330 by the English monk Robert Mannyng. Here’s one citation: “He died at a hamelette, men calle it Burgh bisandaes.”

And here’s an example written in Shakespeare’s day (from The View of Fraunce, 1604, by the travel writer Robert Dallington): “One hundred thirtie two thousand of Parish Churches, Hamlets, and Villages of all sorts.”

As for the title character of Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, scholars believe it’s ultimately derived from a legend in Gesta Danorum, a history of the Danes composed in Latin around 1200 AD by the Danish author Saxo Grammaticus.

The protagonist of the legend is Amleth, whose father and uncle are joint rulers of Jutland, the peninsula that forms the mainland portion of Denmark.

In Saxo’s tale, Amleth’s father is killed by his uncle, who then marries the prince’s mother. Amleth feigns madness to keep from being murdered by his uncle, but he eventually avenges his father’s killing and becomes king of the Jutes.

Saxo’s Latin version of Hamlet was printed in Paris in 1514. François de Belleforest translated it into French in 1570 as part of his collection Histoires Tragiques. Both works were available when Shakespeare wrote Hamlet around 1600.

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Q: Already this season, I’ve heard three people who ought to know better “celebrate” the retirement of treasured old guys. They meant to “honor” the guys, not “celebrate” their retirements. But maybe I’m the only one who notices.

A: For hundreds of years, the verb “celebrate” has meant to observe or acknowledge a significant event—such as a retirement—as well as to honor or praise someone or something.

In our opinion, not many people would construe the celebration of a retirement as a backhanded way of saying, “Good riddance. We’re better off without him.”

Readers can tell the difference between celebrating (that is, applauding) the overthrow of a tyrant in Mitteleuropa and celebrating (that is, publicly acknowledging) the retirement of a “treasured old guy” at the Booth School of Business.

The word “celebrate” is ultimately derived from the Latin verb celebrare, which originally meant to attend in great numbers, according to the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology.

Chambers says the Latin verb is also the source of such English words as “celebrity” (about 1380), “celebration” (1539), and “celebrant” (1839).

When “celebrate” first showed up in English in the mid-1500s, it meant (among other things) to observe with solemn rites or to honor with religious ceremonies.

The earliest example of the usage in the Oxford English Dictionary is from the 1560 edition of the Geneva Bible: “From euen to euen shall ye celebrate your Sabbath.”

In a little more than a century, however, writers were using “celebrate” for more secular observances.

In The Conquest of Granada, a 1672 play by Dryden, the King of the Moors says: “With pomp and Sports my Love I celebrate.”

Finally, here’s an updated example of the usage from the 1937 first edition of Eric Partridge’s A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English:

“Celebrate, v.i., to drink in honour of an event or a person; hence, to drink joyously.”

Cheers!

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Q: The question herein to be addressed centers around the so-called word “ubiquitousness” (I frankly contest its claim to the title). Do you agree with the editor who changed my use of “ubiquity” to “ubiquitousness”?

A: We prefer the simpler “ubiquity.” It’s more ubiquitous than the clunky “ubiquitousness.”

You can find “ubiquitousness” in a few standard dictionaries, but “ubiquity” appears in more. And the people who use the English language clearly prefer the shorter word.

Here’s the Google scorecard: “ubiquity,” 5.4 million hits; “ubiquitousness,” 90,000.

When the noun “ubiquity” showed up in English in the early 1570s, it referred to the omnipresence of God.

The word comes from ubiquitas, post-classical Latin for “the omnipresence of Christ or of his body,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In classical Latin, ubique meant  anywhere, everywhere, wherever.

The OED’s earliest citation for “ubiquity” is from A Booke of Christian Questions and Answers, Arthur Golding’s 1572 translation of a work by the French Protestant theologian Théodore de Bèze:

“The Vbiquitie or Eueriwherbeing of Christs manhod mainteined by Brentius and certeine others.”

By the late 1500s, according to Oxford, the term “ubiquity” was being used secularly to mean “the ability, or apparent ability, to be everywhere at once.” Today that sense generally refers to “being seen or encountered everywhere.”

By the early 1600s, the term had widened to mean the state of “being present everywhere or apparently everywhere; widespread presence; prevalence, pervasiveness.”

Most of the standard dictionaries we’ve checked now define “ubiquity” loosely as the fact that someone or something is widespread or seems to be everywhere.

This is an example of the freer usage from Oxford Dictionaries online: “I heard more gnatcatchers, but I never did see one, which was a bit surprising given their general ubiquity.”

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.) defines it loosely as the “existence or apparent existence everywhere.”

American Heritage has this example from the 20th-century critical theorist Theodor W. Adorno: “the repetitiveness, the selfsameness, and the ubiquity of modern mass culture.”

The adjective “ubiquitous” showed up two centuries after the noun “ubiquity,” with a similar theological sense: “Of God, Christ, the soul, etc.: present in all places; omnipresent.”

The earliest example in the OED is from Remarks on an Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland (1772), by the Scottish writer James Macpherson:

“When we think him [sc. God] in some matter straitned, or abdridged of room, for his Omnipresence, on the supposition of his essence not pervading this ubiquitous nothing, we seem to forget who he is.”

By the early 1800s, according to Oxford citations, the adjective was being used more generally in reference to a person, thing, quality, and so on that’s widespread, predominant, very common, popular, or omnipresent.

The first OED example is from an 1802 survey of Londonderry by G. V. Sampson: “The almost ubiquitous and perennial daisy, bellis perennis.”

The latecomer in this lot, the noun “ubiquitousness,” was coined in the 1850s by adding “-ness” to the adjective. (The suffix “-ness” is used with adjectives, participles, adjectival phrases, and some other terms to form abstract nouns.)

The dictionary’s first example of the usage is from the April 1852 issue of Colburn’s United Service Magazine and Naval and Military Journal:

“In vain you would track their course … and cry ‘Eureka’, at each bend, fancying you have at length found it [sc. a winding river]. Hopeless delusion! You have yet to learn the ubiquitousness of its character.”

The most recent OED example—from the April 10, 2009, issue of the Daily Telegraph in London—refers to the “ubiquitousness of unavoidable ‘musak.’ ”

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