Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus

Saturday, August 1st bivouac Better Watch Out Word of the Day:

The peculiar spelling of today's word points to foreign origins and in this case it's French, from which English borrows bivouac unchanged. Lurking in its background, however, is a Swiss German word, biwacht, a compound of two words that have cognates in English: by and watch. A bivouac is a temporary military encampment, or as a verb, to set up such a camp.

Sunday, August 2nd euphoria Get Happy Word of the Day:

It would be nice to think that euphoria is what you get when you take all the dysphoria away, but euphoria goes one better: it's a feeling of elation or exaggerated (and possibly pathological) well-being. The origin is Greek euphoros, "healthy." The word debuted in English in medical literature with the meaning that it still carries today.

Monday, August 3rd saga Same Old Story Word of the Day:

You've heard the story before. If it's an old story, and full of daring exploits, it may actually be a saga, such as the originals, which were legends of the heroic age of Iceland and Norway. These days we use saga disparagingly to characterize a long and tiresome account of something. English words say and saw (the noun meaning a maxim or proverb) are both distant relatives of saga.

Tuesday, August 4th brevity Keep It Short Word of the Day:

"Brevity is the soul of wit" according to Shakespeare and proverbial English. It's also the derived noun from the adjective brief, though it's disguised in such a way that you might not recognize it. Both words are descendants of Latin brevis but they arrived in English about a century apart, undergoing transformations in diverse languages along the way.

Wednesday, August 5th rigor Unbendable Word of the Day:

We don't normally think of rigor in relation to rigid in the way that we think of, say languor in relation to languid, and that's because rigor has morphed quite a bit in meaning since its 14th century debut. It originally meant harsh inflexibility in opinion or judgment. Now it has more positive spin, such as when it characterizes strict precision or thoroughness. Like other ?or/-id pairs in English, these guys have Latin ancestors.

Thursday, August 6th ascertain For Sure Word of the Day:

Who put the certain in ascertain? Thank the collective unconscious of English spellers, who had already decided on the decidedly unfriendly spelling of certain and decided to do themselves a favor by making the related verb similar, despite different stress. The root of both words in Latin certus. Developments in French introduced vowel havoc, as it so often has done.

Friday, August 7th cordial From the Heart Word of the Day:

The association of feelings with the heart goes way back in English so it's no surprise that a word of Latin origin which started out just meaning "of the heart" would eventually take on the meanings that today's adjective enjoys today: warm, friendly, polite, responsive. The root of cordial is Latin cor, "heart," which also shows up in courage, accord, concord, and discord.

Saturday, August 8th concussion You Rattle My Brain Word of the Day:

Any shock caused by the impact of a collision can be called a concussion, but when we hear the word we usually think of injuries to the brain resulting from a violent blow to or collision of the head. Concussion is the verbal noun of concuss, which is mainly confined to medical terminology. The root is a Latin verb that meant "shake together."

Sunday, August 9th proximity Close to You Word of the Day:

Most words in English with the letter sequence -prox- have the Latin root proximus, "nearest," which is the direct ancestor of today's noun. Proximity is the quality of being close. The underlying Latin adjective, not really in the guessable category, is prope, "near," which also gives us approach. First cousins of proximity are proximate and proximal. It would be fun, but etymologically incorrect, to throw proxy into the mix; it's separately derived.

Monday, August 10th flounder Bottom Feeder's Word of the Day:

Leaving aside the marine flatfish, today's word is also a verb that denotes something people never do intentionally: behave awkwardly or make an effort to no avail. Etymologists flounder to some degree in figuring out where this word came from, though there is a consensus that founder, a verb with some overlap in meaning, might have influenced flounder.

Tuesday, August 11th vortex Spin to Win Word of the Day:

Your take on today's word may depend on whether you're more the scientific or the New-Agey type. Vortex is a name for a whirlpool or something that resembles one, and its Latin ancestor has the same meaning. But if you frequent places like Sedona, AZ or Crestone, CO, you'll know all about places of 'spiraling spiritual energy' called vortexes (or vortices) where weird stuff goes down.

Wednesday, August 12th memorabilia Try to Remember Word of the Day:

No points are awarded for recognizing that today's word is related to memorable, nor for surmising a related meaning: memorabilia are things that spark memories about a time or place, like mementos or souvenirs. Memorabilia is a direct Latin import with the meaning "things to be remembered." It suggests that English might be missing out on a great opportunity to form other -bilia nouns. Impossibilia? Remarkabilia?

Thursday, August 13th caricature Over the Top Word of the Day:

You're excused for associating today's word with character on the basis of sound and meaning overlap, even though the words are not related via ancestry. Caricature is inspired by an Italian antecedent, a word that meant "exaggerated, distorted," which is what a caricature is: something that accentuates peculiarities or defects. Caricature can also act as a verb, meaning to create a caricature of.

Friday, August 14th flick In the Picture Word of the Day:

The core meaning of today's word, an English native, is a short, jerky movement, or the action of doing this. The slang meaning of flick, "movie," was coined in the early 20th century and competed for a time with flicker, from which it was backformed. When filming technology was considerably less advanced than now, movies tended to flicker. The flickering has stopped, but flick is still very useful as a component of chick flick.

Saturday, August 15th eon Such a Long Time Word of the Day:

It's unlikely that you will ever have to wait eons for anything, because you won't actually last that long: technically speaking, an eon is the longest period of geologic or astronomical time, a billion earth-years. In informal use, an eon is just a very long time. If you go in for that sort of thing, as the Brits do, you can tack a superfluous a onto the front of this word and spell it aeon.

Sunday, August 16th imperative That's an Order! Word of the Day:

If you issue too many imperatives you might be regarded as imperious, and there would be good etymological reasons for doing so. The remote ancestor of the two words is Latin imperare, "command." Imperative is mainly an adjective, first and still used to describe the grammatical mood of verbs that is all about ordering people about. As a noun, imperative denotes a word in imperative form, or something that is obligatory.

Monday, August 17th arbitrary You Decide! Word of the Day:

There may seem to be a conflict in meaning between the obviously related words arbitrator (one who decides) and arbitrary (random), but a peek behind the curtain of history reveals their connection. Arbitrary originally meant "according to one's judgment or discretion." It still means this but has drifted semantically into an implication of this, namely, not predetermined by rule or law, and thus, random and unpredictable.

Tuesday, August 18th dingo Dog's Life Word of the Day:

Different dogs go by many names in many languages. A dog designator that jumps a language barrier usually does so because of selective human breeding but for the dingo, the dogs themselves may have done all the selecting. Dingoes are the wild dogs of Australia. The name is from Dharuk, an extinct Australian aboriginal language that was spoken in the area of Australia that Sydney occupies today.

Wednesday, August 19th rescind That Never Happened Word of the Day:

Even authorities make bad decisions sometimes — perhaps a lot of times, because English has so many words for "undo" in an official way. One of them is the verb rescind, which means to cancel the effect of some former action, usually an order or decision. The Latin root of the verb, scindere ("cut") is found in several English words such as scissors, scissile, and abscissa.

Thursday, August 20th saunter Walk the Walk Word of the Day:

Among the many ways you can walk into a room, saunter is one to reserve for special occasions: to saunter is to walk in a slow and leisurely manner, but the word has connotations of self-assurance about it, about half-way up the scale to swagger. Saunter is "of obscure origin," as etymologists like to say when they are flummoxed.

Friday, August 21st fecundity Be Fruitful and Multiply Word of the Day:

The productive suffix -ity is always a good bet for tacking onto a Latinate adjective if you want a noun, and it works here: Fecundity is the quality of being fecund, that is to say, prolific, fertile, or productive. You can go one better in the suffix game by tacking -ate onto fecund to get the verb fecundate, to make fecund, or in other words, to impregnate.

Saturday, August 22nd malodorous What Smells? Word of the Day:

Don't look for a happy ending when a word starts with mal- and most of the time you won't be disappointed. So it is with malodorous, which is simply the prefix mal-, 'bad,' teaming up with an adjective you'll recognize as connected with smell. Though both components of the word are ancient, they didn't team up until the mid-19th century. Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle has the distinction of the earliest citation.

Sunday, August 23rd hindrance Roadblock Word of the Day:

A regular morphological sleight-of-hand removes a vowel from the verb underlying today's word (hinder) and tacks on a suffix to give us a noun. The suffix -ance is a big success story in English, with several hundred nouns testifying to its usefulness, all of them designating an action, process, instance, quality, or degree that relates to the idea of the underlying word, a verb or an adjective ending in -ant.

Monday, August 24th aver For the Record Word of the Day:

Today's verb is a short and sweet one, though not frequently used because it has never escaped the confines of formality. Its many synonyms — such as allege, declare, and affirm — are much more common. Aver is ultimately from Latin verus, "true," and is a cousin to several English words including verdict, verify, very, and verity.