Small Latin and Less Greek
I heard a word today and made a point of noting it so I could look it up (because I am a word geek). Then when I sat down at the computer I trusted my memory and looked up an entirely different word.
The word I looked up was "inexorable", which means "relentless". It's from Latin (of course it's from Latin!) and literally means "cannot be argued with", so that's pretty interesting.
And then I looked up the word I had in fact meant to look up, "exacerbate" (fortunately, I had jotted it down). You can see how I'd get them mixed up. I'd never really looked at the word before, and I noticed that after the standard "ex-" suffix was the word "acerb", which like its first cousin "acerbic" means "bitter" or "harsh", so that's why "exacerbate" means "to make worse" ("ex-" not being the Latin "out of" or "without" but a standard intensifier). "Acerbic", by the way, is another one of those rare words that doesn't have a matching adjective ending in "-al".
And then "exacerbate" made me think of "execrable", because they sort of look alike. "Execrable" means "worthy of being execrated", and to execrate is to deem hateful or repellent. Again we have that "ex-", but this time it does mean "not" or "without", and the "-crate" part comes from Latin "sacer", "sacred", so to execrate something is to declare it to be unholy.
And then for some reason "exacerbate" or possibly "inexorable" made me think of "uxorious"--must be all those exes floating around--which, I knew, meant "wifely", from the Latin "uxor", "wife". (I really did know this.) Except that I got part of it wrong; "uxorial", in fact, is the word that means "wifely"; "uxorious" means "excessively submissive or devoted to one's wife". Which is an odd word, for a couple of reasons: 1) there isn't as far as I know a word meaning "excessively submissive to one's husband", presumably because a woman who is submissive is just doing what a woman is supposed to do while a man who is in any way not domineering is pathetic and a joke, and 2) I didn't think it would be possible to be too devoted to one's spouse, and I'm astonished that there's a word for it. (I'm also mildly baffled that "uxorious" and "uxorial" mean two different things, because "-ous" and "-al" have the same essential meaning: "characterized by". But such is English.)
And then I stopped. For now.
The word I looked up was "inexorable", which means "relentless". It's from Latin (of course it's from Latin!) and literally means "cannot be argued with", so that's pretty interesting.
And then I looked up the word I had in fact meant to look up, "exacerbate" (fortunately, I had jotted it down). You can see how I'd get them mixed up. I'd never really looked at the word before, and I noticed that after the standard "ex-" suffix was the word "acerb", which like its first cousin "acerbic" means "bitter" or "harsh", so that's why "exacerbate" means "to make worse" ("ex-" not being the Latin "out of" or "without" but a standard intensifier). "Acerbic", by the way, is another one of those rare words that doesn't have a matching adjective ending in "-al".
And then "exacerbate" made me think of "execrable", because they sort of look alike. "Execrable" means "worthy of being execrated", and to execrate is to deem hateful or repellent. Again we have that "ex-", but this time it does mean "not" or "without", and the "-crate" part comes from Latin "sacer", "sacred", so to execrate something is to declare it to be unholy.
And then for some reason "exacerbate" or possibly "inexorable" made me think of "uxorious"--must be all those exes floating around--which, I knew, meant "wifely", from the Latin "uxor", "wife". (I really did know this.) Except that I got part of it wrong; "uxorial", in fact, is the word that means "wifely"; "uxorious" means "excessively submissive or devoted to one's wife". Which is an odd word, for a couple of reasons: 1) there isn't as far as I know a word meaning "excessively submissive to one's husband", presumably because a woman who is submissive is just doing what a woman is supposed to do while a man who is in any way not domineering is pathetic and a joke, and 2) I didn't think it would be possible to be too devoted to one's spouse, and I'm astonished that there's a word for it. (I'm also mildly baffled that "uxorious" and "uxorial" mean two different things, because "-ous" and "-al" have the same essential meaning: "characterized by". But such is English.)
And then I stopped. For now.
posted by pyramus | 12:02 AM
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