vocabulary ch. 10 ORIGINS // english 11

harbinger

An early war word, harbingers were army scouts that sought shelter for the other troops. The word later came to refer to anyone seeking shelter for lost travelers, and, finally, assumed the general meaning of an “announcer of things to come.”

opportune

Portunus was the ancient Roman god that protected harbors & ports. “Opportune” pays homage to this god, deriving from ob (before) and portus (port), depicting the most favorable time ships were safely in the harbor. Today, we regard any fitting or appropriate time as opportune.

skeptical

The Skeptics were ancient Greek philosophers that argued our observations of the world could just be in our minds and that we can never accurately know the world outside of our minds. David Hume, a great skeptic, doubted that we can know for sure whether anything causes anything else.

cardinal

A door hinge is of central importance as a door depends on it to swing. Cardinal derives from the Latin cardo (hinge) and cardinalis, referring to anything of crucial importance like a hinge.

trivial

It was at a trivium that Romans would engage in small talk, gossip, and other conversation. From its association with this talk, “trivial” gained its meaning of “unimportant.”

meretricious

The Latin merere evolved positively into “merit” from the implication of a man being paid for honest labor. It then evolved negatively into meretrix meaning “prostitute” or “female earner of pay,” implying a woman’s earnings dishonest. Once meaning “pertaining to a prostitute,” meretricious now refers to flashy attractiveness.

lampoon

Drunken 17th-century French students would sing lampons, obscene and humorous drinking songs that often made fun of their subjects. Today, “lampoon” refers to an attack that may range from lighthearted humor to vicious ridicule.

fetish

Feltico is the name Portuguese voyagers gave the small objects worshipped by Africans in Guinea. Fetish derives from this word, as it refers to an “object worshipped for its magical powers,” but is also used in a broader sense of an “object of unquestioning devotion.”

zenith & nadir

In the Middle Ages, the Arab world surpassed Europe in science, specifically in astronomy. Both words derive from Arabic astronomical terms.