Euphemism, blasphemy…

Euphemism (N): A figure of speech in which an offensive, harsh or blunt word or expression is avoided and one that is milder but precise or accurate is used instead.

This word can be broken as "eu" which means, "good, well" + "pheme", "speaking", some more cognates of the root "eu" are eulogy (eu good + logos, discourse, i.e. to say something good about someone, which means to applaud), eugeny (nobleness if birth, can be split as good + birth), euphony (literally means good sounding, some more cognates, cacophony), euthansia (mercy killing).

Example:

Instead of saying that he died, we say he passed away.

Blasphemy (N): profane talk of something supposed to be sacred, profaneness, sacrilege, irreverence, impiety.

The word can be split up as "blas" + "pheme" speaking.

Contextual example:

When Copernicus propounded the theory of heliocentric cosmology, everyone considered it as blasphemy.

Regards,
V

Rustic and rusticate...

Rustic (adj):having to do with the life in country,simple and charming in a way seen typical of the countryside.

Contextual example:

Each day the rustic scenes (rural) from his village made him feel nostalgic, finally Mohan decided that he would leave US and go back to Charanpur.

Guess which movie this example might belong to?

This word comes from the Latin root "rusticus" which in turn comes from the root "rus" which means country. In fact the word rural also comes from the same root (rus).

To make this word a tad easy to remember lets consider a familiar word.

Rusticate (V): suspend (a student) from a university as a punishment.

When you rusticate someone, you send him or her to the countryside for some time.

Contextual example:

He was rusticated from the school because he had drawn moustaches on the painting of Anne Besant.

Contextual example:

After he was rusticated from school, he lost interest in education.

Regards,

V

philanderer, philanthropist, philatelist, philology and philoprogentive...

philanderer (N): faithless lover; flirt
Philander means a lover and the word can be split as philo + andr man.

Synonyms: Casanova, Lothario, Don jaun, Womanizer.

Philanthropist (N): Lover of mankind; doer of good.
Here philos means beloved, loving and anthropos means man. Thus a person who loves human beings and thus does good things for them is a philanthropist.

Contextual example:
Money does change a lot of things, just after donation of 1 Mn dollars to charity the same media that had derided him initially as being a parsimonious person, painted him as a philanthropist.

The Greek root philos means having a strong affinity and or preference for, loving. This comes from philien, which means to love.

Cognates of anthropos (man): anthropology, anthropomorphic, anthropoid, anthropopathy, anthropophagi, misanthrope.

Philatelist (N): Stamp collector.
This word can be split as philo + ateleia which means, exemption from payment (As postage stamp indicates a prepayment of postage). Here again diving in much deeper “a” means “without” and “telos” means “tax, charge”.

Contextual example:
As he was in arrears the philatelist had to sell of all his stamps to make the ends meet.

Philology (N): Study of language.
The word comes from philogos, which means “fond of talking or learning, studying words”. Philologia means love of learning. Finally this word can be split as Philo + logos which means reason or speech.

Contextual example:
Philology can be a considered as a first step in understanding the cultures.

Cognates of philo: philoprogentive, philosophy, bibliophile, paedophile.

Philoprogentive (Adj): Prolific, loving ones own offspring, Relating to love of children.

His philoprogentive mind was always ready and was put to use whenever there was a need for a creative approach in problem solving.

Regards,

V

Errant, erratic, erroneus...

Errant (Adj): wandering
“Errer” means “to travel about”, it is derived from “iterare”, which comes form Latin “iter” which means a journey (People reminisce the words itinerary, itinerant).

Synonyms: 1) itinerant, peripatetic, roaming, wandering
2) Mischievous, misbehaving, delinquent

Example: The errant knights in search of adventure met with plenty in their journey.

Example (In the second sense): The errant kids ran away after stealing mangoes from the farm.

Example: When they had ridden a mile or more, Sir Tristram (tristam, tristan comes from sadness) spied a goodly knight before him well armed, who sat by a clear fountain with a strong horse near him, tied to an oak- tree. "Fair sir," said he, when they came near, "ye seem to be a knight errant by your arms and harness, therefore make ready now to joust with one of us, or both."

This is excerpted from the legends of King Arthur and his Knights (which I am currently reading), if you want to read more about him here is the link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristram

Erratic (Adj): odd, unpredictable

“Errare” means “to wander”, thus something that wanders from normal will be erratic in nature.

Synonyms: aberrant, deviant, capricious, abnormal.

• Example: The erratic nature of the pitch made it very difficult for any batsmen to stay at the crease for a long time.

Erroneous (Adj): mistaken, wrong

The word comes from “erron”, which means “a vagabond”; “erron” is derived from “errare” the chief root that links all these words.

Synonyms: amiss, imperfect, inaccurate, flawed, inaccurate.

Example: I would have solved the problem but the data itself was erroneous (A typical engineers dilemma, I must say).

Simple cognates to remember the root errare:
Error
Err

Regards,
V

Amazon...

Amazon (N): Female warrior; A tall, aggressive and strong willed women.

A member of a nation of women warriors reputed to be living in Scythia (An ancient region of Southeast Europe and Asia)

A (without) + mazos (Breast) which means Breastless.

Simply put this word like many other words has a disputed etymology. Well I looked up this word and found many alternative etymologies. It is said that these woman cut off or burned out their right breast, so that they could use bow more freely and throw spears easily. It may seem quite illogical but I think it is quite valid explanation as these woman generally rode horses while fighting. Anyways if you want all the parallel explanations read the following article. I read it and at the end I still feel that this one is quite sound.

Regards,
V

Gerrymander...

Gerrymander (V and N): Change voting district line in order to favor political party; manipulate in order to gain an unfair advantage.

This word was formed by combining the words salamander “a small lizard like amphibian” and the last name of Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814) a former governor of Massachusetts. This is because an election district formed by the members of his party looked like a salamander.

Regards,
V

Ludo, prelude, elude, delude, ludicrous, ludification...

Ludo (N):
A board game played with dice in which the one who reaches the destination first wins. Yes people we used to play this game right? Then now we will use it to make us remember few words for GRE.

Prelude (N):
An introductory performance; preamble; preface; introduction; prologue.
“Pre” means “before” and “lude” means “to play”, thus the idea is “to play beforehand”.

Elude (V):
Avoid, dodge, evade, escape, circumvent, bilk.
(e + lude)

Example:
The thief eluded police for a long time.

Delude (V):
Deceive; begule; hoodwink; swindle; cheat; defraud; mislead; outwit.
It can be broken as “De” which means “out” and “lude”, which means play, thus the meaning develops as “to outplay” someone.

Ludicrous (Adj):
Absurd; laughable; ridiculous; risible.
(Ludricus means sportive).

Ludification (N):
A deception; mocking jest.

Regards,
V

Panegyric, pandemonium, panacea, panoramic,pantheon, pantomime, pandemic...

All (Pan) of these words come from the root “pan”, which means “all:.
· Panegyric (N): Formal praise.
Synonyms: accolade, acclamation, eulogy, encomium, commendation.laudation, plaudit, tribute, homage etc.

Pan + “aguris” (assembly or marketplace). The word comes from the idea of a speech at a public assembly.

· Pandemonium (N): Wild tumult, a very noisy place, a place of utter confusion and uproar.
Pandemonium originally meant home of all demons. This word comes from an epical poem by John Milton in which the capital of hell is named as pandemonium.

Synonyms: Tumult, confusion, uproar, bedalm, hubbub, hullabaloo.

Thus the word can be broken as.
Pan + daimon (Lesser god, demon).

· Panacea (N): Cure-all; remedy for diseases.

Synonyms: elixir, Nostrum.

Pan + akos (Remedy)

· Panoramic (Adj): Denoting an unobstructed and comprehensive view.
Pan +horama (sight) (Horan means to “see”)

Synonyms: Vista, view, spectacle.

I would like to introduce another word very much related to the aforementioned word.
Diorama(N): Life size ;three dimensional scene from nature or history.
Dia means “through” and “horama” means, “sight”.

Cognates of Dia :
Diameter,Diagonal,Diatribe.

· Pantheon (N);
A temple for all the gods where the images or memorials of all gods are collected.
Pan + theos (god)

· Pantomime (N): Acting without dialogue.
Panto means “all” “mimos” means, “mime”.

· Pandemic (Adj): Widespread; affecting the majority of people.
Pan + demos (People)

Regards,
V

Aplomb, plumb and plummet...

Aplomb (N): poise, assurance

Synonyms: Self-confidence, calmness, equanimity, sang-froid

Contextual Example:
It was evident that the aplomb with which he was facing the situation was merely a façade and actually he himself was completely shocked by seeing the gruesome situation.

Well this word has some metallurgical connection hidden behind it. People do you remember the metal Lead? If you rack your brains a bit then you may be able to associate this word to the Latin: plumbum, which is the original name for lead. The link of the word aplomb will be more clear if you consider the word plummet, now plummet as we know means to fall perpendicularly, fall sharply etc.

Example: After the 9/11 incident the stocks plummeted which started the economical crisis all over the world.

The word plummet when used as a noun means a ball of lead used for measuring the perpendicularity of surface. Now these balls are made up lead because lead is dense, ductile, and malleable and it also is easily available.

Some more words derived form plumbum are:

Plumb (V): examine critically in order to understand; measure depth (by sounding).

Contextual Example:
He tried to plumb her feelings, but the façade that his fiancée had put up made it quite difficult to do the same.

Plumb (Adj): vertical, perpendicular.

Contextual example (A typical dialogue that we engineers often hear in the workshop, Makes me reminisce those painful days.):

Just before welding the joint check whether the surfaces are exactly plumb or not.

More cognates: plumbing

Like this article? Want some more stuff on the similar lines? Then take active participation on the forum.

Regards,
V

Impetuous, impetus and centripetal...

Impetuous (adj): violent, hasty, rash.

Well although these words are common in vernacular, there is a lot hidden behind them. All these words come from the Latin root “petere” which means “to seek, attack, demand, make for”. This word is derived from the word impetus itself which can be split up as “in” which means “against” + “petere” which means, “to seek” Thus something that is seeking something, or moving towards some other thing will have a some amount of energy associated with it. This is called as the impetus, or in simple words “force”.

Contextual example
All his impetuous decisions about his career had turned out disastrously.

Impetus (N): moving force, incentive, stimulus.

Contextual example:
The invention of wheel provided an impetus, to the development of human race by facilitating the rapid movement of goods from one place to another.

Centripetal (Adj): Tending towards center.
This word can be hacked up as “centrum” which means, “Center” + “”petere” which means, “to seek”. Thus centripetal force is the force that is acting towards the center. While the centrifugal force acts away from the center (centrum + fugere) (Sit back and relax because pretty soon I would be posting the words related to this root: fugere).

Contextual example:
As the turbine (comes from “turbare” which means confusion) blades were going to be run at very high rotational velocities the design was based on maximum centripetal and centrifugal forces that could be generated at those speeds.

One very commonly used cognate of this root is, any guesses? Or should I “repeat” my question. Well the word is “repeat”.

Repeat:
To state something, to do something again

“re” which means “again” + “petere”.

I must say that the cognate seems not at all obvious but now that you know it, you can utilize it as an anchor word.

Whew! that was a lot especially after being in the office for the whole day and then writing the post from 3:00 to 3:32 AM.

Regards,
V

Petrify and petroleum...

Petrify (V): Turn to stone.If there are any fort minor fans over here (like me) they should have heard this word many times. (Whys everybody so petrified, petrified…jus drop that)
Synonyms: terrify, frighten, stupefy, transfix.

“Petra” means “rock” (Greek root) and “ficare” means “to make”. Thus to make into a rock means to petrify i.e. to turn something into rock. Other places where you can see this root (ficare) are certification, classification, purification, transmogrification etc. Anyways moving on, the aforementioned word can be easily remembered by connecting it to a commodity that we burn everyday. Ya it is Petrol, which is drawn out from under the rocks.

Sarcastic contextual Example: If you study the words by the roots approach the chances of getting petrified by seeing some non-Barron’s words will be much lesser.

Petroleum (N): It can be split as “petra” + “oleum” which means oil.

Regards,
V

Cornucopia and copious...

Cornucopia (N): Horn overflowing with fruit and grain; symbol of abundance. The horn of the goat that suckled Zeus (Chief god of ancient Greeks) and which broke of and became filled with fruit. It is said that the horn was able to provide whatever is desired such as fruit flowers, grain. Thus the word can be broken as “Cornu” meaning “horn” and “Copia” meaning “abundance, plenty”.

Example: He was a cornucopia of information, ask him anything and he will provide you with information on that subject and that too more than what you can handle.

Synonyms: Abundance, profusion.
Antonyms: Scarcity, dearth, paucity.

Copious (Adj): abundant, plentiful, ample, generous, lavish, liberal, luxuriant, and abounding. As we know Copia means abundance, plenty.

Regards,
V

Corrode, rodent and erode...

Corrode (V): Destroy by chemical action.This word can be broken up as “cor” which is a variant of co, which means “together, jointly” and “rodere”, which means, “to gnaw”. This word can be associated to a group of animals that we know i.e. Rodents.

Rodent (N): A mammal of order Rodentia characterized by strong and continuously growing incisor teeth and absence of canine teeth. These animals have to gnaw at things continuously to control the length of their teeth. (Quite an exercise isn’t it).Ex: Rats, Squirrel, Mice, Beavers.

Erode (V): Eat away.“E” means “out, thoroughly” and rodere = gnaw

Regards,
V

Mollify, emollient and emolliate...

Mollify (V): Soothe Synonyms: Appease, calm, placate, pacify, assuage, conciliate, propitiate. Example: Being in an irreconcilable mood she told him “Do not try to mollify me”.

Emollient (N & Adj): Soothing or softening remedy. The winter creams and all that stuff fall in the category of emollients. The word can be broken as “E”, which means “out, thoroughly” and “mollis”, which means, “soften”, thus the meaning is to “soften out”.

Emolliate (V): Soften; Make effeminate. All these words can be linked up to the animals belonging to the phylum “Mollusca”; they are characterized by having soft bodies and hard shells and thus the meaning. Examples: Snails, Oysters.

Regards,

V

Stygian...

Stygian (Adj): Gloomy; hellish; deathly; infernal.The Barron’s quote “Stygian derives form Styx the chief river in subterranean land of the dead”. But there is more to this story. People remember Troy? The mother Achilles in order to immortal dipped in the river Styx. But she forgot to dip in water his heel by which she was holding him (Such a foolish thing to do isn’t it?) The terms such Achilles heel are derived from the vulnerability of his heels.

Regards,
V

Don't nettle me...

Nettle (V): Vex; annoy.This word comes from the plants of genus “Urtica”, which have flowers with stinging hairs. Which produce irritation of skin on contact, hence the meaning,Urtica comes from “urere” which means, “to burn”.

Regards,
V

Beauty is just skin deep...

Pachyderm (N): Thick-skinned animal.Examples of such animals are Elephant, Hippopatamus and rhinoceros.This word can be broken as “Pachy” (thick, large, massive) here it means “thick” and “derma” meaning “skin”.

Pachydermatous (Adj): Thick skinned; insensitive; not sensitive to criticism and rebuff.
Word use:Your comments will have no effect on him, as he is a pachydermatous person.

Dermatologist (N): One who studies the skin and its diseases.Derma means, “skin” and “logy” means science, study, or theory.

Epidermis (N): skin, derma, integument, hide.“Epi”meaning upon.

Regards,
V

It's all about money honey...

Imburse, Reimburse, and Disburse all these words come from the same Latin root “Bursa”, which means “a purse”Imburse: pay, reimburse.Literally it means to put in one’s purse.

Reimburse: repay, recompense.Example: “You pay the fees for my Masters in US and I would reimburse you later”.

Disburse: pay out, spend, expend.

Regards,

V

Mary Magdalene...

Maudlin (Adj): sentimental, oversentimental, mawkish, and lachrymose.Da Vinci fans you might know where this word comes from. Remember somebody named “Mary Magdalene” in the book “The Da Vinci code”. She was a follower of Jesus to whom he appeared after resurrection and she was frequently depicted as a tearful penitent. (Magdala was a town in ancient Palestine)

Regards,
V

Minatory and taurus...

Minatory (Adj): Threatening, menacing.This word can be broken as “minari”, which means, “threaten”, and “taur”, which means “bull”. Actually this word comes from “Minotaur” who was monster having body of a man and head of a bull. As he was too menacing he was kept in a labyrinth and fed with human flesh (Gory isn’t it).

Taurus (N): Second sign of zodiac or a person born under this sign.Do you remember a bike made by Enfield by the name Taurus that used to run on diesel fuel? Now it is out of production but still it will help you remember the word minatory.

Regards,

V

Words coming all the way from India...

Pariah (N): Outcast, Untouchable. This word comes from a member of a very low cast family. Literally this word means a “Hereditary drummer”. These were the people completely neglected by the society that’s why the meaning is an outcast.

Juggernaut (N): Irresistible crushing force. Another word coming from India is Juggernaut. I am sorry but this word cannot be hacked as “jugger” + “naut”, meaning a “sailor” of “jugger”. Actually this word means Jagannatha, i.e. jagat (world) + natha (lord). This word has little sanguinary history, in the procession of lord Krishna, which was in the form of enormous cart the devotees use to hurl themselves to be crushed under the giant wheels.

Regards,
V

Tycoon and typhoon...

In Barrons they come together both of the words start with “T” and end with “N” who are they? I am very sorry to break this mystery very quickly. These are the words Tycoon and Typhoon. Again at first glance we see no obvious connection between them.

Tycoon (N): A wealthy leader.This word comes from Japan. it was a title applied to shogun of Japan. This word may be hacked as “da” + “jun” meaning great prince. Now lets see the other word.

Typhoon (N): Tropical hurricane or cyclone.This word come from Chinese and it can be hacked as “da ” + “feng” meaning a great / big wind. Mysterious as it may seem this word is also related to a very familiar Urdu word “Tufaan”.

Regards,
V

Cloister and claustrophobia...

Cloister (N): A place of religious exclusion, Monastery, convent.This comes from the root “claudere” which means to close .The word is derived from idea of a “claustrum” meaning an enclosed space. The connection is such that the people living in these cloisters are shut away from our world so that they can achieve their spiritual goals, akin to our “sadhus” who move to “Himalayas” for the same.From the same root comes another word.

Claustrophobia (N): Fear of confined places, Fear of being locked in.It can be hacked as claustrum + phobia. Claustrum we already know and phobia means an abnormal fear of some particular thing.

Following words also come from the same root:
Include
Exclude
Preclude (Make impossible)
Conclude.

Regards,
V

Immure and mural...

For starters take a look at to our two good old barons words “immure” and “mural” they seem to be slightly related. Actually both the words come from the same root “murus” meaning wall.

Immure (v): imprison, shut in confinement.Actually this word comes from the idea of surrounding something with walls.

Mural (n): Wall painting.Comes from idea of a painting directly drawn on the wall.Hope this helps thou!!

Regards,
V

Germania: words having german origin.

Carousal (N): A bout of carousing, a drunken revel.
This word can be split as "gar" which means "all" + "aus" which has a lots of meanings in German language but in this context it means "out", the word comes from the German term, gar aus trinken, which means to drink heavily. So carousal has to do with heavy drinking.

Contextual example:
Ich leibe das gar nicht, which means I don’t like that at "all".

Waltz (N): a dance in triple time performed by a couple, who turn rhythmically round and round as they progress around the dance floor.

This word comes from the Germanic root "walzen" which means to revolve, roll.

Climate (N):
The word climate comes from the Germanic root "klima", which means the slope of ground, region or zone, well how this is related to the meaning of climate; I think climate can be considered as a measure of certain parameters, "klima" also is a measure. The verb form of this root is "klinein" which means to lean, as in the words recline, incline, declination, acclivity, declivity etc. I will try to consider all these words together in the posts yet to come, but here I would like to introduce you to a word in German language "klimaanlage". "Die Klimaanlage" means an AC, so the Germanic origin of root "klima" is evident here.

Hope this helps!

Regards,
V

Why am I so much gung-ho about words?

Here I would like to introduce you people to the concept of patterns, let’s start with the definition: An arrangement or order discernible in objects, actions, ideas, situations, etc. Simply put it means the commonness behind the things. To quote an example, let us start with a word to which I was introduced when I was studying for GRE, the word is macabre .It means something that is gruesome, grisly, grim, gory, morbid, grim, ghastly, hideous, horrific, horrible, horrifying, horrid, horrendous, terrifying, frightening, frightful, fearsome, shocking, dreadful, appalling, loathsome, repugnant, repulsive, sickening. I am sorry to be verbose at this point but it is my duty to explain to you the whole range of meanings of this word.

Let us avoid digressing away from the main point, so as it happened I was in Aurangabad for getting my university transcripts. Because of the typical bureaucracy the person in charge told me to come back at 3:00 pm to collect the transcripts. So to avoid going back to my home (8 kms away from university) I decided to do some time pass and went to a historical site by the name “Biwi ka maqbara”.

Just as I was roaming around in the monument, some string comparing algorithms were running in my subconscious mind and they returned “1” to my conscious part of brain. And I literally blurted out that; the words macabre and maqbara must be in someway related to each other. So I finished up my work at the university went home and looked up the roots of those words, and voila, wikipedia had an article about the word “Macabre”, in which it was written that one of the suggested origin of the word is the Arabic word “Maqbara”. It seems superfluous to say this, but anyways the word “Maqbara” means “a cemetery”. Both the words have to do with death, gruesome things. Macabre which is purported to be of French origin (the exact origin of the word is still not known). Well it cannot be known for certain whether the two words are exactly related or not, but to me the fact that they sound so much similar, their meanings are so much similar is good enough. I can give many such examples in which words have traveled many miles and have found place in the other languages. But I would consciously avoid doing same, as it will spoil all the fun behind looking up the words and in turn finding patterns behind them.

I had once said, “In every stone there is a beautiful sculpture”; the question is that are we aware of it. So in sum I would like to say that the best way to look at this world is to keep your eyes open for such similarities and patterns. By my own experience I can say that by being conscious about the similarities and patterns you would have a better understanding of the things around you. In plain words it is another way of appreciating the beauty (used in a broader sense) around you. So keep your eyes open!Please feel free to post your comments below.

Regards,
V

Excerpted from Oxford Talking Dictionary. Copyright © 1998 The Learning Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpted from Oxford Talking Dictionary. Copyright © 1998 The Learning Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.