contemporary romance

Ground down

CONTRITION, n. Did you know that this word used to mean “[t]he action of rubbing things together, or against each other; grinding, pounding or bruising (so as to comminute or pulverize)” (OED)? I did not. I was only familiar with the figurative meaning: “being bruised in heart; sorrow or

Fending for yourself

on the word "fend" and two excellent romance novels

contemporary romance

Downfalls and inheritances

DEMISE, n. This word showed up in one of the romance novels below (A Caribbean Heiress in Paris) in the sentence “If the duke only knew that his sons had been plotting his demise for weeks […]” In context, the duke’s sons are not plotting his death, but his downfall;

Shakespeare

Comely truth

come (yes, like that) and, of course, romance novels

fantasy romance

Shall we sing a song?

SHALL, v. This word has been on my mind because my kid adopted it. A couple days ago, he asked for more strawberries and when I told him the box was empty, he said, “Shall we go to the store?” like the world’s most prescriptively correct almost-two-year-old. He says

English literature

Every beating heart a secret

SONDER, n. This is a new word (we could say “neologism,” sure), coined by the writer John Koenig in 2012 for his project The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. He invented it based on French “sonder” (to probe, to measure the depths of), and German “sonder-,” a prefix that indicates something

Jorge Luis Borges

God's secret dictionary

JACTITATION, n., also jactation. I’ve been reading the work of Argentine genius Jorge Luis Borges again. In one translation (Douglas Crockford’s), I ran across this word, “jactitation,” for Spanish “jactancia,” which I think is more usually translated as “boasting.” “Jactitation” has the same meaning in English, but it’

French history

Octidi 18 Nivôse

CALENDAR, n. Timely, right? I looked this word up for reasons that will become clear below, but I figured the first newsletter of January was a great moment to tell you about it. We get “calendar,” meaning the way we organize our months and years (as in “the Gregorian calendar”

fantasy romance

Apparitions

ANDROID, n. There are androids in one of this week’s small-r romances. This newsletter has covered “robot” and “construct” before, so I figured it was time to look up “android,” even though it’s pretty etymologically straightforward. Andro- as in “man,” -oid as in “having the form or nature

French literature

Roosters, horses, ginger, figs

COCKTAIL, n. I was at a bar with some friends and one of them said, “Where does the word ‘cocktail’ come from? No, don’t look it up—it can’t possibly be as good as what I’m imagining.” Telling me not to look up a word has never

historical romance

Undercrofts

UNDERCROFT, n. Two of the romance novels that I wrote about below prominently feature an undercroft, that is to say, the cavernous space under a castle, filled with stone columns. So naturally I had to look it up. Undercrofts tend to be a feature of Norman architecture, so we’re

contemporary romance

Myschyvys

MISCHIEVOUS, adj. Now that I’ve put this word in the title of a novel that will be published on Tuesday, I have to come clean: I can’t ever type it right on the first try and I was pronouncing it wrong (sorry, as good descriptivists, we say “in

a medieval illuminated manuscript with illustrations of big cats and text in Latin

contemporary romance

a word to the poem

LEOPARD, n. This is the common name in English for Panthera pardus, a spotted, golden-furred big cat that lives in various habitats across Africa and Asia. The etymology of “leopard” is fairly straightforward: most likely, it’s “leo” for lion and “pard” from pardos, meaning “spotted.” “Like a lion, but

contemporary romance

Leveling

STRIKE, n. There’s a lot of news in the US about striking labor unions right now, so naturally I’ve been wondering why our word for “the cessation of labor in order to force bosses to respect workers” is “strike.” Strike, as a verb and a noun, has a

animal words

Gerfaunts and orafles

GIRAFFE, n. This word, referring to the long-necked, spotted African mammal, comes to English through French, where it used to be spelled “giraffe” but is now spelled “girafe,” and in either case its origin is Arabic zarāfa. Before English settled on “giraffe,” we used to call these animals camelopards, gerfaunts,

animal words

Coneys

RABBIT, n. My baby learned to say this word. Actually, he learned to say “babbit,” which is even better. Did you know that children simplify words they can’t pronounce in consistent, predictable ways? As in, not all kids employ the same rules, but each individual kid settles on their

Moby-Dick

fact one: the whale is a discourse

DISCOURSE, n. I can’t quit twitter. It’s owned by a fascist ghoul and increasingly more broken every day, but my bookish community still lives there, it’s a reliable way to get the word out about a new book, sometimes passionate fans will coalesce around a single tweet

art history

"the obscenest picture the world possesses"

PUDENDUM, n. I recently finished reading Ross King’s The Judgment of Paris, a nonfiction book about Impressionism and French history, in particular the artists Édouard Manet and Henri Meissonier. I loved it, not just because there were several etymologies mentioned, most memorably the one in this long excerpt (page

body or sex words

Let's have a bouba

BOOBS, n. This term for breasts shows up in print in US English for the first time in 1929, which means people were saying it before that. “Boobies” is older than just plain “boobs,” and it’s a variation on “bubbies,” which goes all the way back to the 1600s

body or sex words

To have the horn

HORNY, adj. I wanted to know if I could use “horny,” as in “lustful,” in my current novel draft without it being an anachronism, and I am thrilled to report that Green’s Dictionary of Slang has the first recorded instance of “horny” as “sexually eager” in 1826 in US

US history

Shoe against the machine

SABOTAGE, n. I caught myself repeating this word’s famous folk etymology in conversation this week—namely, that “sabotage” as in an act of deliberate obstruction/destruction comes from French sabot (clog, as in a peasant’s shoe), which is true, and that the word “sabotage” comes to us from