The English word prestige derives from the Latin word praestigia, which means “trick,” “deceit,” or “illusion.” Its meaning evolved to connote “glamorous, impressive influence.” Originally in English, the word prestige was pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable, sounding like PREST-idge. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “The Old Pronunciation of “Prestige””
Grant, I’ve been thinking lately about prestige. All right, is there a trick here?
Yes, actually, there’s always another layer with you. Yes, there is. Yes, there is. But the the thing
is that you always come up with, or you often come up with, exactly where I’m going, because there is
a trick with the word prestige, because it comes from the Latin, the classical Latin prestigia,
which means trick, deceit, or illusion. And early on in English, prestige meant an illusion,
a conjuring trick, a deception, an imposture. And what’s also super cool is that it appears that the
earliest pronunciation of this word was prestige. Prestige. How about that? That reminds me of
something that always surprises people that the word balcony was originally pronounced
balcone. Balcone. Yeah. But it fascinated me to learn that early on it was an illusion or a trick
and then it became the idea of impressive influence or glamour. And then later on,
prestige as we think about it today, you know, something that’s…
I think the reason I thought that is because there is a very excellent movie called The Prestige with Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman.
Oh, really?
And a prestige is a magician’s term as well.
And I know a little bit about that language, that lexicon.
Wow.
I’d love to hear about that sometime, too.
I do recommend that movie.
It is quite something.
And I don’t want to spoil any of it by talking about it at all.
Oh, cool.
Bye.
