Jejune, meaning insipid or superficial, comes from Latin jejunus, meaning empty. The same root gives us jejunum, the part of the small intestine that is usually empty when autopsied. The same idea of emptiness is reflected in the related French and Spanish words for the first meal of the day, dejeuner and desayuno — in other words, breakfast, or that which breaks the fast and ends the emptiness. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Jejune and Jejunum”
A couple of weeks ago on this show, I dropped some etymology about the term jejun.
You remember this, the term jejun meaning simplistic or superficial or dry and uninteresting.
And I was talking about how it comes from the Latin jejunus, which means fasting or empty or barren, something like that.
And I talked about how it was related to the term jejunum, which is the part of your small intestine, which is usually empty on autopsy.
Right.
That’s what I was thinking of when you said the word.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But there were a couple of things that I forgot to talk about that will make perfect sense if you think about it.
How about the French word for breakfast?
Déjeuner?
Yes.
Same idea.
It’s like break fast in English to breakfast.
Oh, gotcha.
Déjeuner.
And the same idea is in the Spanish word for breakfast, desayuno.
They all come from that same root, meaning empty.
Oh, how about that?
How cool, right?
I did not know that.
Yeah, that’s cool.
