The word radish derives from Latin radix, meaning “root.” The Latin word is also at the root of the English words radical and eradicate. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Latin “Radix” Is the Root of “Radish,” “Radical,” and “Eradicate””
We were talking earlier about the word radish, and as a matter of fact, I was talking about the word radish over sushi the other night with some friends, because the word radish has a really fascinating etymology. It goes all the way back to the Latin word radix, which means root, and the stem of that word is R-A-D-I-C, which is the root of a lot of other cool words, like, for example, radical.
If you’re radical, you have this fundamental, something really fundamental about you. Or if you talk about the square root of, say, four, that’s radical four, which is two, right, in mathematics. And another word that’s related to that whole linguistic family is eradicate.
If you eradicate something, you pull it up by the roots.
Oh, nice.
I hadn’t thought of that.
So if I’m skating really well on my skateboard and I say, that was radical, it goes back to having good roots?
No. It’s gone a ways. It’s taken a journey since then.
Taken a journey. English will do that.
English is rad. Come take a journey with us, 877-929-9673.
