Cark is a noun meaning “worry” or “trouble.” As a verb, cark means “to cause worry or distress,” as in to have carking doubts. This word derives from a Latin word for “burden,” which also produced...
The Latin word latibulum means a “refuge or hiding place of animals.” It derives from the same root that gives us the English word latent, meaning “hidden.” A 17th-century dictionary defines the now-rare English word...
Sir Paul McCartney once wrote a song that included the phrase female pulchritude and luminosity. The word pulchritude means “beauty,” but why such an ugly-sounding word for such a lovely thing? Pulchritude derives from pulcher, a Latin...
If an operator operates, why doesn’t a surgeon surge? The word surgeon comes from ancient Greek cheir, which means “hand,” and ergon, “work,” surgery being a kind of medical treatment done by hand, rather than the work...
Ronna from Jackson, Wyoming, asks about the word suffrage, meaning “the right to vote.” It goes back to the Latin word suffragium, which in ancient Rome meant a “voting tablet,” but beyond that, this word’s...
If you say you’re going to repair to the drawing room after dinner, meaning that that you will “go” to that room, you’re using a word that’s completely different from the verb repair meaning “to fix.” These...