Word of the Day
coalesce
verb (used without object)
to unite so as to form one mass, community, etc.: The various groups coalesced into a crowd.
More about coalesce
The English verb coalesce ultimately comes from the Latin compound verb coalescere “to grow together, combine,” formed from co-, a variant of the prefix com– “together, with,” and the verb alescere “to grow up, be nourished.” Alescere is composed of the simple verb alere “to nourish, suckle, feed,” with the inchoative suffix –esc-, which indicates the beginning of an action (sometimes the suffix has lost its original meaning). Alere comes from the Latin root al– “to nourish,” from which Latin also derives alimentum “nourishment” (English aliment and alimentary), alumnus “foster child, nursling” (English alumnus), alimōnium “food, support, cost of support” (English alimony), and alma māter “nourishing mother, kindly mother,” which by the late 14th century came to refer specifically to universities. Coalesce entered English in the 16th century.
how is coalesce used?
Will the new generation of activists rising across the United States coalesce into a movement capable of uniting a deeply polarized country?
Most friend groups, however, seemed to coalesce around the segment of L.A. they were from, bonds formed through carpools and neighborhood functions rather than schoolyard commingling.
extenuate
verb (used with object)
to represent (a fault, offense, etc.) as less serious: to extenuate a crime.
More about extenuate
Extenuate comes from Latin extenuāt-, the past participle of the verb extenuāre “to make thin or narrow, whittle down, contract, reduce.” The only common English meaning of extenuate, “to represent a fault or offense as less serious,” is an extended meaning of one of the Latin senses “to diminish or lessen (in size, quantity, or degree).” The root underlying extenuāre is the Latin adjective tenuis “thin,” a derivative of the very common Proto-Indo-European root ten-, tend-, ton-, tṇ– (and other variants) “to stretch, extend, spin (cloth).” The root appears in Latin tenēre “to hold in the hand, grasp,” tendere “to stretch out, offer”; Sanskrit tanṓti “(he) stretches, spins,” tāna– “thread, tone”; Greek teínein “to stretch, pull tight,” and tónos “tension, sinew, cord, string, tension (in the voice), tone (of the voice).” The Germanic forms thunw– and thunni– yield the Old English verb thenian (also thennan) “to stretch, spread out, bend (a bow),” Old High German dennen “to extend, stretch” (German dehnen), the Old English adjective thynne “thin,” and German dünn “thin.” Extenuate entered English in the first half of the 16th century.
how is extenuate used?
Revelation of embryonic activity in the sixties does not extenuate crimes of more recent vintage, but they will show us how pervasive and dangerous our unconcern has been.
This was what no reasoning, no appeal to the calmer judgment, could ever, in his inmost thoughts, undo or extenuate.
emporium
noun
a large retail store, especially one selling a great variety of articles.
More about emporium
Emporium with its Latin ending –um still looks foreign. In Latin, emporium means “trade center, business district, market town.” The Latin word means something larger and more permanent than the Greek original empórion “trading station, trading post, entrepôt.” Empórion is a derivative of emporía “commerce, trade, business,” itself a derivative of émporos “passenger on a ship, traveler, merchant, trade.” The compound noun émporos breaks down into em-, a variant of en– “in, on,” and póros “way, passage, journey.” Póros derives from the Proto-Indo-European root per-, por-, pṛ– “to lead, pass, pass over.” Per– is the source of English firth and fjord (both from Old Norse fjǫrth, inflectional stem firth-, from Germanic ferthuz “ford”). The variant por– is the source of Old English faran “to go on a journey, get along” (English fare). The suffixed form por–eyo– forms the causative Germanic verb farjan “to make go, lead,” which becomes ferian in Old English and ferry in English. The variant pŗ– forms the Latin nouns porta “door, gate,” portus “port, harbor,” and the verb portāre “to carry, transport.” Emporium entered English in the second half of the 16th century.
how is emporium used?
He sold everything in the emporium, from coffee to collar studs, camisoles to cuckoo clocks, candied sugar to collapsible top hats.
Following a stint as a window dresser at Luisa Via Roma, Florence’s famous fashion emporium, she relocated to Paris, learning tailoring from the French designer Myrène de Prémonville ….