Word of the Day
More about eftsoons
For some of us, our first (and only) encounter with eftsoons is in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798), line 12, to be exact (if you get that far): “Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!” Eftsoons his hand dropt he.” Eftsoons (also eftsoon), a very rare word, is a compound of the archaic adverb eft “again, a second time” and the adverb soon, expanded by the adverbial genitive -s (as in backwards and forwards). Eftsoons entered English before 1000.
how is eftsoons used?
Eftsoons he made known his wants to the churl behind the desk, who was named Gogyryan. And thus he spake: “Any rooms?”
I am of this mind with Homer, that as the snail that crept out of her shell was turned eftsoons into a toad, and thereby was forced to make a stool to sit on disdaining her own house, so the traveller that straggleth from his own country is in short time transformed into so monstrous a shape that he is fain to alter his mansion with his manners, and to live where he can, not where he would.
indemnity
noun
compensation for damage or loss sustained.
More about indemnity
Indemnity comes from Middle French indemnité, from Late Latin indemnitās (inflectional stem indemnitāt-) “security from financial loss.” Indemnitās is first recorded in the writings of the Imperial Roman jurists Sextus Pomponius and Ulpian. The root word of indemnitās is the noun damnum “financial loss, deprivation of possessions or property, a sum to be paid in restitution.” Damnum comes from an unrecorded dapnom, a noun derivative of the extended root dap-, from the Proto-Indo-European root dā– “to apportion in exchange.” The same root yields Latin daps “sacrificial meal, banquet,” Old Norse tafn “sacrificial animal, meal” (also from dapnom), Greek dapánē “cost, expenditure” and dáptein “to devour, consume,” Sanskrit dāpayate “he divides,” and Armenian tawn “feast” (from dapni-). Indemnity entered English in the 15th century.
how is indemnity used?
I promise you indemnity for your loss, and an apology that shall, I trust, satisfy your feelings ….
On his arrival, as an indemnity for alleged insults offered to the flag of his country, he demanded some twenty or thirty thousand dollars to be placed in his hands forthwith ….
weal
noun
well-being, prosperity, or happiness: the public weal; weal and woe.
More about weal
The history of weal is complicated and confusing. The Middle English spellings include wele, wel(le), weil(e), weal(le) “worldly wealth, riches; possessions, goods; prosperity, good fortune; well-being, welfare; happiness, joy.” These exuberant Middle English spellings come from Old English wela, weola, weala “wealth, riches; prosperity.” The English meanings have always been influenced by the related adverb well—wel, wel(l)e in Middle English, and wel, weol, woel in Old English—which in general signifies successful accomplishment of the action of the verb. Weal entered English before 900.
how is weal used?
They did not consider a commitment to the public good, the common weal, to be at odds with the desire for prosperity.
I will not arise from this spot, O valorous and redoubtable knight, until your benevolence and courtesy vouchsafe me a boon that will redound to the honor and glory of your person and to the weal of the most disconsolate and aggrieved damsel that ever the sun beheld.