Word of the Day
dolmen
noun
a structure usually regarded as a tomb, consisting of two or more large, upright stones set with a space between and capped by a horizontal stone.
More about dolmen
Dolmen “a structure consisting of upright stones capped by a horizontal stone” is possibly a borrowing from Cornish, the Celtic language once spoken in Cornwall, a region of southwest England. Beyond this point, the history of dolmen becomes muddled; the word could be a corruption of tolmên, as used in William Borlase’s 1754 collection of essays Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of the County of Cornwall, in which Borlase implies that the word derives from a local name, mên an tol or maen tol “the holed stone,” corresponding to Cornish toll “hole” and men “stone.” Dolmen was first recorded in English in the late 1850s.
how is dolmen used?
When I get up close to a dolmen, I often have a bit of a sit-down inside and commune with my ancestors, keeping an ear out. It was on a rainy day … in County Donegal—when the Irish air was soft with mist and the green hills were dotted with lambs—that the portal tomb in a nearby pasture called to me.
I found the dolmen before I knew it: a curiosity in the center of a field, strewn about with small stones like a gaggle of offspring. It was a knock-kneed little tomb, its two supports leaning together but the flat capstone still firmly in place, level as a tabletop. All three megaliths were fuzzy with golden lichen, and radiated the morning’s sun.
scrimp
verb (used without object)
to be sparing or frugal; economize.
More about scrimp
Scrimp “to be sparing or frugal” is likely a borrowing from a Scandinavian language such as Danish, Norwegian, or Swedish, all of which descend from Old Norse. Both English and Old Norse are Germanic languages, but despite their close relationship, they diverged about 2,000 years ago, and this time apart resulted in many sound changes. Two common changes were the shifts from k to ch and from sk to sh, which happened in English but not in Scandinavian languages. This means that, when the Vikings invaded Great Britain and many Old Norse words entered English, English terms had to compete with their Norse cognates, resulting in church and kirk, shirt and skirt, and sharp and scrape. Though it entered English centuries after the Viking invasion, the Scandinavian word scrimp was originally a cognate of the English word shrimp; both derived from a Germanic verb meaning “to contract, shrink,” and while shrimp continued to refer to physical size, scrimp shifted to refer to money. Scrimp was first recorded in English in the early 1700s.
how is scrimp used?
The bride should be caught up in a delightful whirl. A marriage should be royal and magical. … Dwell on Olympus for that one day at least. Be gods. Ah! … Don’t stint on nuptials, don’t clip their splendour, don’t scrimp on the day that you shine. A wedding isn’t housekeeping. Oh, if I had a free hand, it would be glorious! Violins would be heard playing among the trees.
Though Thanksgiving falls on the more relaxed end of the sartorial spectrum in terms of American holidays, it’s no excuse to scrimp on style completely. Chic, timeless, and surprisingly versatile, an elevated slipper shoe is a simple yet effective way to keep your look from veering in too casual a direction.
More about aureate
Aureate “golden or gilded” comes from Latin aureus “golden,” from aurum “gold.” The further etymology of aurum is uncertain, but there are two competing theories—one with a phonological similarity that lacks a semantic resemblance and the other with a semantic similarity that lacks a phonological resemblance. Aurum may be connected to aurōra “dawn,” from a Proto-Indo-European root, ausōs-, of the same meaning, from the root aus- “to shine”; the definition would have shifted from “shining thing” to “gold.” If this theory were true, aurum would be related to Eos, the Greek goddess of the dawn known for her rosy-tipped fingers, as well as to east and Easter, originally a Germanic goddess of springtime. An alternative theory connects aurum to aes “brass, bronze, copper,” from the Proto-Indo-European root ayos- “metal,” which is also the source of English ore. Aureate was first recorded in English in the early 1400s.
how is aureate used?
Still now, on those hot summer days when the sun lacquers Manhattan storefronts into something aureate and amber-rich, when the air is impenetrable, blistered, and rank, and when brick tenements on Ludlow evoke whatever decade speaks to your nostalgia, my brother’s copy of Paul’s Boutique comes to mind.
Though Frost maintained that “nothing gold can stay,” some goodness remains, the play concludes. But the poet may have been right after all; whatever small measure of aureate glimmer and substance here is, ultimately, fleeting.