Word of the Day
ab urbe condita
adverb
from the founding of the city (Rome, about 753 b.c.).
More about ab urbe condita
Ab urbe condita “from the founding of the city” is a phrase borrowed from Latin; spelled with the traditional macrons to indicate vowel length, the phrase is properly ab urbe conditā, literally “(in the year) from the founded city.” The preposition ab “away from, out of, since” is a common element in Latin-origin terms such as abduct (originally “to lead away”), abrupt (“to break away”), and absent (“to be away”), and its variant form abs- appears in abstain (“to hold away”) and abstract (“to draw away”). Urbe is the ablative (prepositional object) form of urbs “city,” which is also the root of urban and suburb (“under the city”), while conditā is the perfect participle of the verb condere “to build, conceal, compose,” the source of abscond, condiment, and condition. Ab urbe condita was first recorded in English in the early 17th century.
how is ab urbe condita used?
The dates we now use … [are] based on the calculations of a sixth-century monk named Dionysius Exiguus. He sought to find a replacement for the old Christian calendar which was based on the years since the beginning of the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian, the last emperor to persecute Christians. He died in 311. Prior to that, dates had been calculated in the Roman Empire using Ab urbe condita (from the founding of the city), the date of the foundation of the city of Rome in 753 BC. Dates in antiquity were also calculated according to the year of the reign of an emperor and the dates of the two pro-consuls elected in Rome on an annual basis.
Basically every civilization has also had some kind of accumulating count of elapsed time. In the West, we’re celebrating the start of the year 2022, counting the years since a particular approximate determination of the birth of Jesus; we’re a quarter of the way through the year 5782 in the Jewish calendar (counting from the supposed date of creation) and not quite halfway through 1443 in the Islamic calendar (which has the most historically solid origin of the three, starting with the Prophet Muhammed’s move from Mecca to Medina). In the more distant past, the Romans dated events ab urbe condita, from the founding of the city, and the Maya had the Long Count which put a bit of a cyclical gloss on the steady accumulation of years.
carouse
verb (used without object)
to engage in a drunken revel.
More about carouse
Carouse “to engage in a drunken revel” is a variant of garouse, which derives from German gar aus(trinken) “(to drink) fully out,” that is, to drain the cup. German gar “done, cooked; even, very” is a cognate of archaic English yare “quick, lively, ready,” while austrinken is a compound of aus “out” and trinken “to drink.” In this way, gar austrinken is to go “all out” while drinking. Despite the similar spelling, carouse and the related noun carousal “a noisy or drunken feast” are not related to carousel, a merry-go-round. While carouse is of German extraction, carousel derives by way of French from Italian, and there are multiple competing theories for its origin. Carouse was first recorded in English in the 1550s.
how is carouse used?
For a hamlet named after the eternal banquet hall where the slain warriors of Norse mythology caroused, Valhalla is low on drama. Residents appreciate the forested hills, compact homes and soothing cul-de-sacs of this small Westchester community (population 3,400).
It’s festival season and that’s good news for many people. Be it Body & Soul here or Glastonbury across the water, thousands of people will spend the weekend showing their standard of festival fitness in the open air. They will carouse, dance, shout, drink, scream, fall over and generally act the maggot in various charming and not so charming ways.
harlequin
adjective
fancifully varied in color, decoration, etc.
More about harlequin
The story of harlequin “fancifully varied in color and decoration” is chock full of semantic twists and turns—creating a devilishly good time the further back in time we peer. Harlequin is borrowed by way of Middle French from Italian arlecchino, and before that, the term originated in Old French variously as halequin, hellequin, and herlekin, the name of or a term for a malevolent spirit. Despite the resemblance to English hell, these Old French words may in fact derive from an Old English name, Herla cyning “King Herle.” Herle may have been a legendary or mythological figure similar to Woden (the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Odin), or the term Herla cyning could be related to the recent Word of the Day erlking “elf king,” though there are issues with the phonology in the latter hypothesis. An alternative origin of Herla is a Germanic root meaning “army” that is also found in the names Harold, Herbert, Herman, Walter, Warner, and even Oliver. Harlequin was first recorded in English in the 1580s.
how is harlequin used?
Under a kaleidoscope of lights and surrounded by mirrors, Gucci Creative Director Alessandro Michele sent out models in headgear made up of partially and fully covering face masks, sometimes with spikes, extended ear cuffs, at times almost elf-like as well as intricately carved bronze pieces …. Colorful harlequin prints decorated several outfits, some tops were shiny and pleated, reminiscent of 1970s disco fashion, and bows were at times tied around the ankles on trouser suits, which came in large shapes, with waistcoats or ties for women.
Well, I’ll be, Grandfather said of the television … Grandfather’s hand itched to turn it on. Please, Obdulio said. Please, be my guest. The colors amazed Grandfather. Dazzling harlequin colors. The brown of the horse was deeper than the real color of a horse Grandfather had seen growing up in the mining town of Metcalf, Arizona. Blue. Now, that was a true blue. He had seen that blue, that exactness, on the Gulf of Mexico as a youth on a fishing trip…