Word of the Day
victorine
noun
a fur scarf with long tabs at the ends.
More about victorine
Victorine “a fur scarf with long tabs at the ends” is likely a namesake of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, using the descriptive suffix -ine. The name Victoria is an adaptation of Latin victōria “victory” and is spelled variously as Victoria, Viktoria, Viktorija, or Wiktoria in most European languages that use the Roman alphabet. Because of regular sound changes, however, the name becomes Victoire in French and Vittoria in Italian. The Latin noun victōria derives from the verb vincere “to conquer, win,” which has two major stems: vinc-, as in invincible and province, and vict-, as in conviction and evict. Though vincere sounds similar to English win, the two are not related, but you can find a form of vincere in the phrase vēnī, vīdī, vīcī “I came, I saw, I conquered.” Victorine was first recorded in English in the 1840s.
how is victorine used?
‘If you please, my lady,’ said Patty, the little maid, putting in her curly head once more; ‘it’s a gentleman as I never see before. Nayther [sic] the Rector, nor the Curate, nor the General, nor nobody as I know; and he has got fur round his neck…,’ said Patty, with a cough which covered a laugh. ‘It’s just like the thing as they call a victorine.’
So Mrs. Murden departed very much cast down, and very insignificant in her cashmere dress and the fur she had thought so handsome—so it was in her own set; but her eyes had been dwelling upon velvet cloaks and sable victorines the past two hours. Alas! for her last year’s mantle, pretty as it had been; embroidered merinos looked so common—fatal word.
carapace
noun
a bony or chitinous shield, test, or shell covering some or all of the dorsal part of an animal, as of a turtle.
More about carapace
Carapace “a bony shell covering the back of an animal” is a borrowing by way of French from Spanish carapacho, which is of uncertain origin. One theory is that carapacho is a corruption related to English caparison (from Old Spanish caparazón) “a decorative covering for a horse,” which may come from Medieval Latin cappa “hooded cloak, cape” or classical Latin caput “head.” Alternative proposals that carapacho shares an origin with English calabash or calabaza, a type of gourd; Spanish galápago “tortoise,” the namesake of the Galapagos Islands; or Ancient Greek kárabos “kind of beetle,” which is related to scarab, are based only on passing phonetic similarity. Carapace was first recorded in English in the 1830s.
how is carapace used?
Gator snappers are surprisingly large turtles, with wild adult males capable of achieving weights of more than 200 pounds …. The carapace, or top shell, can be up to about 30 inches in length, and by the time one were to measure the head, neck, carapace and tail, the total length can approach a whopping 60 inches. However, most adults are quite a bit smaller with the average carapace length of only 24 inches.
Most fish, from minnows to sharks, have pliant bodies, which they undulate to move through the water. But boxfish sport a set of hard, bony plates, called a carapace. The carapace acts like a suit of armor—protecting them against predators, but restricting their flexibility …. It also gives them their strange shapes: other boxfish species look like purses, Frisbees or ottomans.
tisane
noun
aromatic or herb-flavored tea.
More about tisane
Tisane “aromatic or herb-flavored tea” is a loanword from French, in which it indicates herbal tea, and comes from Latin ptisana, also tisana, from earlier Ancient Greek ptisanē “crushed barley,” derived from the verb ptissein “to crush.” Ptissein is related to several words of Latin origin, including pīnsere “to pound, crush,” which is the source of pistil “the seed-bearing organ of a flower” as well as pestle “a tool for grinding substances in a mortar.” Despite the similar sound and meaning, tisane is not related to tea; as we learned from the recent Word of the Day matcha, tea ultimately comes from Middle Chinese. Tisane was first recorded in English in the early 1930s.
how is tisane used?
Technically, tea comes from the evergreen plant Camellia sinensis. Oxidation transforms the flavor and color of the leaves to produce black tea, whereas green tea leaves remain relatively unprocessed. A drink produced by steeping herbs or flowers in boiling water should, strictly speaking, be called an infusion or tisane. But most of us still call these teas.
Chinese green tea first arrived in North Africa in 1854 when British ships en route to Baltic ports were forced to dock in Tangier, Morocco because of the Crimean War. “There were amazing salespeople on this ship, and they convinced the Moroccans to add … green tea to their mint tisanes .… Then it became a huge tradition,” says [author of The World in Your Teacup, Lisa Boalt] Richardson.