Word of the Day
pax vobiscum
phrase
peace be with you.
More about pax vobiscum
Pax vobiscum “peace be with you” is a loan from Latin that comprises pax “peace” and vōbīscum “with you.” Pax is the source of appease, pacify, pay, and peace; the noticeable variation in spelling stems from natural sound changes that occurred as Latin pax (stem pac-) evolved into Old French pais (and modern French paix). Vōbīscum is a compound of vōbīs, the prepositional object form of vōs “you,” and cum “with.” Similar constructions survive today in modern Romance languages, such as Spanish conmigo “with me” and Portuguese convosco “with you.” The singular equivalent of pax vōbīscum, said to one person, is pax tēcum, while “peace be with us” is pax nōbīscum. Pax vobiscum was first recorded in English in the 1810s.
how is pax vobiscum used?
Sholom Aleichem was a pseudonym assumed by Sholom Rabinowitz, born in 1859 in what is now Ukraine. In Hebrew, “sholom aleichem” is a greeting that means “peace be with you.” Who knows? Maybe if he wrote in Latin he would have called himself Pax Vobiscum.
“Pax vobiscum!” he called. Continuing in Latin, he said, “Peace to you this night. Please, put up your swords. You have nothing to fear from us.”
torrid
adjective
oppressively hot, parching, or burning, as climate, weather, or air.
More about torrid
Torrid “oppressively hot” comes from Latin torridus “dried up, parched,” from the verb torrēre “to parch, burn.” This Latin verb has two stems: torr-, as in torrent, and tost-, which is the source of toast. A popular hypothesis is that torrēre is related to Latin terra “earth,” perhaps originally in the sense “dry land,” which is the source of the recent Word of the Day terrene. Because of Grimm’s law, Latin t tends to correspond to English th, and this is how Latin torrēre is a distant relative of English thirst (from Old English thrust “dryness”). For more on terra, check out the recent Words of the Day testudinate and telluric, and to see Grimm’s law in action, compare togated and transcendental. Torrid was first recorded in English in the 1580s.
how is torrid used?
Torrid weather gripped large parts of western and central Europe on Wednesday, setting new June temperature records in Germany and the Czech Republic and forcing drivers to slow down on some sections of the famously speedy German autobahns.
corsair
noun
a pirate, especially formerly of the southern Mediterranean coast.
More about corsair
Corsair “a pirate” is the product of a long chain of borrowings from one Romance language to the next on its way to English. The term comes via Middle French corsaire from Provençal corsar, and before that, the word traveled by way of Italian corsaro from Medieval Latin cursārius “plunderer,” equivalent to Latin cursus “a running, course” plus -ārius, an agent noun-forming suffix. Cursus comes from the verb currere “to run,” which has four common descendant forms in English: corr- via Italian and Spanish (as in corral and corridor), cour- via French (as in courier and discourse), cur(r)- (as in current and occur), and curs- (as in cursor and excursion). Corsair was first recorded in English in the 1540s.
how is corsair used?
Act One begins on the Greek island controlled by the corsairs, or pirates. There’s a raucous, offstage chorus introducing Corrado, the chief corsair, who is in exile.
London dismantled markets for trading pirate booty; pirate-friendly cities like Port Royal, Jamaica, were brought under heel, and blockades were launched on the potentates that harbored the corsairs of the southern Mediterranean and Southeast Asia.