Word of the Day
agnate
adjective
related or akin through males or on the father's side.
More about agnate
The English adjective and noun agnate comes straight from Latin agnātus, adgnātus, past participle (also used as a noun) of the verb agnascī (also adnascī and adgnascī) “to be born in addition to; (of a human being) to be born after the father makes his will.” (The noun agnātus, adgnātus is a male blood relative on the father’s side; agnāta, adgnāta is a female blood relative on the father’s side.) Agnascī (adnascī, adgnascī) is a compound verb formed from the preposition and prefix ad, ad– “to, toward, in addition” and the simple verb (g)nascī “to be born” (Romans of the classical age had the same difficulty with initial gn– as modern English speakers do with, say, gnat, gnarly, and Gnostic). The much rarer Latin terms for “a blood relative on the mother’s side” are ēnātus for a male relative and ēnāta for a female, formed from the preposition and prefix ē, ē– (from ex “out of”) and nascī. Agnate entered English in the second half of the 15th century.
how is agnate used?
Rather than writing that one thing is like another, she suggested, pupils might use “commensurate” or “agnate,” which means related through male descent or on the father’s side.
As office-holding tended to become hereditary, however, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, greater emphasis was placed upon agnate descent.
tête-à-tête
noun,
a private conversation or interview, usually between two people.
More about tête-à-tête
Tête-à-tête, “a private conversation, usually between two people,” in French literally means “head to head.” The tête in tête-à-tête comes from Old French teste, from testa “head” in Vulgar Latin, from Latin testa “terracotta pot, brick.” Tête-à-tête first occurs in French in a comédie-ballet by Molière entitled La comtesse d’Escarbagnas “The Countess of Escarbagnas” (1671). Testa is the Italian word for head, too, but if you use testa a testa in Italian, you will get only a lot of laughs. Tête-à-tête entered English in the early 18th century.
how is tête-à-tête used?
While she and Osborne were having their delightful tête-à-tête above stairs, old Mrs. Sedley and Captain Dobbin were conversing below upon the state of the affairs ….
It’s a meeting that promises awkward handshakes, a “family photo” against a scenic backdrop and tense tête-à-têtes on the sidelines.
inflection point
noun
a point at which a major or decisive change takes place; critical point.
More about inflection point
Inflection point, also point of inflection and flex point, originally, in the first half of the 18th century, was and still is today, was a mathematical term used in geometry and calculus, meaning “a point on a curve at which the curvature changes from convex to concave or vice versa.” This mathematical term gradually spread to other disciplines, such as engineering and economics, that use mathematics extensively. The second meaning of inflection point, “a critical point at which a major or decisive change takes place,” dates from about 2006 and appears to be the coinage of Andrew Grove (1936–2016), a Hungarian-born American businessman, engineer, and author, and a pioneer in the semiconductor industry (Time magazine named him Man of the Year in 1997). Inflection is the usual American spelling, inflexion the usual British one. The Latin noun is inflexiō (inflectional stem inflexiōn-) “bending, curving,” a derivative of the verb inflectere “to bend, curve inward.”
how is inflection point used?
We can either confront it for what it is and make it an inflection point in the arc of our nation’s history, or we can become complicit in the perpetuation of our disease because we refuse to admit we are ill. This time may be different. I pray that it is different.
I think we are at huge inflection point. We need not charitable solutions to structural problems but we need the type of change—and I believe that means that we change the rules.