Word of the Day
More about brume
Brume, “mist or fog,” is a borrowing from French and comes via Provençal bruma from Latin brūma, “winter, winter solstice.” Brūma is ultimately a contraction of brevissima (diēs), “shortest (day),” which is the superlative of brevis, “short.” Brevis is the source of abbreviate and brevity as well as (by way of French) abridge and brief. In Latin, the superlative forms are often marked with -issimus; compare Italian bravissimo and generalissimo. Brume was first recorded in English in the first decade of the 19th century.
EXAMPLE OF BRUME USED IN A SENTENCE
With excellent timing, a brume arose from the sea on the solstice and spread inland, all as if to signal that winter had come.
posole
noun
a thick, stewlike soup of pork or chicken, hominy, mild chile peppers, and cilantro.
More about posole
Posole, “a soup of meat, hominy, mild chile peppers, and cilantro,” is a loanword from Mexican Spanish, in which it is also spelled pozole. Because of a phonological phenomenon called seseo, while c and z are pronounced in most dialects of European Spanish as “thuh,” they have merged with s in Latin American Spanish and become “suh.” Pozole comes from pozolli “hominy, maize-based stew” in Nahuatl, which only uses c and z, not s, to indicate the “suh” sound. Posole was first recorded in English in the 1690s. Learn more words of Nahuatl origin in English.
EXAMPLE OF POSOLE USED IN A SENTENCE
He prepared a large pot of posole, which he knew would help cure the post-holiday hangover.
niveous
adjective
resembling snow; snowy.
Why the Museum of Science chose niveous
Snow, or things that are niveous, appear white because they reflect back the entire color spectrum. To learn more about what niveous means, watch this video from award-winning science communicator Maynard Okereke, better known as the Hip Hop M.D.
Learn more fun facts at the Museum of Science.
More about niveous
Niveous comes from the Latin stem niv-, “snow,” which combines with the suffix -eous to form an adjective. Today, niv- survives as French neige, Italian and Portuguese neve, Romanian nea, and Spanish nieve, all meaning “snow.” Niv- is a distant relative of English snow, which has the s- that Latin lost thousands of years ago. Other examples include the English/Latin pairs slack and laxus (“loose”) as well as steer and taurus (“bull”). Niveous was first recorded in English around 1620.
EXAMPLE OF NIVEOUS USED IN A SENTENCE
With the previous day’s blizzard finally past, the children headed outside for an afternoon of frivolous play in their now niveous neighborhood.
