Word of the Day
iridescent
adjective
displaying a play of lustrous colors like those of the rainbow.
More about iridescent
Iridescent “displaying a play of lustrous colors like those of the rainbow” is a combination of the Ancient Greek word îris (stem irid-) “rainbow” and the Latin inceptive infix -sc- “the process of becoming.” In Greek mythology, Iris was the goddess of rainbows and sometimes functioned as the messenger of the gods, serving as a link between the heavens and the mortal realm, similar to the rainbow bridge Bifrost in Norse mythology. Îris is often considered to derive from the Proto-Indo-European root wei- “to turn, twist,” which is also found in wire (from Old English) and Latin vītis “vine,” but other linguists have proposed a pre-Greek origin. Iridescent was first recorded in English in the 1790s.
how is iridescent used?
A halo of multicolored mist floats over an ominous storm. At first glance it looks like an angelic mural or even extraterrestrial activity. But this breathtaking photo is neither manipulated nor paranormal. It’s an iridescent cloud, a phenomenon occurring right in our own atmosphere.
The sun had just gone down outside a soundstage 40 miles north of Los Angeles when a shimmering celestial being appeared. With blond tendrils, iridescent lips, and an hourglass figure, she radiated power, wisdom, and kindness—Oprah Winfrey, in a dress covered with lights.
freebooter
noun
a person who goes about in search of plunder; pirate; buccaneer.
More about freebooter
Freebooter may appear to be an English-language compound, but in fact, it’s Anglicized from the Dutch term vrijbuiter, a combination of vrij “free” and buit “booty”—a compound word about treasure that is well suited for a pirate-related term. Buit and its English cognate booty derive from a Germanic source meaning “exchange” or “sharing of the spoils.” Freebooter has one other relative in English, and an unexpected one: filibuster, in the historical sense of “unauthorized military adventurer.” While freebooter is a direct borrowing from Dutch, plus a spelling change, filibuster is a borrowing of Spanish filibustero, one of several words meaning “pirate,” via French from the same Dutch term, vrijbuiter. Freebooter entered English in the late 1500s.
how is freebooter used?
Buccaneers were adventurers who settled in Hispaniola, the island today divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. They lived off the meat of wild cattle, which they preserved using an Indigenous smoking method called bouccan. In the mid-17th century they started to engage in piracy, just like the freebooters, a term deriving from the Dutch word vrijbuiter, “a person who freely takes booty.”
More about yore
Yore has a long history in the English language, first appearing as geāra in Old English. While its origin is uncertain, a popular theory is that geāra comes from the same source as the phonetically similar word year (Old English gēar). If true, this means that yore and year derive from the Indo-European root yēr- “year,” which is also the origin of Yiddish yor (as in Yahrzeit, the anniversary of a relative’s passing) and Ancient Greek hṓrā “part of a year, time of day,” the source of horoscope. Hṓrā was borrowed into Latin as hōra “hour,” which is the source of the words for “hour,” “now,” “still,” and “again” in many Romance languages.
how is yore used?
And the warden explained to me that when the architects designed the facility at Halden Prison, that it was really important to them to have the prison feel as though it was set in nature. And there’s historical precedent for this, even in our own country—asylums and hospitals in days of yore. It was seen to be really critical that people had fresh air and fresh water and a beautiful view.
Some beer companies are trying to create new, innovative ways to hold their cans together without trapping marine animals in any resulting refuse. Unlike plastic straws, however, viable alternatives aren’t always readily available. When the straw was first commercially produced, it was made of paper, making the move away from plastic simply a return to the straws of yore.