Word of the Day
sepulchral
adjective
proper to or suggestive of a tomb; funereal or dismal.
More about sepulchral
Sepulchral “proper to or suggestive of a tomb,” the adjectival counterpart of the noun sepulcher, spelled sepulchre in British English, derives from Latin sepulcrālis “relating to a tomb,” from sepulcrum “tomb.” There is no clear reason for the addition of the h to these two Latin terms as they passed via Old French into English, though it is possible that influence from the similar-sounding adjective pulcher “beautiful” may have been the culprit. Alternatively, because spelling rules became lax in Medieval Latin (which was roughly contemporaneous with Old French) and the letter h had become silent, h started cropping up in words where it had no reason to appear, and the change of Middle English sepulcre to sepulchre in the 1200s could have followed this trend. A similar phenomenon occurred with cāritās “dearness, charity,” which was often misspelled in Medieval Latin as charitas by conflation with Ancient Greek kháris “grace, charm.” Sepulchral first appeared in English in the early 1600s.
how is sepulchral used?
Hermione came down to dinner strange and sepulchral, her eyes heavy and full of sepulchral darkness, strength. She had put on a dress of stiff old greenish brocade, that fitted tight and made her look tall and rather terrible, ghastly. In the gay light of the drawing-room she was uncanny and oppressive. But seated in the half-light of the dining-room, sitting stiffly before the shaded candles on the table, she seemed a power, a presence.
nyctophobia
noun
an irrational or disproportionate fear of night or nighttime darkness.
More about nyctophobia
Nyctophobia “fear of night or nighttime darkness” is a compound of the combining forms nycto- “night” and -phobia “fear.” Nycto- derives from Ancient Greek nýx, of the same meaning, and comes from the same Proto-Indo-European root, nekwt-, found in English night, German nacht, and the Latin-derived terms equinox and nocturnal. In Greek mythology, Nyx was the primordial goddess and personification of nighttime who mated with Erebus, the god of darkness, to create Aether, the god of the upper air, and Hemera, the goddess of daytime. The ending -phobia is commonly used to indicate fear, and the opposite is -philia; while nyctophobia is fear of darkness, nyctophilia is love of darkness. The ending –phobia derives from Ancient Greek phóbos “fear” (but originally “flight”), which is related to Latin fugere “to flee,” as in fugitive. Nyctophobia was first recorded in English in the early 1890s.
how is nyctophobia used?
“But wasn’t it dark inside the trunk?” Nora asked. “If Ashley had nyctophobia she wouldn’t have climbed in there” …. He shook his head. “I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t recognize the Ashley I knew in any of this, this witch we’ve been tracking. Curses on the floor? Nyctophobia? Ashley wasn’t afraid of the dark. She wasn’t afraid of anything.”
sanguivorous
adjective
feeding on blood, as a bat or insect.
More about sanguivorous
Sanguivorous “feeding on blood” is a compound of the combining forms sangui- “blood” and -vorous “devouring.” Sangui- derives from Latin sanguis, of the same meaning, but the story does not stop there. Continuing a common pattern in the Indo-European language family, the Romans had two words for “blood”—sanguis and cruor—and while sanguis implicitly referred to blood inside the body, cruor referred to blood outside the body, particularly in violent contexts. In this way, it should come as little surprise that cruor is distantly related to English raw (Old English hrēaw) and Ancient Greek kréas “raw flesh,” while sanguis may be a compound of the Proto-Indo-European roots for “blood” and “to pour.” While cruor survives today to some extent in modern Romance languages, it is sanguis that serves as the root of most Romance words for “blood,” such as French sang, Italian/Portuguese sangue, and Spanish sangre. Sanguivorous was first recorded in English in the mid-1800s.
how is sanguivorous used?
“In humans, anaphylactic shock can be fatal; in sanguivores, it’s less dangerous but still extraordinarily unpleasant. Garlic is to you as peanuts are to your cousin; I cannot overemphasize the importance of this—and it’s not just garlic, it’s several other members of the allium family to lesser extents .… Sanguivore just means ‘eater of blood’ .… The older term was hemophagous, but these days, all creatures who feed on blood are known as sanguivorous.”
Only three mammalian species are sanguivorous—that’s blood feeding—and they are all bats. Blood, apparently, is not that nutritious. It has almost no carbs, fats, or vitamins; its high iron levels can disrupt heart, liver, and pancreas function; its obscenely high protein and salt levels can cause renal disease if nitrogenous waste products build up. It contains pathogens. It clots. Vampire bats have some obvious adaptations to allow them to survive on their limited and macabre diet.