Word of the Day
More about yare
Yare is an uncommon adjective meaning “ready, prepared.” As is usual for short words, Middle English shows more than two dozen spellings; Old English is more restrained, gearu and gearo being the most common (before the inflections are added). The Old English forms derive from the verb gearwian “to prepare, equip.” Gearwian is the Old English development of the Germanic verb garwian “to prepare, equip, make.” The noun garwi– “equipment, adornment,” a derivative of garwian, is the source for the Old Norse noun gervi, gørvi “apparel, equipment,” source of English gear. The English noun garb comes via Middle French garbe “grace, graceful figure, elegance,” from Italian garbo “form, grace, elegance (of dress),” a derivative of the verb garbare “to be pleasant,” from Old High German garawi “dress, equipment,” ultimately from Germanic garwian.
how is yare used?
dismount thy tuck, be yare in thy preparation; for thy assailant is quick, skilfull, and deadly.
Bear up, gentle laddie, for we must be yare, Or of Bruin the bear else we may be ware.
alimentation
noun
nourishment; nutrition.
More about alimentation
Alimentation, “nourishment, food,” comes via Medieval Latin alimentātiō (inflectional stem alimentātiōn-), ultimately a derivative of the Latin verb alere “to nourish.” The many English derivatives from alere include alumnus and alumna “nursling, foster son, foster daughter,” aliment (from alimentum “food, nourishment, provisions”), alimentary (from alimentārius “pertaining to nutrition;” the alimentary canal runs from the mouth to the anus), alimony (from alimōnia “food, support, nourishment”), and alma māter, literally “nourishing mother” (from the adjective almus “nourishing”). Latin alere comes from the Proto-Indo-European root al– “to grow, make grow, nourish,” source of Old Irish alim “I nourish,” Welsh al “litter (of animals),” Gothic alan “to grow up,” Old Norse ala “to nourish, raise.” Finally, the suffixed Proto-Indo-European form alto– “grown, grown up” becomes ald– in Germanic, the source of English old; the Germanic compound noun wer-ald, literally “man age, life on earth,” becomes weorold in Old English, world in English. Alimentation entered English in the late 16th century.
how is alimentation used?
In mid-March, in the tense week before the British government announced its belated coronavirus-induced lockdown, certain everyday products became extraordinarily hard to find. Panicked buyers swept up fundamentals of alimentation and elimination: yeast, flour, bathroom tissue.
The effect and value of alimentation was a question for the philosopher as well as for the physiologist, and the gourmand gave utterance to a truism when he said that the destiny of nations depended upon the manner in which they were fed.
probity
noun
integrity and uprightness; honesty.
More about probity
Probity, “integrity and uprightness, honesty,” comes via Old French probité from Latin probitās (inflectional stem probitāt-) “moral integrity, uprightness, honesty; sexual purity,” a derivative of the adjective probus. Probus is composed of pro– “forward” and –bhwo– “growing,” the entire word meaning “going forward, growing well.” The element –bhwo– comes from the very complicated Proto-Indo-European root bheuə-, bheu-, bhou-, bhwo-, bhū– (with still more variants) “to be, exist, become, grow.” The root appears in Latin fuisse “to have been,” futūrus “what is going to be, future,” and fīerī “to become,” English be and been, Lithuanian bū́ti “to be,” Greek phýesthai “to grow, arise, become,” and its derivatives phýsis “nature” and physikós “pertaining to nature, natural.” Probity entered English in the first half of the 15th century.
how is probity used?
For an instant he had been tempted to accept the carriage as a gift, but probity never deserted him for very long, not to mention an unrelenting awareness of the importance of the appearance of things.
Coolidge ended up serving twice as long as Harding in the White House, sanitizing the place with his dignified, even endearing probity.