Case File #013.07.22: KALEIDOSCOPE

Anyone who has ever been a kid—and that means everyone—is likely familiar with the kaleidoscope, that tube-shaped optical toy in which bits of colored paper or glass, held loosely at one end of the tube, are reflected against an arrangement of two or more mirrors to produce changing symmetrical patterns that are viewed through an eyehole as the tube (or a portion thereof) is rotated. The device was invented by Scottish physicist David Brewster in 1817, and he coined its name by combining three linguistic elements: the Greek adjective kalos, which means “beautiful”; the Greek noun eidos, which means “shape” or “form”; and the English scientific suffix -scope, which generally denotes an instrument used for viewing, observing, or examining. Thus, kaleidoscope literally means “beautiful-form viewer.” The figurative sense in which the word refers to “any variegated and shifting pattern or ever-changing combination of elements” first appeared in the second canto of Lord Byron's Don Juan in 1819, and while many dictionaries omit the verb senses—that is, “to create kaleidoscopic patterns” or “to change or shift in the manner of a kaleidoscope's imagery”—evidence suggests that kaleidoscope has been used as a verb since at least the 1890s.

©2013 Michael R. Gates

Case File #013.07.17: NEMESIS

In Greek mythology, the goddess Nemesis is the personification of retribution, especially that doled out by divine decree to wicked or presumptuous mortals, and her name was used as a metonym for “righteous punishment” throughout ancient Greece. Thus, when nemesis was adopted by the English language around 1560, it initially meant “an act or agent of retribution or vengeance.” (This is, in fact, still one of the word's meanings, though it is not used as often now as it once was.) Within a couple of decades, however, the word took on the additional meaning of “any source of harm, ruin, or downfall,” and the now familiar sense in which nemesis refers to “a formidable and often unbeatable opponent” came into use around 1591.

©2013 Michael R. Gates

Case File #013.07.11: PETULANT

When petulant first entered the English language around 1600, it meant “immoral, immodest, or bawdy.” The word was lifted directly from the Middle French, which was itself derived from the Latin petulantis, the genitive form of petulans. Interestingly enough, the Latin adjective has two meanings, “immoral or depraved” and “insolent or irascible,” and as with most such multipurpose words, the intended sense is determined via context. Yet when the Latin was used as the basis for the Middle French word petulant, only one meaning—to wit, the one alleging lewd behavior—was retained, and this was the sense that also passed over to English. In 1775, however, British scholar and lexicographer Samuel Johnson published an English dictionary in which he basically defined petulant as “peevish or cantankerous,” a definition that acknowledges the semantic flip side of the Latin source, and this quickly became the word's sole meaning and has remained so to this day.

©2013 Michael R. Gates

Case File #013.07.09: DEFECATE

The Latin word defaecatus is the past participle of defaecare, which means “to purify” or “to clear of dregs.” As you may have already guessed, defaecatus is also the source of the English defecate, and when the verb first appeared in the English lexicon around 1575, it meant “to cleanse of impurities.” Believe it or not, it wasn't until the late nineteenth century that the word came to be associated with the voiding of fecal matter, and even then, such usage was pretty much confined to the United States for about twenty-five years or so. Today, though, defecate is a poopy verb throughout the English-speaking world.

©2013 Michael R. Gates

Case File #013.07.01: MAWKISH

Mawkish means “disgustingly sentimental,” but its family tree leans more towards the repulsive than the saccharine. You see, it turns out that the adjective is a direct descendant of the Middle English noun mawke, which meant “maggot,” and for about two hundred years or so, mawkish actually meant “maggoty.” Around the mid-seventeenth century, the meaning shifted to “sickly” and “nauseated,” and the now familiar schmaltzy sense soon followed and quickly became the word's primary meaning. In some parts of the English-speaking world, however, mawkish retains a connection to its maggoty roots and is used to mean “having an unpleasant or putrid flavor,” though this usage is usually considered informal or slangy.

©2013 Michael R. Gates

Case File #013.06.25: BUMPKIN

Etymologists and lexicographers are split over the ultimate source of the word bumpkin, though all agree that it first appeared in the English lexicon circa 1570 and is probably of Dutch origin. Some believe it was derived from the Middle Dutch bommekijn, which meant “little cask” and was often used as a humorous moniker for tipplers with beer bellies, while others believe it came from the Middle Dutch boomken, which meant “shrub” or “little tree” and was sometimes used as an epithet for people who were small in stature. (The latter theory seems the more likely if you consider the nautical sense of bumpkin, which first came into use around 1632 and refers to a short spar that projects from the deck of a ship. As I'm sure you'll agree, a bumpkin of this type resembles a short tree more than it does a cask or barrel.) But regardless of the word's origin, upper-crust English speakers originally used it as a disparaging term for any gauche emigrant in their midst, and it wasn't until the eighteenth century that bumpkin lost its xenophobic connotations and became a designation for unsophisticated yokels both domestic and foreign.

©2013 Michael R. Gates

Case File #013.06.24: ENTHRALL

The Old English noun thrael essentially meant “servant,” but when it passed into Middle English during the twelfth century, the spelling changed to thrall and the meaning changed to something more akin to “serf” or “slave.” Thus, when the verb enthrall was formed in the early fifteenth century, it meant “to make into a thrall” or “to enslave.” Sometime during the late sixteenth century, however, English speakers began to use enthrall in the more figurative sense of “to fascinate or spellbind,” and it wasn't long before this became the word's primary meaning. In fact, the connotation of literal slavery is now considered archaic or at best passé, and it generally shows up only when enthrall is used in period pieces or poetry.

©2013 Michael R. Gates