5 Words. What they mean, where they come from and relevant popular culture or literary references. Build your vocabulary by reading this all in one post.
1. instigate
verb. bring about or initiate (an action or event). incite someone to do something, especially something bad
Pronunciation: [in-sti-geyt]
Related: instigates, instigated, instigated, instigating
Origin: 1540s, back-formation from instigation or from Latin instigatus, past participle of instigare “to urge on, incite”
Read The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. A talking raven visits a distraught lover who is lamenting the loss of his love. The raven seems to instigate his distress with its constant repetition of the word “Nevermore”.
2. peccadillo
noun. a relatively minor fault or sin
Pronunciation: [pek-uh-dil-oh]
Related: peccadilloes, peccadillos
Origin: 1590s (peccadilian, 1520s), from Spanish pecadillo, diminutive of pecado “a sin,” from Latin peccatum “a sin, fault, error”.
Listening to Peccadillos by Susan Herndon whose songs have been called “painfully honest, always engaging and frequently surprising” might help remember this word.
3. odium
noun: general or widespread hatred or disgust incurred by someone as a result of their actions
Pronunciation: [oh-dee-uh m]
Related: odious
Origin: 1600, “fact of being hated,” from Latin odium “ill-will, hatred, grudge, animosity; offense, offensive conduct”.
Read John Stuart Mill’s 1859 essay “On Liberty” where he refers scornfully to the odium theologicum (literally meaning “theological hatred”) and says ‘for the odium theologicum, in a sincere bigot, is one of the most unequivocal cases of moral feeling’.
4. gauche
adjective: unsophisticated and socially awkward.
Pronunciation: [gohsh]
Related: gaucherie
Origin: 1751 (Chesterfield), from French gauche “left”, originally “awkward, awry,” from gauchir “turn aside, swerve”.
The southern bank of the river Seine in Paris is referred to as La Rive Gauche (The Left Bank) which is also a part of the list of world heritage sites in Eurpoe. Watching a trailer of Gauche the Cellist, a film adaptation of Japanese author Kenji Miyazawa’s short story about Gauche, a struggling small town cellist who is inspired by his interactions with anthropomorphized animals to gain insight into music, might help remember this word.
5. blithe
adjective. happy or carefree. showing a casual and cheerful indifference considered to be callous or improper.
Pronunciation: [blahyth, blahyth]
Related: blithesome, blithesomely, blithesomeness
Origin: Old English. “joyous, kind, cheerful, pleasant,”
Blithe is a river in Staffordshire, England. Some of you might remember Blithe as a fictional character from DC Comics’ Supergirl series.
Sources:
Apart from Google search, the data in this series is taken from Dictionary.com, Online Etymology Dictionary and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
