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. pauper
noun. a very poor person.
Pronunciation: [paw-per]
Related: pauperage, pauperdom
Origin: 1510s, “person destitute of property or means of livelihood,” from Latin pauper “poor, not wealthy, of small means”.
Read The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain. Set in 1547, it tells the story of two young boys who are identical in appearance: Tom Canty, a pauper who lives with his abusive father in Offal Court off Pudding Lane in London, and Prince Edward, son of King Henry VIII.
2. castigate
verb. reprimand (someone) severely.
Pronunciation: [kas-ti-geyt]
Related: castigation, castigative, castigatory, castigator
Origin: from Latin castigatus, past participle of castigare “to correct, set right; purify; chastise, punish,” from castus “pure” + agere “to do”.
William Shakespeare writes in Timon of Athens: If thou didst put this sour-cold habit on to castigate thy pride, ’twere well: but thou Dost it enforcedly; thou’dst courtier be again, Wert thou not beggar. It is said that ‘castigate’ is one of the words invented by Shakespeare.
3. ingenuity
noun. the quality of being clever, original, and inventive.
Pronunciation: [in-juh-noo-i-tee, -nyoo-]
Related: hyperingenuity, superingenuity
Origin: 1590s, “honor, nobility,” from Middle French ingénuité and directly from Latin ingenuitatem “condition of a free-born man,” figuratively “generosity, noble-mindedness,” from ingenuus.
You may want to read The Ingenuity Gap by Canadian academic Thomas Homer-Dixon. The book argues that the nature of problems faced by our society are becoming more complex and that our ability to implement solutions is not keeping pace.
4. curmudgeon
noun. a bad-tempered or surly person.
Pronunciation: [ker-muhj-uh n]
Related: curmudgeonly
Origin: 1570s, of unknown origin; Liberman says the word “must have been borrowed from Gaelic (and references muigean “disagreeable person”), with variant spelling of intensive prefix ker-.
Dyskolos, an ancient Greek comic play by Menander is sometimes translated as The Curmudgeon. If you prefer music, then check this 1992 song by Nirvana. Some people are curmudgeon enough to make a documentary called I, Curmudgeon.
5. prelude
noun. an action or event serving as an introduction to something more important; an introductory piece of music.
Pronunciation: [prel-yood, preyl-, prey-lood, pree-]
Related: preluder, preludial, preludious
Origin: Middle French prélude “notes sung or played to test the voice or instrument”, from Medieval Latin preludium “prelude, preliminary”.
The Prelude is an autobiographical conversation poem by the English poet William Wordsworth. Also, have a look at Prelude to a Kiss, a 1992 film starring Alec Baldwin and Meg Ryan, which was called ‘the kind of movie that can inspire long conversations about the only subject really worth talking about’ by Roger Ebert.
Sources:
Apart from Google search, the data in this series is taken from Dictionary.com, Online Etymology Dictionary and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
