December 17, 2012 by Angela Tung

Giving Words: Gifts, Tips, and Bribes

Photo by pasukaru76

It’s that time of year when we’re all running around getting last minute gifts for our loved ones, not-so-loved ones, co-workers, the mailman, the dog walker, the babysitter, and – exhausted yet?

Take a break and have some fun with 10 of our favorite words about gifts, tips, and bribes.

amatorio

“According to its decoration, this ‘ongaresca,’ or plate on a foot, represents what was known as an ‘amatorio,’ love gift. The hands clasped over flame indicate an acceptance and betrothal. Above the hands is a heart pierced with an arrow.”

Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago, January 1916

An amatorio is “a decorated vase, dish, bowl, or plate, intended or suitable for a love-gift.” The word comes from the Latin amare, “to love.”

The Ars armatoria, or The Art of Love, are a series of instructional books by Ovid, an ancient Roman poet. The books teach basic “male and female relationship skills and techniques.”

baksheesh

“The two boys were sent away happy, with a generous baksheesh or present, and the next day Kitty’s father sought out the kind-hearted jewel merchant and bought many a gem from his choice collection.”

St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878

A baksheesh is “a gratuity, tip, or bribe paid to expedite service, especially in some Near Eastern countries.” The word came into English in the 17th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), and comes from the Persian word for “present.” Also bakshish.

cumshaw

“This the mafoo does with great pleasure, as, apart from the keen interest he takes in racing. . .it is an understood thing that he will receive a good cumshaw from his master for each race that his stable wins.”

Oliver G. Ready, Life and Sport in China, 1904

A cumshaw is “a present of any kind.” The word comes from Amoy, a Chinese Hokkien dialect now known as the Xiamen dialect. Cumshaw entered English in the 19th century, says the OED, and is an alteration of kam-sia, “a phrase of thanks by beggars.”

douceur

“A friend of mine, on leaving an hotel at Niagara, offered a douceur in the shape of half a dollar to one of [these chambermaids], but she drew herself up, and proudly replied, ‘American ladies do not receive money from gentlemen.’”

Isabella Bird, The Englishwoman in America, 1856

The word douceur can refer to “sweetness or mildness of manner”; “a kind or agreeable remark; a compliment”; or “a conciliatory offering; a present or gift; a reward; a bribe.”

According to the OED, douceur also refers to “a U.K. tax benefit given as an inducement to a person to sell something of historical value (esp. a work of art) by private treaty to a public collection in the U.K., rather than on the open market.” This sense originated around 1979.

Douceur comes from the Latin dulcis, “sweet,” which also gives us dulcet, “pleasing to the ear.”

étrenne

“I arrived here not long before 1st of January, and, on the morning of that day, a gentle tap at door of the room in which I was drew my attention, and when I desired the person who knocked to walk in, I was surprised by an unexpected visit from the young and pretty daughter of my landlord. . .of which, avec toute la grace francoise, she requested my acceptance as étrenne or New Year’s Gift.”

The European Magazine and London Review, July to December 1823

An étrenne is “a present; properly, a New-Year’s present.” The word is French and ultimately comes from the Latin strena, “favorable omen.”

handsel

“The first Monday of the New-Year has been long known in Scotland, more especially the northern half of the Lowlands, as Hansel-Monday, from the custom among people of the working class of asking or receiving gifts or handsel from their well-to-do neighbors, and from each other, on that day.”

“Auld Hansel-Monday,” Bruce Herald, March 28, 1890

The word handsel can refer to “a gift or token of good fortune or good will; especially, a New-Year’s gift,” as well as “a sale, gift, or delivery which is regarded as the first of a series,” such as “the first money taken in the morning in the way of trade; the first earnings of any one in a new employment or place of business; the first money taken in a shop newly opened; the first present sent to a young woman on her wedding-day, etc.”

The word ultimately comes from the Old Norse handsal, “legal transfer,” where hand means “hand” and sal, “a giving.”

handy-dandy

“It is clear that handy-dandy in this passage means a covert bribe or present, as, for instance, a bag conveyed to the judge’s hand which he was to open at leisure when he would find the contents satisfactory.”

William Langland, The Vision of William Concerning Piers Plowman, 1885

While handy-dandy is another way of saying “handy” or “useful,” an older meaning refers to “a bribe paid secretly,” as well as “a play of children in which something, as a pebble or a coin, is shaken between the hands of one, while another guesses which hand it is retained in.”

The Century Dictionary implies that the bribe sense comes from the children’s game. However, the OED cites a much earlier reference of the bribe meaning, the 14th century, while the first record of the game meaning is from the 16th century.

lagniappe

“We picked up one excellent word – a word worth traveling to New Orleans to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word — ‘lagniappe.’ They pronounce it lanny-yap. . . .It is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a ‘baker’s dozen.’ It is something thrown in, gratis, for good measure.”

Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, 1906

A lagniappe is a chiefly Southern Louisiana and Mississippi word that means “a small gift presented by a storeowner to a customer with the customer’s purchase,” or “an extra or unexpected gift or benefit.”

The word is Louisiana French, coming from the American Spanish la ñapa, “the gift,” which may come from the Quechua yapay, “to give more.” The word attests to 1849, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary.

largess

“The deserted farmsteads no longer echo with the sounds of rural revelry; the cheerful log-fires no longer glow in the farmer’s kitchen; the harvest-home song has died away; and ‘largess’ no longer rewards the mummers and the morris-dancers.”

P.H. Ditchfield, Vanishing England, 1910

Largess is “liberality; generosity,” or “a liberal gift or donation; a present; a bounty bestowed.” The OED says that largess! is “a call for a gift of money, addressed to a person of relatively high position on some special occasion.” The word ultimately comes from the Latin largus, “abundant.” Also largesse.

pourboire

“After that, we came back to the Barriere de l’Etoile, where she gave me a good ‘pourboire‘ and got into a hackney coach, telling me to take the travelling carriage back to the man who lets such carriages in the Cour des Coches, Faubourg Saint-Honore.”

Honore De Balzac, The Lesser Bourgeoisie (The Middle Classes)

Pourboire is “money given as a gratuity; a tip,” and translates literally from the French as “for drinking.” The word came into English around 1788, according to the OED.

prezzie

“Giving VDay gifts to us is super easy. We like cool stuff. The Chumby you got us for our desk at work is the perfect Valentine’s Day prezzie.”

Adam Sachs, “An Open Letter to the Ladies on Valentine’s Day. . .From Some Dudes,” The Huffington Post, February 12, 2009

We promised 10 words but here’s an extra, a lexical lagniappe. Prezzie, a shortened form of present, is an alteration of the British English slang word, pressie. According to the OED, pressie originated in the 1930s. An earlier alteration is prez, which in American English now more commonly refers to a president. “Accept my little pres.” James Joyce, Ulysses.

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by pasukaru76]

November 19, 2012 by Angela Tung - 2 Comments

Thanksgiving Contest Winners: Turducken Words

To celebrate Thanksgiving and that linguistic and literal portmanteau, the turducken, we asked you to come up with a new turkey-word blend, whether it be food-related, a feeling, or a phenomenon – anything to do with Thanksgiving that smashed two or more words together.

Some made us hungry, like @KathrynMcCalla’s carb-fest of a word, rolluffatoes, “rolls with stuffing and mashed potatoes crammed inside,” or @randyclarktko’s grandiose crandiose sauce, “cranberry sauce with multiple ingredients.”

A couple made us feel slightly ill, like @4ndyman’s porkey, “Turkey stuffed with ham and wrapped in bacon. . .or, more realistically, dying in your sleep after dinner” (a turcoma, to the nth degree, right @CSmithMo?), and @larry_kunz’s ode to the Hostess Twinkie, the twurkie, a “Thanksgiving bird stuffed with shortcake-and-cream treats.”

Thanksgiving Leftover Sandwich Porn, Volume 2, open faced

[Photo: CC BY-SA 2.0 by Marshall Astor – Food Fetishist]

Thanksgiving leftovers are made for smashing together, as agreed by @ChristaKinde and her cruffingberry sandwich, “thin slab pan-fried stuffing + cranberries on bread,”and @MrZiebarth’s crankeywich, “a turkey and cranberry sandwich,” which also kind of sounds like a sandwich you might give a cranky person to cheer them up (which we guess it is!).

Some described what may be familiar experiences, such as the joy of @borglocutus’s Fooburkey, a day of Thanksgiving and football; another from @4ndyman, self-gravification, “the act of dribbling gravy on oneself during Thanksgiving dinner”; and these two from @PlainLizzy: the turzazster, “when you bake a turkey with the plastic bag still inside,” and captivisioninlaw, “being forced to watch what your father-in-law puts on TV all holiday weekend long.”

As for the winner, we picked two this time: 4ndyman’s (who was on turkey-word fire) anni-left-ick shock, “The surprise & disgust that follows the discovery of Thanksgiving leftovers in the fridge a year later,” and @CSmithMo’s appetizinger, “the first snippy comment of the night,” because sometimes unfortunately Thanksgiving isn’t just about stuffing one’s face.

Thanks to all the players! Everyone mentioned in this post will get some Wordnik schwag. Have a great holiday!

November 13, 2012 by Angela Tung - 2 Comments

Thanksgiving Contest: Create a New Turducken

Mmm...turducken, by jeffreyw

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by jeffreyw]

We here at Wordnik love Franken-words, also known as portmanteaus or word blends.

Last year our Thanksgiving word of the day was turducken, a literal and linguistic blend of a turkey, duck, and chicken. In our Thanksgiving post, we wrote about tofurkey, turbaconducken (a turducken wrapped in bacon), and the cherpumple, “a three-layer cake with an entire pie baked into each layer—a cherry pie baked inside a white cake, a pumpkin pie baked inside a yellow cake and an apple pie baked inside a spice cake.”

In celebration of these turducken words, we want you to create a new Thanksgiving-related portmanteau. It could be a (horrific) new food, a feeling, or a phenomenon. The only rules are that they combine two or more words, and that they have to do with turkey-day.

Tweet your turducken words with the hashtag #turkeyword. You can enter as many times as you like. The contest will run from through the weekend. On Monday, November 19, we’ll announce our favorites, the runners-up, and the big winner. Prizes await!

Get word-cooking!

November 13, 2012 by Angela Tung - 11 Comments

Hobson-Jobson Soup: English Words from Indian Languages

Happy Diwali!

To celebrate this festival of lights, we’re celebrating English words that owe their roots to Hindi and other Indian languages. There are over 2,000 of them in Hobson-Jobson, “a historical dictionary of Anglo-Indian words and terms from Indian languages.” We’ve rounded up 12 of our favorites here, 11 from Hindi and one from Bengali. Enjoy!

Lac Bangles, by hoshi 7

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by hoshi 7]

bangle

“So he took the bangle and repairing to a goldsmith, said to him, ‘Break up this bracelet and sell it;’ but he said, ‘The king seeketh a perfect bracelet: I will go to him and bring thee its price.’”

Richard Burton, Arabian Nights, 1886

The word bangle originated around 1787, says the Online Etymology Dictionary, and comes from the Hindi word bangri, “colored glass bracelet or anklet.”

cummerbund

“Fellows are discarding waistcoats and wearing what they call a cummerbund—silk sash round the waist. I think I must follow the fashion.”

George Gissing, The Paying Guest, 1895

A cummerbund is “a broad sash, especially one that is pleated lengthwise and worn as an article of formal dress, as with a dinner jacket.” The word originated in the 1610s and comes from the Hindi kamarband, “loin band.”

cushy

“For decades a palace of well-paid vice presidents in cushy offices presided over the manufacture of Budweiser, America’s beer, in that most American of cities, St. Louis.”

Patrick Cooke, “This Bud’s For Sale,” The Wall Street Journal, November 4, 2012

While the word cushy, “making few demands; comfortable,” may seem like an alteration of the word cushion, it actually comes from the Hindi khush, “pleasant, healthy, happy.” Cushion comes from the Middle English cushin, which ultimately comes from the Latin coxa, “hip.”

Juggernaut, by graymalkn

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by graymalk]

juggernaut

“Likewise, had Apple opened its iTunes-iPod juggernaut to outside developers, the company would have risked turning its uniquely integrated service into a hodgepodge of independent applications — kind of like the rest of the Internet, come to think of it.”

Leander Kahney, “How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong,” Wired, March 18, 2008

A juggernaut is “an overwhelming, advancing force that crushes or seems to crush everything in its path,” and “something, such as a belief or institution, that elicits blind and destructive devotion or to which people are ruthlessly sacrificed.”

These figurative senses originated in the 1850s while the original sense, “huge wagon bearing an image of the god Krishna,” is from the 1630s, and is an alteration of Jagannatha, “a name given to Krishna, the eighth incarnation of Vishnu,” literally, “lord of the world.”

Jagannatha is also “a celebrated idol of this deity at Puri in Orissa,” at which “great multitudes of pilgrims come from all quarters of India to pay their devotions.” According to Century Dictionary,

On these occasions the idol is mounted on an enormous car—the car of Juggernaut—resting on massive wooden wheels, and drawn by the pilgrims. Formerly many of the people threw themselves under the wheels to be crushed to death, the victims believing that by this fate they would secure immediate conveyance to heaven. The practice is now of very rare occurrence.

Juggernaut is also the name of a character in Marvel Comics. The Juggernaut’s powers include superhuman strength, “extreme durability,” and being “physically unstoppable once in motion.”

loot

“She was no longer the same Moran of that first fight on board the schooner, when the beach-combers had plundered her of her ‘loot.’”

Frank Norris, Moran of the Lady Letty, 1898

Loot refers to “booty; plunder, especially such as is taken in war,” as well as “goods illicitly obtained, as by bribery”; “things of value, such as gifts, received on one occasion”; and “money.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary, loot comes from the Hindi lūt, which according to some scholars, comes from Sanskrit lōtra, lōptra, “booty, spoil.”

monkey business

“Those inventors and pioneers who came out of New England and made this country from a hunting-ground into an empire – they didn’t have all this monkey-business in technical schools and trade schools.”

William Hard, The Women of Tomorrow, 1910

Monkey business, which is sometimes hyphenated, is “silly, mischievous, or deceitful acts or behavior.” According to the OED, the phrase is attested to 1835 and probably comes from the Bengali bãdrāmi.

According to a comment on Language Hat, bandrami “connotes different shades of mischievousness that are not conveyed by monkey business,” such as children climbing trees to dangerous heights, adults not acting their age, and men trying “to draw the attention of a female with unbecoming gestures.”

punch

“You know from Eastern India came
The skill of making punch as did the name.
And as the name consists of letters five,
By five ingredients is it kept alive.”

Alice Morse Earle, Customs and Fashions in Old New England, 1894

This sense of punch meaning “a drink commonly made with wine or spirits, and either water or some substitute, as a decoction of tea, and flavored with lemon-juice or lemon-peel and sugar,” is believed to have come from the Hindi panch, meaning “five,” referring to “the number of original ingredients (spirits, water, lemon juice, sugar, spice).”

pundit

“Like Walter Lippmann, Alsop saw himself as a kind of pundit grandee, entitled to advise the public figures he wrote about.”

Evan Thomas, “The Real Cover-Up,” Newsweek, November 21, 1993

Nowadays a pundit is known as “a source of opinion; a critic,” but it also refers to “a learned person,” and specifically, “a learned Brahman: one versed in the Sanskrit language, and in the science, laws, and religion of India.” These latter senses originated in the 1670s, while the “source of opinion” sense is newer, attesting to 1816. The word comes from the Hindi paṇḍit, “learned man.” See also punditocracy.

seersucker

“Cissy put on the blue and white seersucker dress with the sailor collar and the red kerchief that she’d chosen, with Mummy, at David Jones department store in Sydney.”

Claire Messud, “Land Divers,” The New York Review of Books, July 16, 2009

Seersucker is “a light thin fabric, generally cotton or rayon, with a crinkled surface and a usually striped pattern.” Attested to 1722, the word comes from the Hindi sirsakar, a corruption of the Persian shir o shakkar, “striped cloth,” literally “milk and sugar,” referring to “the alternately smooth and puckered surfaces of the stripes.”

shampoo

“Just how this unusual shampoo works these miracles is a new scientific secret. It isn’t oil, it isn’t soap – it isn’t anything you’ve heard of before.”

“New-Type Shampoo Amazes Women Everywhere,” The Milwaukee Sentinel, October 18, 1936

The original meaning of shampoo was “to massage,” especially “in connection with a hot bath, for the purpose of restoring tone and vigor to the system.” This sense is attested to 1762 and comes from the Hindi champo, the imperative of champna, “to press, knead the muscles.” It came to mean “the act or operation of shampooing,” says the OED, around 1838; “to subject (the scalp) to washing and rubbing with some cleansing agent” around 1860; and the cleansing agent itself in 1866.

thug

“If a bearded thug who attacked two women is lurking in the dark shafts of an old Overbrook mine, chances are that he will never roam again.”

“Thug Faces Death If He’s in Mine,” The Pittsburgh Press, April 17, 1952

A thug, commonly known as “a cutthroat; a ruffian; a rough,” originally referred to “a member of a confraternity of professional assassins and robbers formerly infesting India, chiefly in the central and northern provinces.” The word comes from the Hindi ṭhag, which may come from the Sanskrit sthagaḥ, a cheat. See also Thuggee and thugocracy.

toddy

“A small china punch-bowl was then produced by the host, and was twice replenished with the very popular beverage called toddy, of which the Prince expressed his unqualified approbation.”

Mrs. Thomson, Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745, 1845

Toddy refers to “the drawn sap of several species of palm, especially when fermented,” and “a drink made of spirits and hot water sweetened.” The word comes from the Hindi tāṛī, “sap of palm.”

For even more English words derived from Indian languages, check out this list, and for more on Hobson-Jobson, see this article from BBC News Magazine.

October 31, 2012 by Angela Tung

Happy Halloween! Some Ghostly Words

Boo! Did we scare you? No? Maybe these 10 ghostly words will give you the screaming abdabs instead.

boo

“Harlin relies on cheap ‘Boo!’ scares more often than any film needs, which was never the point of this franchise, but merely what other filmmakers (or producers) have reduced it to.”

Brian Orndorf, “Review: Exorcist: The Beginning,” Film Fodder, August 21, 2004

In addition to “a loud exclamation intended to scare someone,” boo also means “a sound uttered to show contempt, scorn, or disapproval.” Douglas Harper, the founder of the Online Etymology Dictionary, says:

Common people had few opportunities to gather in a mass and express disapproval through much of Western history, but when they did, loud, insulting barnyard noises tended to be their weapon of choice. . . .These included hissing, like a goose, or booing, like a cow.

Boo is also slang for “a close acquaintance or significant other,” perhaps as an alteration of beau.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, boo as a scary exclamation seems to have originated in the early 18th century as a “word used in the North of Scotland to frighten crying Children.” To say boo to a goose means “to speak up, to stand up for oneself.” For how to say boo in other languages, check out this post from the Virtual Linguist.

dobby

“On the stairs certain bloodstains are pointed out, said to be those of a lady who was killed in the glen below, and who was afterwards known as the ‘Mortham dobby.'”

John Murray, Richard John King, Handbook for Yorkshire

A dobby, in addition to being a well-known house-elf, is “a sprite or apparition.” Also spelled dobbie, the word seems to derive from the common name Robert, and in Sussex is known as Master Dobbs.

fetch

“The ‘fetch‘ is supposed to appear when the person whose ‘counterfeit presentment’ it is happens to be at the point of death.”

“‘Fetch,’ Its Derivation and Use,” The New York Times, December 24, 1899

A fetch is “ a ghost, an apparition; a doppelgänger.” While the origin of fetch is largely unknown, it seems to come from Ireland, according to the OED.

Fetch may be short for the earlier fetch-life, “a messenger sent to ‘fetch’ the soul of a dying person,” where fetch means “to go and bring.” This sense of fetch comes from the Old English feccan, “apparently a variant of fetian, fatian ‘to fetch, bring near, obtain; induce; to marry.’”

larva

“’It is a dead thing!’ said Glaucus.
‘Nay – it stirs – it is a ghost or larva,’ faltered lone, as she clung to the Athenian’s breast.”

Edward Bulwer Lytton, The Last Days of Pompeii

While most of us know larva as “the newly hatched, wingless, often wormlike form of many insects before metamorphosis,” it’s also, in Roman mythology, “a malevolent spirit of the dead.”

The word comes from the Latin lārva, “specter, mask,” with the idea that the wormlike form “acts as a specter of or a mask for the adult form.”

pareidolia

“This psychological phenomenon is called pareidolia. It is when random images or sound are perceived as something non-random. This is always a danger in paranormal research, for instance when people believe they see a face in the static of a video.”

Alejandro Rojas, “Recording Ghost Voices: The Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) ,” The Huffington Post, October 23, 2011

Pareidolia is “a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant.” The word comes from the Greek para, “alongside, beyond,” and eidolon, “mental image, apparition, phantom.”

poltergeist

“‘In half an hour we were all sitting about the table in a dim light, while the sweet-voiced mother was talking with ‘Charley,’ her ‘poltergeist‘–’

‘What is that, please?’ asked Mrs. Quigg.

‘The word means a rollicking spirit who throws things about.’”

Hamlin Garland, The Shadow World

A poltergeist is “a ghost or spirit that indicates its presence by the sound of moving objects, knocks, and similar noises.” The word is German in origin, coming from poltern, “to make noises,” plus Geist, “ghost.”

Apport is “the supposed paranormal transference of an object from one place to another, or the appearance of an object from an unknown source, often associated with poltergeist activity and séances.”

revenant

“While looking on this side and that side, striving to pierce their mysteries, taking a step this way and a step that, and trembling all the while lest she should see the revenant, said to haunt the place, a dreadful sound like the huge fluttering of large wings arose above in the arches.”

Mrs. Henry Wood, Charles William Wood, The Argosy

A revenant is “one who returns; especially, one who returns after a long period of absence or after death; a ghost; a specter.” The word comes from the French revenir, “to return.”

spook

‘”It made a lot of people come to see me,’ the youngster told county police yesterday between sobs as she admitted the spook that haunted the Henry Thacker family was her own creation.”

“Girl Admits Spook Hoax,” Reading Eagle, January 4, 1952

Spook may come from the Dutch spooc, “ghost.” According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, “the derogatory racial sense of ‘black person’ is attested from 1940s, perhaps from notion of dark skin being difficult to see at night.” Spook as slang for “secret agent, spy” is from 1942, perhaps from the idea of being hidden. Spooky, frightening, is from 1854, while the “easily frightened” sense is from 1926.

taisch

“As the Taisch murmurs the prophecy of death in the voice of one about to die, so does the Wraith, Swarth, or Death-fetch, appear in the likeness of the person so early doomed to some living friend of the party; or as in some rare instances, even to the individuals themselves.”

Walter Cooper Dendy, On the Phenomena of Dreams, and Other Transient Illusions

A taisch refers to “the voice of one who is about to die heard by a person at a distance,” as well the “second sight.” According to the OED, the word comes from the Middle Irish tadhbais, “phantasm.”

wraith

“Banquo’s wraith, which is invisible to all but Macbeth, is the haunting of an evil conscience.”

Henry A. Beers, Chaucer to Tennyson

A wraith is “an apparition in the exact likeness of a person, supposed to be seen before or soon after the person’s death; in general, a visible spirit; a specter; a ghost.” The word is Scottish in origin, and may come from either the Old Norse vorðr, “guardian,” or the Gaelic arrach, “specter, apparition.”

Want more? Check out our posts on fear words, devil names, devil words and facts, vampire vords and accents, and words and phrases related to zombies and werewolves.

October 9, 2012 by Angela Tung

Dictionary Day Contest: Fictional Dictionaries

Dictionary, by greeblie

[Photo CC BY 2.0 by greeblie]

We here at Wordnik love dictionaries of all kinds. We love etymologicons, idioticons, and synonymicons. We love specialty dictionaries, traditional dictionaries, and those that are crowd-sourced. We love dictionaries old and new. But what about those dictionaries that don’t exist but should?

In celebration of Dictionary Day, which takes place on October 16 and honors the birthday of lexicographer Noah Webster, we’re holding a contest. You may be familiar with The New Yorker‘s popular Questioningly column. Every week, readers receive a different challenge, such as Muppetizing a movie, making up a punctuation mash-up, or coming up with the worst job in literature, and are asked to tweet their answers (which are as many as they can think of).

The Super Dictionary, by joelk75

[Photo CC BY 2.0 by joelk75]

Taking a cue from Questioningly, we’re asking you to make up a dictionary. It could be political (Mitt Romney’s 180s, A to Z), pragmatic (50 Ways to Leave Your Lover), or just plain silly (A to Z Guide to ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ Style). The only requirement is that it doesn’t already exist.

Tweet the title of your fictional dictionary with the hashtag #wordnikAtoZ. The contest will run from today until Monday, October 15. On the 16th, we’ll announce our favorites, the runners-up, and the big winner. Prizes await!

May 1, 2012 by Angela Tung

Happy May Day!

What comes to mind when you think of May Day? A Maypole, perhaps, surrounded by beribboned dancers. A young woman being crowned May queen. Maybe a weird music video from the ’80s. We delved into words about May Day, and encountered some interesting origins.

The holiday itself is “a day on which the opening of the season of flowers and fruit was formerly celebrated throughout Europe.” Observances include “the gathering of hawthorn-blossoms and other flowers, the crowning of the May-queen, dancing round the May-pole, etc.” Beltane is another holiday celebrated on May first, an “ancient Celtic festival” during which “bonfires were kindled on the hills.” This custom was derived “from the worship of the sun, or fire in general, which was formerly in vogue among the Celts as well as among many other heathen nations.” The word Beltane may mean “blazing fire.”

The night before May Day is known as Walpurgis Night, “observed in some European countries and in some Scandinavian communities in the United States in celebration of spring and marked by music, singing, and bonfires.” Walpurgis Night is translated from the German Walpurgisnacht, and is named for Saint Walpurga, an “English abbess who migrated to Heidenheim, Germany” in the eighth century.

Walpurgis Night is also sometimes referred to as the witches’ sabbath, based on a German fairy tale that says on Walpurgis Night “the witches held their meetings on the Brocken,” a peak of the German Harz Mountains. According to John Michael Cooper in his book Mendelssohn, Goethe, and the Walpurgis Night, this may come from “a misunderstanding of the [German] word ‘Unhold‘ [demon].” Those “who did not want to abandon their heathen worship altogether” became known as Unholden, “unfriendly,” and “would have gone up onto the highest mountains, and therefore also up onto the Brocken, where they made sacrifices to the goddess Herda.” The word unhold would “later came to mean ‘demon,’” which caused some to believe that “witches were gathering on the Brocken.”

The morning of May Day is the may-morn, which also means “freshness, vigor.” May-dew is “the dew of May, which is said to have great virtue in whitening linen, and to have also other remarkable properties.” May-dewing is “the custom of washing the face in dew on May-day, or on the first Sunday in May, to secure lasting beauty of complexion.” A may-garland is “a wreath of flowers formerly borne from house to house by children on May-day.” May-game refers to “sport or play such as is usual on or about the first of May,” and figuratively, “frolic; jest,” as well as “one who takes part in the May-games or May-day sports; hence, a trifler; also, one who is an object of May-games or jests; a make-game.”

The Maypole “was usually cut and set up afresh on May-day morning, drawn by a long procession of oxen, decorated, as were also the pole itself and the wagon, with flowers and ribbons.” The symbolism of the pole has long been debated. Some say it stands for the world axis or axis mundi, “the world center and/or the connection between Heaven and Earth.” Another theory holds that Maypoles were “a remnant of the Germanic reverence for sacred trees.” Others have viewed Maypoles “as having phallic symbolism,” while still others theorize that they’re “simply a part of the general rejoicing at the return of summer, and the growth of new vegetation.”

A may-lord is “a young man chosen to preside over the festivities of May-day,” while the May queen, also known as the may-lady, is “a girl or young woman crowned with flowers and honored as queen at the games held on May-day.”

A maggiolata is “an Italian May-day song,” while the morris dance (derived from Moorish dance, perhaps “in reference to fantastic dancing or costumes”) is “a dance of persons in costume, especially of persons wearing hoods and dresses tagged with bells.” On May Day, the dancers “commonly represented the personages of the Robin Hood legend.”

Morris dancers

A character in the morris dance is Maid Marian, “often a man in woman’s clothes,” also known as a malkin. According to the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Maid Marian is a corruption of Mad Morion, “named for the ‘morion’ which [this character] wore on his head.”

So which came first, Maid Marian as a character in the morris dance or as “Robin Hood’s sweetheart”? According to the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, the character of Robin Hood’s Maid Marian was based on a real-life “Matilda, the daughter of Fitz-Walter, baron of Bayard and Dunmow, who eloped with Robert Fitz-Ooth, the outlaw, and lived with him in Sherwood Forest,” and then according to this poem by the Earl of Huntingdon:

Next ’tis agreed
That fair Matilda henceforth change her name,
And while [she lives] in Shirewodde …
She by maid Marian’s name be only called.

Furthermore, says the Online Etymology Dictionary, Robin and Marian “have been stock names for country lovers” in French since the 13th century.

Now that you’re caught up on May Day words, you can dance if you want to, just don’t leave your friends behind.

[Photo credit: “The Maypole,” CC BY 2.0 by April Killingsworth]