One of the problems with doing this Wordsmith thing, is that the people I live among, assume I know things that I often don't know. Well, not my children...they don't assume I know anything! But OTHER people think I know, or expect me to know, all the words...in the world...and how they came to be.
Truth is, these posts are not primarily an opportunity for me to flaunt my vast store of knowledge, but a way of teaching myself something new or adding to my existing catalog of words. So there it is...my permanent disclaimer: I don't know ALL THE WORDS.
In fact, today's word is dedicated to Annie, because I let her down in Bible study a couple weeks ago when I couldn't come up with the root for the word REVILE. I suspected a connection with vile (vilify-vilification) and/or villain (villainy-villainous), but still couldn't formulate the etymology. So...here you go.
First of all, in Acts 18:6, the ESV translates the word as "revile." Webster tells us that it comes from:
vilis (adj) Latin - cheap, of little value, low, paltry, worthless
vilitas (n) Latin - cheapness, trifling value, worthlessness, disregard, contempt
Interestingly enough, I couldn't find a verb form for this word. (interesting to ME, anyway, since revile is a verb...and since many Latin words trace back to their verb forms.)
Most every other version of the Bible, including the Latin Vulgate, translates the same word in Acts 18 as "blaspheme."
Again we turn to our friend, Webster, who gives the root of this word as:
blasphemare (v) fr Greek blasphemein - both meaning to speak evil of.
But I also found it interesting that when I looked up "blaspheme" in my Latin dictionary, it referred me, not to "blasphemare" but to this word:
maledico (v) fr. L: mal = bad or evil; dic = to speak
So, anyway you slice it, REVILE means, at its most basic: to speak evil of (we all already knew that, but now we know WHY!). There is an implication from these roots that reviling words are slanderous, undeserved, abusive, and motivated by contempt and a desire to humiliate.
I learned something new today and I hope you did too! Especially you, Annie!
NOTE: By the way, I was wrong about the association with villain...I'll save that one for another day!
Truth is, these posts are not primarily an opportunity for me to flaunt my vast store of knowledge, but a way of teaching myself something new or adding to my existing catalog of words. So there it is...my permanent disclaimer: I don't know ALL THE WORDS.
In fact, today's word is dedicated to Annie, because I let her down in Bible study a couple weeks ago when I couldn't come up with the root for the word REVILE. I suspected a connection with vile (vilify-vilification) and/or villain (villainy-villainous), but still couldn't formulate the etymology. So...here you go.
First of all, in Acts 18:6, the ESV translates the word as "revile." Webster tells us that it comes from:
vilis (adj) Latin - cheap, of little value, low, paltry, worthless
vilitas (n) Latin - cheapness, trifling value, worthlessness, disregard, contempt
Interestingly enough, I couldn't find a verb form for this word. (interesting to ME, anyway, since revile is a verb...and since many Latin words trace back to their verb forms.)
Most every other version of the Bible, including the Latin Vulgate, translates the same word in Acts 18 as "blaspheme."
Again we turn to our friend, Webster, who gives the root of this word as:
blasphemare (v) fr Greek blasphemein - both meaning to speak evil of.
But I also found it interesting that when I looked up "blaspheme" in my Latin dictionary, it referred me, not to "blasphemare" but to this word:
maledico (v) fr. L: mal = bad or evil; dic = to speak
So, anyway you slice it, REVILE means, at its most basic: to speak evil of (we all already knew that, but now we know WHY!). There is an implication from these roots that reviling words are slanderous, undeserved, abusive, and motivated by contempt and a desire to humiliate.
I learned something new today and I hope you did too! Especially you, Annie!
NOTE: By the way, I was wrong about the association with villain...I'll save that one for another day!
2 comments:
Did you see the clips of the homeschooled kid who won the Spelling Bee this year? He was interviewed on CNN, and they gave him a word to spell. He kept saying to the interviewer, "Tell me the language it came from, and then I can spell it." It was a Latin root, btw. And, he spelled it correctly.
No...I missed that, but totally believe it. Origin makes all the difference!!
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