May

10

Word Of The Week: May 10th, 2008

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

May 10, 2008 |

letters1.jpg

This week’s word of the week is: serendipity.

Etymons–words which retain their original meaning–are rare in almost any language. Even rarer are words that can be traced back to their very origins, or at least close to it. This week’s word, serendipity, originated from Serendip, an early name of the island Sri Lanka (which was also called Ceylon for a long time). The term serendipity, meaning “making happy discoveries by accident” was coined by Horace Walpole. Here’s the explanation from the Oxford English Dictionary:

A word coined by Horace Walpole, who says (Let. to Mann, 28 Jan. 1754) that he had formed it upon the title of the fairy-tale ‘The Three Princes of Serendip’, the heroes of which ‘were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of’.

Here’s hoping you have some serendipity of your own.


Comments

3 Comments so far

  1. Commander Mommy on May 10, 2008 7:59 pm

    I know it might not be what you want to hear, Chris, but these ‘word of the week’ posts are often my favorites. In my defense, I used to read the dictionary because I wanted to. XD

  2. Christopher on May 10, 2008 8:46 pm

    Actually that’s exactly the sort of thing I want to hear. I started the “word of the week” as a way to expand my own vocabulary and to get a better sense of the histories of words because when we use a word–even a simple word–we’re using its whole history. I just hope I’m doing the same for others.

  3. Ginger M. on May 14, 2008 10:50 am

    I’ve always been interested in etymology so I enjoyed posts like this a lot. I also like the “sound” of some words. Serendip sounds beautiful. :)

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Speak your mind

<< Post Navigation >>

« « A Chip Off The Old Block. | Right, Wrong, And Spoonerisms. » »