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Saint Ignatius High School

Etymology Word of the Week

Director of Admissions Pat O'Rourke '90, a self-proclaimed "word nerd," brings you his Etymology Word of the Week. Every other week he presents an online Etymology lesson just for fun!

Etymology Word of the Week – As some of you know, in addition to working in the Admissions Office, I also teach Latin at Saint Ignatius and am something of a "word nerd."  Thus, each week, I’ll sneak a vocabulary word (sometimes derived from Latin, sometimes not) into the e-blast.  Here, then, is this week’s edition of the Etymology Word of the Week.  

Novel - “new, strange, unusual, previously unknown.”  This word has been in the news all year long, perhaps in a sense new to most of us (no pun intended), in reference to the “novel” coronavirus.  From the Latin adjective novellus meaning “new, young, recent” which is a diminutive of Latin adjective novus, -a, -um meaning “new, fresh, strange” (all information is from www.wikipedia.org, www.etymonline.com and/or www.dictionary.com).

RELATED WORDS/PHRASES – novelty, novella, novelist, art nouveau, innovate, renovate, novice, nova

SAMPLE SENTENCE - “Selling ice cream on a hot summer day out of the back of a truck that’s playing loud Muzak on repeat - what a novel idea!”  

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE:  “Be yourself - everyone else is taken.”  Oscar Wilde, Irish poet and playwright