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.
Eureka - “exclamation of triumph at a discovery.” From the Greek verb heureka meaning “I have found (it)” - reportedly shouted by Archimedes when, after a long study, he discovered that dishonest goldsmiths had used an alloy in the king’s crown. (All information is from www.wikipedia.org, www.etymonline.com and/or www.dictionary.com)
RELATED WORDS/PHRASES – heuristic - I’m not a math guy, but I stumbled upon this word while going down a wormhole about “game theory.”
SAMPLE SENTENCE: “Did you know that ‘Eureka’ is the state motto of California?”