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.  

Disciple - “one who follows another for the purpose of learning.”  From the Latin noun discipulus meaning “student, pupil, follower” which is influenced by the Latin verb disco, discere meaning “to learn” as well as the Latin preposition dis- meaning “apart, away” and the Latin verb capio, capere meaning “to take, capture, seize” (all information is from www.wikipedia.org, www.etymonline.com and/or www.dictionary.com).

RELATED WORDS/PHRASES – discipline

SAMPLE SENTENCE - “It wasn’t easy for the disciples of Jesus to leave behind their lives as fishermen and other professions and follow him but they had faith and did it anyway.”  

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE:  “Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet.  We all breathe the same air.  We all cherish our children’s future.  And we are all mortal.”  John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States