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.
Deciduous
Definition: “Shedding leaves annually, as certain trees and shrubs do; falling off at a particular stage of growth, as with baby teeth.”
Origin/Derivation: From the Latin verb decidere, which means “to fall off, fall down” and is a compound of the Latin preposition de meaning “from, down from, about” and the Latin verb cadere, casus which means “to fall, decay, die, happen, befall.”
Related Words/Phrases: accident, cadence (rising and falling of tones in reciting), cascade, casual, coincide, decadent (“to fall away from a better state/condition”), incident, occasion, Occidental (“setting”, as opposed to Oriental “rising”), recidivist (as in crime - “to fall again”).
“Changing leaves on deciduous trees make for a lovely autumnal scene.”