Mansuetude, “mildness, gentleness,” comes from Latin mānsuētūdō, which is equivalent to manus, “hand”; suēscere, “to become accustomed”; and -tūdō, a noun-forming suffix similar to English -hood and -ness. Manus is also the source of manacle, manicure, manual, and the Word of the Day mano a mano. Suēscere, which contains the common element -sc-, “to become” (see the Word of the Day opalesce), is related to Ancient Greek êthos, “custom, habit,” as in ethics. Mansuetude was first recorded in English in the late 14th century.
EXAMPLE OF MANSUETUDE USED IN A SENTENCE
Every day on the job, teachers have to balance strictness with mansuetude as they lead their students through lessons.
an underground cemetery consisting of a subterranean gallery with recesses for tombs, as constructed by the ancient Romans.synonyms:underground cemetery · sepulcher · crypt · vault · mausoleum · tomb · ossuary · tunnels · labyrinth · maze
an underground construction resembling the catacombs built by ancient Romans.
Eggcorn “a seemingly logical alteration of a misheard word or phrase” is a coinage by linguistics professor Geoffrey K. Pullum based on the word acorn. The logic here is that people unfamiliar with the term acorn (from Old English æcern) may mistake the word as a compound of egg and corn because of acorns’ size and shape. An eggcorn is a type of folk etymology based on an honest mistake, as we saw in the etymology for the recent Word of the Day armscye, which is often incorrectly believed to come from “arm’s eye,” after the location and shape of an armscye. What makes something an eggcorn is that, unlike folk etymology proper, which results in a change to a word or phrase based on a nearly universal misconception, eggcorns tend to reflect common mistakes at the individual level—no matter how widespread these mistakes may be—that do not change the spelling of the mistaken word or phrase. Also important is that eggcorns are based on logical misunderstandings, so not every gross misspelling on the average social media feed qualifies as an eggcorn. While eggcorn is attested as early as the early 19th century, its present sense dates from 2003.
HOW IS EGGCORN USED?
Whether step foot in is, or originally was, an eggcorn has been hotly but inconclusively debated. However, no one argues that set foot in is anything other than standard English. So step foot in is one of those phrases that we’re probably better off not using even though there’s little reason to object if others use them.
BARBARA WALLRAFF, “WORD COURT,” THE ATLANTIC, SEPTEMBER 2006
New York Times columnist Frank Bruni wrote …. “the Congress we’re about to get will be its [predecessor’s] spit and image: familiar faces, timeworn histrionics, unending paralysis.” Spit and image? …. Did Bruni just drop an eggcorn in America’s journal of record? …. As Language Log points out, he didn’t drop (lay?) an eggcorn at all. In fact, “spit and image” is the older version of the expression. Both may be alterations of an earlier form, “spitten image.”
DAVID SHARIATMADARI, “THAT EGGCORN MOMENT,” THE GUARDIAN, SEPTEMBER 16, 2014
Gnomon “the raised part of a sundial that casts the shadow” is a borrowing by way of Latin gnōmōn from Ancient Greek gnṓmōn “interpreter, discerner.” From there, gnṓmōn is derived from the verb gignṓskein (stem gnō-) “to know, perceive, judge,” and the stem gnō- also appears in other Ancient Greek-origin terms such as agnostic (literally “without knowledge”) and diagnosis (literally “means of discernment”). Because Ancient Greek and Latin are distantly related, Latin contains numerous words related to knowledge that also feature the telltale gn- element, including cognitive (“learned”), incognito (“unknown”), ignorant (“not knowing”), and recognize (“know again”). Gnomon was first recorded in English in the 1540s.
HOW IS GNOMON USED?
The pork clock was excavated in the 1760s from the ruins of the Villa dei Papiri, a grand country house in the Roman town of Herculaneum. Early scholars were quick to realize that the unprepossessing object was a sundial, though some experts argued that it was modeled after a water jug rather than a ham …. The original clock is missing its gnomon, the part of a sundial that casts a shadow, but an 18th-century museum curator described it having one in the shape of a pig’s tail…TRACI WATSON, “ANCIENT SUNDIAL SHAPED LIKE HAM WAS ROMAN POCKET WATCH,” NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, JANUARY 19, 2017
Though not exactly a clock, the Samrat Yantra—or supreme instrument—is the largest sundial in the world, measuring more than 88 feet in height. Made of marble and local stone with a gnomon that stands at 90 feet, this time-keeping attraction can tell accurate time, with just a two-second margin of error, day or night.“TRAVEL PICKS: TOP 10 CLOCKS AROUND THE WORLD,” REUTERS, APRIL 5, 2013
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