I was reading Catch-22 today (0 hits on Google. Much better!), at Starbucks, when I came across the word insidious. The reference was to some type of insidious disease. I had a vague notion of the connotation of the word, but I wasn't sure I knew exactly what it meant, so I plotted my cursor down to it on my Kindle and used the handy-dandy, built-in dictionary feature. A definition magically appeared at the bottom of the screen:
Proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects.
I was immediately struck by the beauty of this word. (I studied linguistics in grad school, and I've long been fascinated with words, language, communication, etc.) How marvelous, I thought, that this word, already quite sonorous in its phonetic qualities, with its efficient compaction of four whole syllables into a relatively small verbal space, and not too shabby-looking on paper either, could have such a precise meaning.
I clicked to view the full entry for the word and learned that it came from the Latin parts in-, meaning "on" and sedere, meaning "to sit". In exercising some etymological imagination, I thought about how this elegant English word apparently evolved from the simple idea of something sinister just sitting and waiting patiently to strike. I was all the more amazed.
I think I have a new favorite word.
5 comments:
While I remain fond of "Callipygean," I do have to say that "ambuscade" is a favorite. As is "roynish."
I had to look up all 3 of those. Callipygian made me laugh.
Is this post supposed to balance out your last one? Because that's what it seems to do really well to me.
As in, we shouldn't just throw out "slippery slope" precautions at random and instead keep an eye out for the truly insidious things that seem innocuous at first glance.
Haha, I didn't even make that connection but thanks for pointing it out. That's hilarious.
That's what I'm here for, Smooth Daddy.
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