Word of the Week: Effigy

by Naomi L. | July 20, 2015 | Blog, Word of the Week | 0 comments

Source: Oxford Dictionaries

There’s a funny story to how today’s Word of the Week made it onto my vocabulary list. I actually learned the word “effigy” a long time ago from studying vocabulary flashcards, but I had forgotten it until recently when it came up in a conversation I had with my best friend. We were talking about the distant future, and he said that if aliens ever uncover his Minecraft Creeper plush toy, they might think it was an “effigy” of something humans believed was a divine being. It does, after all, look uncannily extraterrestrial.

An “effigy” is a likeness of someone in the form of a model or sculpture. The word comes from the Latin noun effigies, which stems from the verb effingere, meaning “to fashion artistically”. This verb is comprised of the preposition ex “out” and the verb fingere “to shape”.

Note that a common use for an “effigy” is as “a roughly made model of a particular person, made in order to be damaged or destroyed as a protest or expression of anger”. In this case, it’s normal to refer to the person whose likeness is being destroyed as being “burned in effigy”. There also seem to be certain restrictions for how to use the word “effigy”: for example, the term usually applies to lying statues for funerary art, but not necessarily standing statues or religious figures. If your stories contain any three-dimensional models made in the likeness of your characters, you may have a few “effigies” scattered throughout your fiction, though whether or not they should be labeled as such is up to you! Good luck!

What are your thoughts on this word? Any suggestions for future “Word of the Week” featured words?

Word of the Week: Licentious

by Naomi L. | July 13, 2015 | Blog, Word of the Week | 0 comments

Source: Oxford Dictionaries

Beata Maria, you know I’m so much purer than
The common, vulgar, weak, licentious crowd.
– “Hellfire” (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1996)

Oh yes, Disney worked the word “licentious” into a children’s movie. The first time I ever heard this word was when I was a kid and watched the 1996 animated film The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The term “licentious” comes up about halfway through the movie in the song “Hellfire“: while conflicted between his religious virtues and his desire for the gypsy Esmeralda, Judge Claude Frollo tries to justify to himself that he is somehow above the sins committed by the “promiscuous” common people he hates (when in fact that hatred is exactly what makes him far worse than any of them).

A “licentious” person is someone who lacks principles in sexual matters. It also once referred to a disregard for rules and conventions. The word comes from the Latin adjective licentiosus “unrestrained”, which stems from the noun licentia, meaning “freedom”.

Because “licentious” has an archaic definition, it’s possible that its use in the medieval setting of a Disney movie was intended to have the tamer meaning of a general disrespect for society’s rules. Then again, given the context of the song and the second definition’s emphasis on writing techniques, it’s more likely the word was being used in its primary meaning of sexual depravity. Either way, this is a good adjective for describing people without moral principles. If your characters tend to be unscrupulous in their actions, you too may have a “licentious” crowd in your stories!

What are your thoughts on this word? Any suggestions for future “Word of the Week” featured words?