Word of the Week: Egregious

by Naomi L. | May 13, 2013 | Blog, Word of the Week | 2 comments

Source: Oxford Dictionaries

“It is pronounced i-GREE-jəs.”

– Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007)

“Egregious” may very well be one of my favorite words. I’m not even entirely sure why; I just really like the sound of it. Say it with me: “egregious”. Doesn’t that sound pretty cool? No? OK, maybe it’s just me.

Nowadays, to call something “egregious” is to insult it, as you’re basically referring to it as noticeable in a bad way (e.g. egregious errors). Interestingly enough, though, this word actually used to mean something good, that is, it was used to describe what was outstanding in a positive sense. So how does a word go from being complimentary to being derogatory?

One word: sarcasm.

It’s believed that at some point in the late 16th century, the normally positive word “egregious” started being used in a sarcastic manner. Over time, this negative use must have become the norm, thus giving origin to the more unfavorable definition that we now know today.

It may be worth mentioning, though, that traces of the archaic meaning may still exist today. For instance, I recently asked my dad for his opinion on the word “egregious”, and I was surprised to learn that to him, it had a positive meaning: something along the lines of “honorable”. This is because he had learned from his father that the Italian word egregio (oh yeah, my dad is European, by the way) is used in formal correspondence to mean “dear” or “distinguished”, as in Egregio Signore (Dear Sir). Pretty neat, huh? At least, I think so!

Bonus fun fact: “egregious” has roots in the Latin adjective egregius, which basically means “standing out from the flock” (ex– ‘out’ + grex-/greg– ‘flock’). At least that’s one thing these two polar definitions have in common!

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

Word of the Week: Pedestrian

by Naomi L. | May 6, 2013 | Blog, Word of the Week | 2 comments

Source: Oxford Dictionaries

“Pedestrian” was one of my 7th-grade Language Arts teacher’s favorite vocabulary words. It’s one of those interesting words with two very different meanings: on one hand, you could use it to refer to a person strolling in front of your car at the crosswalk; on the other, you could use it to insult a piece of fiction you just read (or any other piece of art for that matter) that you didn’t find particularly exciting.

He told his therapist that he daydreams about running slow pedestrians over with his car.

It amazes me that such a pedestrian novel series could become a worldwide success.

So why is it that this word can have two different meanings with no apparent connection? I myself used to think that the original definition of the English word was just “a person traveling on foot” and that only recently did it come to mean “dull”, but a little research has taught me that this double meaning goes much farther back than that. Apparently, etymology places the root of the word “pedestrian” in the Latin adjective pedester (feminine pedestris, neuter pedestre), which also means both “on foot” and “commonplace”. Only the root of this word (pedes) means just “one who walks” (except in chess, where it refers to a pawn). Who knew?

As for the reason behind the different definitions in Latin, that’s where my knowledge on the subject ends. If I ever do learn more, though, I’ll be sure to update this entry. My apologies!

Anyway, I’m a fan of this word; it’s just common enough to count as colloquial language (though that may or may not be changing in recent times), yet just long enough to pass as an advanced vocabulary word. Overall, it’s simple and fun to use, which is why I thought it would be a good choice to start off Monday’s “Word of the Week” segments. I hope you’ll enjoy them!

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