Grace Tierney's Blog

The Obscure Roots of Exulansis

Hello,

This week’s word isn’t to be found in any mainstream dictionaries because it was coined by author John Koenig for his “Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows”. He wanted to fill the linguistic gaps in our words to describe emotions and our inner lives. Exulansis is one he created for the project.

Sunset, Wexford, Ireland

Koenig defined exulansis as ” the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it”. Most of us have had this experience at some point in our lives. Enthusing about a wonderful new book I read recently to somebody who doesn’t enjoy reading generally leads to a glazed look on my audience’s face. You trail off in mid-sentence, aware that you’ve lost them.

Thankfully he also tells us how to say the word. It’s pronounced “ek-suh-lan-sis”, apparently.

He created etymologies for all the words too. Now that’s a move I admire. For exulansis he tells readers that exulans in Latin means exile or wanderer thanks to the diomedea exulans, the Wandering Albatross. You may be aware that the albatross is a large sea bird which rarely lands. They can fly for hours without even flapping their wings and over the centuries much sailor folklore has accumulated around these astonishing birds.

For some it was a symbol of good luck, but for others it might announce a curse. This is perhaps best known thanks to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1798) where the mariner kills the bird, believing it to be a bad omen.

Now the next time you’re telling a story and you notice those listening can’t connect to your experience, at least you know the word for it. You’re experiencing exulansis.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

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The Swooping History of Aliferous

Hello,

I’ve no record of where I found this week’s word, aliferous. I scrolled at random in my (exceedingly long) word list and it popped out, seeking a story.

Aliferous means having wings. You might describe an angel, bird, or butterfly in this way.

Butterfly sprang to mind in my case as I recently visited the butterfly house in Vienna’s museum district. A small spot but alight with floating and swooping beauties, including the one pictured above. Such delicate things. Short-lived, joyous, and inspirational.

Aliferous arrived into English in the early 1700s from Latin roots. Ala means wing in Latin and ferous means bearing or carrying.

There’s a similar word auriferous which arrived around the same period and means gold-bearing (aurum means gold in Latin) which would be used in the mining sector, I imagine. I suppose then if a creature had golden wings it might be aurialiferous, but I’m just playing now and I didn’t spot any golden-winged butterflies on my visit.

The fer in ferous comes from a Proto Indo European root word bher which related to the idea of bearing children, so the concept of carrying was about life, rather than lifting bags of shopping. This root word forms the background to many English words such as circumference, forbear, prefer, and suffer.

It is also believed to connect to a vast array of other languages with the idea of carrying, bearing, or pregnancy – Sanskrit, Old Persian, Greek pherein (to carry), Old Irish berim (I bring forth), Old Welsh, Gothic, Old High German, Old Norse, and Russian amongst many others.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder.

Do You Suffer from Battology?

Hello,

A friend asked me last week what writing I’m doing currently. I explained that I was supposed to be working on formatting “Words the Weather Gave Us” for proof printing but had in fact cheated on my main book by working on the candidate word list for the next book “Words Stories Gave Us”. The list currently runs from allegory to zine, in case you’re curious, but I’ve many more words to gather. In fact, if you have a book/story/publishing related word you’d like included, please comment below.

She loved the idea of my having committed an infidelity on my writing projects but any writers reading this will know that we often do this. While you’re promoting one book, you’re writing another, or editing one, or simply dreaming of one.

Anyhow, here’s a word from my “bit on the side” – battology. Battology is defined as the wearisome repetition of words in speaking or writing. This can be because somebody has a limited vocabulary, or memory issues, is seeking to make their point forcefully (politicians and salespeople love a good slogan or catchword for example), or is distracted. Our brains notice battology and generally dislike it. The members of my writing group pull me up if I echo a word in a paragraph. Although sometimes it’s there deliberately for emphasis.

Use your thesaurus to avoid battology?

Related words are battalogical and battologist. I hope I’m not the latter.

Battology joined the English dictionary around 1600, with the same meaning it has today. It was borrowed directly from Greek battologia but the meaning in Greek is different. There it refers to somebody who speaks stammeringly. In that case repeating a word is because the speaker is trying to enunciate the word and should, of course, be waited for patiently by the audience. I’ve covered the various ologies before on the blog, so I won’t repeat myself, but battos means stammerer in Greek and is believed to be imitative in origin (i.e. a word that sounds like what it describes, like slither, for example).

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder. There’s an issue out this Friday (19 September 2025), so sign up now to avoid missing out on more wordy fun.

The Windy Canine Word Origins of Feisty

Hello,

This week’s word, feisty, comes with thanks to “An Emotional Dictionary” by Susie Dent. I was surprised to learn from this excellent book that feisty has more to do with little dogs and farting than it does with the ever popular feisty female trope in fiction.

Pirate Captain Grace – in feisty mode

I’m always wary of adjectives only used to describe females (strident, hysterical, bossy, airhead, for example) and feisty falls into this category. What does it mean exactly? The dictionary tells me it’s a person, typically one who is relatively small, who is lively, determined, and brave. These are all positive things and not exclusively female.

Feisty is a relatively recent addition to the English language. It arrived in American English in the late 1800s to describe somebody as aggressive, exuberant, and touchy but the source of feist is where it gets interesting. A feist was a small dog (spelled as fice or fist sometimes) and was called a fysting curre (stinking cur) since the 1500s. What did fysting mean then? Well, to fisten in Middle English meant to break wind, thanks to a Proto-Germanic root word – fistiz (a fart) which provides a cousin word in Danish.

The dogs may have been blamed in error. One 1800s slang dictionary claimed little old ladies blamed their lap-dogs for their own windy explosions. Unsurprising then that the small dogs were sometimes aggressive as well as aromatic.

The next time somebody calls you feisty, pause a moment to wonder, are they complimenting your bravery, calling you small, or saying you’re full of wind?

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder.

The Turncoat Word History of Renegade

Hello,

I’m enjoying season seven of “Outlander” on DVD at the moment and there’s much talk of traitors as most of this series is set during the American Revolution (1778 to be precise) and amongst all the rebellion there are a few turncoats. The word came from the action, turning your coat inside out to hide your original allegiance, but where did we get renegade?

Renegade’s original meaning was religious rather than martial. It arrived in English in the late 1500s to describe somebody who had denied their faith, usually a Christian who had become Muslim. English imported the word from renegado in Spanish. Spanish had inherited the word from renegare (to deny), a Latin verb. This verb also gives us the English verb to renege, often used about somebody breaking a promise, going back on their word.

By the 1660s a renegade was associated less with religion and more with military matters. It became a turncoat, one who deserts their unit, and perhaps even joins the enemy’s army.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder.

Abecedarian and Back to School

Hello,

It’s late August now and something is in the air – the back to school vibes. Dreaded by students and teachers alike and a busy time for them, as well as for parents buying supplies. Some schools (for teens) have already started back in my area but it will be another couple of weeks for the university students in my house. But it’s definitely in the air so I’ll share an educational word this week – abecedarian.

Plenty of apples for teacher

Abecedarian is defined in Samuel Johnson’s 1755 dictionary as being “one who teaches or learns the alphabet” so this word works for both students and their tutors.

Abecedarian is in use from at least the 1660s but is predated by an abecedary – an alphabet table used in teaching from the mid 1400s. That came from abecedarium in Medieval Latin (an ABC book) which takes its name from the first four letters in the Latin alphabet. Old French also had abecedé (alphabet) in the 1200s.

Of course the adecedary would have been used in teaching students how to read, but by as early as the 1300s it was used in a more general sense of being the basics of any subject. You might have the ABCs of computer coding today, or the ABCs of vine cultivation. All English learners start with learning abc, hence the association. It has also been used for the American Broadcasting Company since 1944 and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation since 1931.

For those of you returning to studies or teaching this autumn, good luck with it, bring an apple for teacher, and remember you’re an abecedarian.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder.

Let’s Sit with the History of Insidious

Hello,

There is a small black and white cat who poses an insidious threat to my garden’s wild birds. She likes to sit underneath the spreading, and concealing, branches of the low-growing Japanese maple tree and wait for an unsuspecting bird to visit the birdbath.

What’s lurking beside the bird bath?

Despite liking cats this seems unfair on the unsuspecting birds and I chase her away whenever I spot this behaviour. In the long run I’m pruning the maple’s drooping branches to provide less of a lurking location for the feline, but I’m hoping the birds are quick and wily or they won’t make it through the year.

I thought of her when I read the definition and history of the word insidious. Something insidious is unpleasant (I’m sure the birds would agree), dangerous (ditto), and develops gradually without being noticed. It’s a creeping threat, one which perhaps seems safe at first glance but is a danger all the same.

Insidious arrived in English in the mid 1500s as a borrowing from either French insidieux or Latin insidiosus. The Latin word, which meant plot or ambush came from the verb insidere (to sit on or occupy), sedere was the verb to sit. But what exactly does sitting have to do with plotting? Can conspirators not scheme while standing up?

The link is figurative. Think of a hunter, cat, or army lying (or sitting) in wait. Their patience allows them to entrap their prey. So it is with an insidious threat – be that from my local cat hunting the song birds or from an opponent in war, trade, work, or politics. If they’re waiting for you in the proverbial long grass, beware, or perhaps buy a lawnmower.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder.

The Long Story of Eke Out

Hello,

If anything is in short supply, it’s important to eke it out until you can replenish supplies. This usually happens in my house on a Wednesday when my offspring stare into the fridge, despairing of finding any food before I buy more groceries the next day. The parents amongst you will know that by the end of Friday we’re back to the cry of “There’s no food!”

Don’t forget to eke out the last of the wine…

Samuel Johnson, in the plan for his famous 1755 dictionary, explains that to eke out anything is to lengthen it beyond its true dimensions by a low trick. That’s not how I’d use the expression today, so where does its history lie?

The verb eke arrived in mainstream English around the year 1200 when it meant to increase or lengthen. It came from eken which was used in northern England and the East Midlands. They had it from ecan (and a few variant spellings) in Old English where it meant to increase. It’s likely that it came from aukan, a Proto-Germanic word which provides cousin words in Norse, Danish, Frisian, Saxon, Old High German, and Gothic so there was a lot of eking going on back in the day.

The Germanic word had its own roots in aug, a Proto Indo European word also meaning to increase. Eke goes a long way into the linguistic past and clearly all languages needed a term for increasing something.

Eke had a second meaning in Old English – to get with great difficulty. It’s possible that both meanings combined to give us the way we eke today. Since the late 1500s we’ve had the expression to eke out, meaning to make your supplies last longer. This refers to lengthening, but also has an implied idea that to do so would be difficult.

Now we almost never use eke with its core meaning of increasing or lengthening, but we certainly still eke out supplies, as demonstrated by my hungry offspring staring into the fridge.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder. There’s an issue out this Friday (15 August 2025), so sign up now to avoid missing out on more wordy fun.

An Official Job Title – Scavenger

Hello,

The word scavenger today means somebody who collects things discarded by others – perhaps through a spot of skip-diving, car-booting, or literally in the rubbish bins. It is also used of animals who feed on decaying organic matter. That animal sense was added in the late 1500s. A human scavenger in the past, however, was an official job title and it was an important job.

The word arrived in Middle English in the late 1300s as scavager from scawage in Anglo-French. Scawage was a duty paid to a local official on goods offered for sale in their area. It came from Old North French escauwage (inspection) and before that scouwon in Old High German. The basic idea was that of import charges, or dare I mention the word of 2025 – tariffs?

The original scavenger (which didn’t have that letter n yet) was a London city official who had to charge those duties on goods entering the city for sale by foreign merchants. By the 1500s the scavenger’s job had changed. They organised the removal of refuse from the streets of the city, a vital job to suppress various illnesses, not to mention the rats. The spelling changed around this point too with the addition of the n probably because of other popular words like passenger, harbinger, and messenger. But as late as 1851 scavagery was defined as street-cleaning, so clearly that letter n took a while to stick.

By 1656 the scavenger is described as “an Officer well known in London, that makes clean the streets, by scraping up and carrying away the dust and durt” and in 1755 Samuel Johnson defined it as “a petty magistrate whose province is to keep the streets clean”. Johnson was certain it came from Saxon roots, comparing the Saxon verb scafan (to shave) with the idea of sweeping.

In more recent years the meaning evolved from the idea of disposing of rubbish to one who collects what might be termed rubbish and puts it to use. Trash to treasure, so to speak and a scavenger’s dream.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)
p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder.

Ubiquity – Being Everywhere for Millennia

Hello,

This week’s word is ubiquity, with thanks to the teen I passed on my walk last week who claimed to her friend that somebody was ubiquitous. She reminded me how much I like this word. Thankfully I hadn’t already covered it here on the Wordfoolery blog. I’m on year 17 of words and can’t always recall every word I’ve written up, but I checked.

Nigella (love in a mist) is ubiquitous in my garden at the moment, much to my delight

Ubiquitous means being, or turning up, everywhere. The word arrived in the 1800s by joining ubiquity and the suffix -ous. You could also have ubiquitously and ubiquitousness but I don’t think those two variants ever really took root, unlike the nigella seedlings in my garden.

The history of ubiquity is older, however. This is defined as the ability to be in an infinite number of places at the same time, otherwise known as being omnipresent (omni means all and comes from omnis in Latin), and it was originally applied to God (of the Christian faith). The word came to English in the late 1500s from ubiquitas in Latin where ubique means everywhere. Ubi means where and the suffix -que gives universal meaning to the word to which it is attached.

Again there were a couple of variants of ubiquity which have totally fallen from use. In the 1590s there was ubiquitary (being everywhere) and ubiquitarian (one who exists everywhere) in the 1700s. We might say that the actor Pedro Pascal is an ubiquitarian at the moment, for example.

Despite sounding somewhat old-fashioned and referring originally to a belief from two millennia ago, ubiquitous is used far more today than it ever has been in the past. From the 1980s onwards its usage graph has climbed steadily, perhaps because it began to be used in connection with celebrities rather than deities.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder.