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)

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