What Is A Word That Describes Itself

Autological words are words that describe themselves—every bit opposed to all the heterological words that don't. The adjective pentasyllabic is autological, for case, since it has five syllables. Monosyllabic, on the other manus, is heterological, since information technology has far more than i. People who love words and puzzles might want to accept a moment here to ask themselves if the adjective heterological is heterological or not. If it describes itself, it must not exist heterological. Simply if it doesn't describe itself, then it must be. In which case it must not exist. While the puzzle fans are puzzling, possibly the remainder of us can just read on, to savour talking about a few words that like to talk nearly themselves.

Word

The give-and-take give-and-take is likewise old to assign a kickoff to. The etymological trail recedes into the origins of the English language itself, to the long-lost Germanic root that as well gave German the word Wort. The first written attestation of "worde" in English is constitute in the Catholic Homilies of Ælfric of Eynsham (around 990), carrying meanings that are still current today: words are things you can say or write down, and it's important to follow through when you give somebody your word.

Over the centuries, word has taken on a great variety of weighty meanings, reflecting the human tendency to come across words as important, powerful, and fifty-fifty quasi-magical. The ancient Greek habit of talking about "the Word" (Logos) every bit a kind of rational creative force at the heart of the cosmos was, for example, famously baptized into Christian culture every bit the belief that "In the beginning was the Word" (John 1:1). This idea that words tin do things is reflected in the way discussion was used for centuries as a verb: a wordsmith like Thomas Goffe could therefore hope to "give-and-take abroad" his troubles (Raging Turke, 1631). Nosotros only treat word as a verb today, though, when we discuss the way something is worded - another usage that goes back to the 17th century. This constant interest in how things are worded reflects the timeless importance of words and their use. Well-nigh of us rapidly lose patience with a mess of misused and mangled words, for instance - the kind of matter classified under the colourful psychiatric term give-and-take salad (G. S. Hall, Adolescence, 1904).

Pidgin

It may look similar a peculiar misspelling of a common bird'south proper noun, just the origins of pidgin are entirely unrelated to those of pigeon. A pidgin is a simplified language that bridges two or more natural languages. The term developed out of the way 19th-century Chinese traders pronounced the give-and-take business, and information technology presently came to describe the creative quasi-English language these traders and their European counterparts used to communicate. Eventually, the word pidgin evolved to mean whatsoever artificial language developed for the sake of doing concern.

The primeval written attestations all mean business organization, and spell the discussion similar the bird. The missionary Robert Morrison, for example, wrote most Cantonese locals taking care of pigeon (1807). Over time, though, the spelling pidgin became dominant. At the turn of the century, people unwilling to get involved in somebody else's business excused themselves by saying, "that's not my pidgin" (Sydney Bulletin, 1902). The discussion first appears in print with a linguistic connotation in the mid-19th century, also spelled pigeon (Galaxy Magazine, 1869). Before also long, though, pidgin also appears in print describing the phenomenon of hybrid trade languages (R. L. Stevenson, In South Seas, 1896). These historical developments transformed the crude-and-ready guess pronunciation of "business" into a full-fledged autological English give-and-take. As the quasi-English offspring of international business concern, the discussion pidgin is (similar the word word) an example of itself.

Sesquipedalian

The word sesquipedalian is used to describe long words, specially those that are needlessly long. The ultimate source of the sesquipedalian give-and-take sesquipedalian is the Latin poet Horace (65-8 BCE) who combined sesqui, a prefix meaning "ane and a half more", with human foot, pregnant "foot". In The Art of Poetry, he advised against showing off with sesquipedalia verba.

The mocking describing word was borrowed by English writers who wanted to join Horace in laughing at the "puzling sesquepedalian words" that pedantic people love to toss around (Confused Characters of Conceited Coxcombs, 1661).

In time, the anglicized adjective gave rising to an anglicized noun. An English writer might mutter, for example, most the annoyances of "hard names and sesquipedalians" (Fraser'south Magazine for Town and State, 1830). The describing word was likewise extended to include the kind of person who might use words a pes and a half long: "Towards the end of her letter Miss Jenkyns used to become quite sesquipedalian" (E. C. Gaskell, Cranford, 1853).

Over the years, the give-and-take sesquipedalian sometimes drifted further into simply significant "big", with odd results. In his novel Barchester Towers (1857), Anthony Trollope uses the word sesquipedalian to describe an unusually alpine manservant. The trouble with this description is obvious: "a foot and one-half" is not very tall, equally menservants go. Presumably, Trollope just thought the large word sounded impressive. He was seduced into trying to spice upwardly his writing with a long, unhelpful word—a sesquipedalian word. If you mind carefully, you can almost hear Horace laughing.