FW: A.Word.A.Day--coadunate

[Friam mailing list]

-----Original Message-----
From: Wordsmith [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2003 10:02 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--coadunate


coadunate (ko-AJ-uh-nit, -nayt) adjective

   United by growth; closely joined.

[From Late Latin coadunatus, past participle of coadunare, to combine,
a compound word from Latin co- (together) + ad- (toward) + unus (one).]

Coadunate ultimately derives from Indo-European *oi-no, meaning one, unique.
Less obvious words derived from this root include anon, atone, lonely,
eleven, ounce and inch. The lowly onion may also be in this family, conceived
as a unity formed of many layers.

  "I descend from my high home in the Financial District to plunge into the
   coadunate streams of pedestrians ..."
   Leah Garchik; Personals; San Francisco Chronicle; Jun 25, 1993.

This week's Guest Wordsmith, Stewart Edelstein ([hidden email])
writes:

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. defined "word" as "the skin of a living thought."
Languages now spoken in such far-flung places as Iceland, Afghanistan,
Europe, Russia, and northern India first found expression in Indo-European,
a reconstructed language dating back several thousand years. (The asterisk
before Indo-European root words indicates that they are reconstructed
rather than recorded.). As language evolved, a living thought was manifested
in a cluster of related words, just as siblings and cousins share a common
genetic makeup, but each has a distinct physiognomy.

Etymologists refer to words based on a common root as doublets, a subject
I have studied for more than ten years. I've collected hundreds of seemingly
incompatible dyads with common roots, such as alcohol/artichoke,
bagel/buxom, and window/nirvana. This week we look at a subset of
doublets, focusing on words based on numbers, but not obviously so.

(Stewart Edelstein is an attorney and the author of Dubious Doublets:
 A Delightful Compendium of Unlikely Word Pairs of Common Origin, from
 Aardvark/Porcelain to Zodiac/Whiskey:
 http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471227641/ws00-20/ )

Sponsored by Think Right Now! International: Depressed? Anxious? Unmotivated?
If your willpower & persistence always fizzle out, see the new paradigm in
personal growth. http://mcssl.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=17954

AND
Derivation, a new fascinating game about words and derivations. Featured
in the NY Times, Wall St. Journal, and CNNfn. http://entspire.com/derivation

............................................................................
Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and
he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.
-Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

Send your comments to [hidden email]. To subscribe or unsubscribe, send
a message to [hidden email] with "Subject:" line as "subscribe <Name>"
or "unsubscribe". Archives, FAQ, gift subscription form, bulletin board,
and more at http://wordsmith.org/awad/

Pronunciation:
http://wordsmith.org/words/coadunate.wav
http://wordsmith.org/words/coadunate.ram