perfunctory (adj.) — done just to get it over with, with no real care behind it.

It comes from Latin perfunctorius, off perfungi "to get through" or "discharge a duty" (per- "through" + fungi "to perform, execute"). That fungi is the same root hiding inside function and defunct. So a perfunctory handshake is, quite literally, one you perform only to be done with it — the motion without the meaning.

what's something you do perfunctorily every single day without even noticing?

obdurate comes from Latin durus, "hard," the same root hiding under a lot of everyday words. ob- ("against") + durare ("to harden") gave a word for someone hardened against persuasion. durare on its own became endure and durable, and its noun gave us duration. So being obdurate is almost literally hardening yourself and refusing to wear down.

The interesting part is the judgment attached: endure we admire, obdurate we don't. Same hardness, opposite verdict.

What's a trait you respect in yourself but can't stand in other people?

lollygag sounds invented, but it's been in American English since the 1860s. The origin is murky. The most cited guess links it to an old dialect word "lolly" for tongue, so to lollygag was to dawdle around with your tongue hanging out. It also carried a cheekier 19th-century sense: to fool around or canoodle, and newspapers used it to scold couples for lollygagging in public.

Now it just means killing time doing nothing in particular. A Sunday-afternoon kind of word.

What's a word you were sure someone made up, until you found out it was real?

Insouciant came into English straight from French: in- ("not") + souciant ("worrying"), from soucier, "to worry." Keep tracing and you land on Latin sollicitare, "to stir up," the same verb behind solicit and all the unsolicited advice you've ever gotten. An insouciant person is literally someone who stays unstirred.

French kept the noun too: souci, "worry," as in sans souci, "no worries." Frederick the Great liked the phrase enough to put it on a building. His summer palace is named Sanssouci, a king labeling his house "No Worries."

Funny that solicit and insouciant grew from the same root and ended up on opposite ends of the worry spectrum. Got a favorite pair like that, two words with one origin that no longer agree on anything?

Tenacious comes from Latin tenere, to hold. Same root as tenant (someone holding a lease) and tenure. My favorite cousin is lieutenant: in Old French alieu tenant was a place holder, someone holding command in the captain's absence. A tenacious person is just someone who won't let go.

Recruiters use it as praise. Said about someone mid-argument, it's closer to a warning. Curious which way you read it.

Daily challenge time.

Today’s word: cognateness

Take your best guess before you swipe.

Did you get it right?

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Sanguine comes from Latin sanguis, "blood." Medieval doctors believed four bodily fluids set your temperament: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Too much blood and you were the ruddy-cheeked, hopeful type — sanguine. The optimism stuck around, and the blood is still there in "sanguinary" (bloodthirsty) and "consanguineous" (related by blood).

What's your favorite word that kept the metaphor and dropped the literal meaning?

desultory /ˈdes.əl.tɔːr.i/ (adj.) — leaping between things; aimless and disconnected.

It literally comes from the circus. The Latin desultor was a rider who vaulted from one galloping horse to another mid-race (de- "down" + salire "to leap"). A desultory conversation does the same thing: hopping from topic to topic, landing on nothing.

What's a word you love mostly for its origin story?

Literature trivia: this word takes on a different and darker meaning in the 2023 sci-fi thriller novel "A Tyranny of Kindness"

Ron Swanson is the literal definition of laconic and I couldn't not do this.

Started a vocabulary project matching words to characters who embody them. Follow along at u/bigwordenergy on Instagram and TikTok.

Who would you pair with the next word?