Word of the Week 02/23/20: Matriculate

From Dictionary.com:

1. to enroll in a college or university as a candidate for a degree.
2. to register (a coat of arms), used especially in Scottish heraldry.

From Quick and Dirty Tips.com:

Matriculate is most commonly used as a verb meaning to enroll in or be admitted to a group such as a college, university, or program. When it is used in this way, it is usually followed by a preposition such as at, into, or to.

From Merriam-Webster:

Anybody who has had basic Latin knows that alma mater, a fancy term for the school you attended, comes from a phrase that means "fostering mother." If mater is "mother," then matriculate probably has something to do with a school nurturing you just like good old mom, right? Not exactly. If you go back far enough, matriculate is distantly related to the Latin mater, but its maternal associations were lost long ago. It is more closely related to Late Latin matricula, which means "public roll or register," and it has more to do with being enrolled than being mothered.

Medieval Latin matriculatus, past participle of matriculare, from Late Latin matricula public roll, diminutive of matric-, matrix list

Word of the Week 02/16/20: Dudgeon

From Merriam-Webster:

A fit or state of indignation —often used in the phrase in high dudgeon

Offense, Resentment, Umbrage, Pique, Dudgeon, Huff mean an emotional response to or an emotional state resulting from a slight or indignity. Offense implies hurt displeasure. Resentment suggests lasting indignation or ill will. Umbrage may suggest hurt pride, resentment, or suspicion of another's motives. Pique applies to a transient feeling of wounded vanity. Dudgeon suggests an angry fit of indignation. Huff implies a peevish short-lived spell of anger usually at a petty cause.

Middle English dogeon, from Anglo-French digeon, dogeon

From Wiktionary:

Origin uncertain; perhaps from Welsh dygen (“anger, grudge”)

From Grammarphobia.com:

Dudgeon originally meant the handle of a dagger. Some word detectives have tried to link dudgeon with dygen, a Welsh word that means malice or resentment, but the Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t see a connection. The most likely theory is that the expression “in high dudgeon” originally had something to do with grabbing a dagger in anger. Interestingly, two similar-sounding words, bludgeon and curmudgeon, are also etymological mysteries. The word first showed up in the 15th century in the sense of the wood used to make the handle of a knife or dagger. Later, it came to mean the hilt or handle itself.

Shakespeare has Macbeth use the word in reference to the hilt of a dagger: “I see thee still, / And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, / Which was not so before,” but decades before Shakespeare wrote Macbeth in the early 1600s, dudgeon was being used to mean a feeling of anger or resentment.

The first citation in the OED for dudgeon used in this sense is from a 1573 entry in  The Letter-Book of Gabriel Harvey: “Who seem’d to take it in marvelus great duggin.” (Harvey was an English writer and his book contained a collection of draft letters.)

The first OED example of “high” and “dudgeon” linked together are in Hudibras (1663), a mock heroic poem by Samuel Butler: “When civil dudgeon first grew high, / And men fell out they knew not why; / When hard words, jealousies, and fears, / Set folks together by the ears.” (The author of the poem was a 17th-century poet and satirist, not the better-known Victorian novelist of the same name.)

The OED’s first citation for the most common use of dudgeon today is from an 1885 issue of the Manchester Examiner: “[He] resigned his position as reporter of the Committee in high dudgeon.”

Word of the Week 02/09/20: Fugue

From Collins Dictionary:

1. a polyphonic composition based upon one, two, or more themes, which are enunciated by several voices or parts in turn, subjected to contrapuntal treatment, and gradually built up into a complex form having somewhat distinct divisions or stages of development and a marked climax at the end
2. a period during which a person suffers from loss of memory, often begins a new life, and, upon recovery, remembers nothing of the amnesic phase

From Merriam-Webster:

Bach and Handel composed many fugues for harpsichord and organ in which the various parts (or voices) seem to flee from and chase each other in an intricate dance. Each part, after it has stated the theme or melody, apparently flees from the next part, which takes up the same theme and sets off in pursuit. Simple rounds such as "Three Blind Mice" or "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" could be called fugues for children, but a true fugue can be long and extremely complex.

Probably from Italian fuga flight, fugue, from Latin, flight, from fugere

Word of the Week 02/02/20: Gish

From Wiktionary:

1. (fantasy role-playing games) A character that is skilled in both physical combat and the use of magic.
2. (slang) An outsider.

The term originates in the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) game, where it originally referred to a Githyanki fighter/wizard combination. Gish is still an official term used in D&D referring to this, but is also used to refer to any character who has a martial/spellcasting combination of abilities.