Did You Know?
Can you guess which of the following come from the same Latin ancestor as "posture"?
A. positive B. impose C. posit D. expose E. oppose
F. component G. dispose H. position I. postpone
We won't put off the answer to our quiz : they all do. The Latin verb "ponere," meaning "to put" or "to place," is the ancestor of numerous English terms, including "posture" and our nine quiz words. The past participle of "ponere" -- "positus" -- gave Latin the noun "positura" (same meaning as the English noun "posture"). That noun passed through Italian and Middle French and was finally adopted by English speakers as "posture" around 1586. The verb "posture" followed later from the noun, finding its place in English around 1645.
