The Words of the Week - 8/27/21

’Politico’

Politico was in the news more than usual last week, following reports that the political news website of this name had been sold for a large sum.

Axel Springer, the German media conglomerate, has agreed to buy the Washington-based Politico franchise for more than $1 billion.
— Brian Stelter, CNN, 26 Aug. 2021

We define politico simply, as a synonym of politician. The word has been in English use for about 400 years now (our earliest record of use comes from 1630), and is borrowed from the Italian politico and the Spanish político. Both of these can be traced to the Latin word polīticus, "of civil government, political.”

’Disbarment’

Disbarment was in the news a surprising amount, considering that no one of public note had actually been disbarred. A federal judge recommended this as a possible penalty for attorneys who had filed lawsuits with the intention of overturning the 2020 presidential election.

Sidney Powell, Kraken legal team face sanctions, court costs and potential disbarment over election lawsuit
— (headline) USA Today, 25 Aug. 2021

Disbarment is defined as “the act or an instance of disbarring : the state of being disbarred,” and disbar is defined as “to expel from the bar or the legal profession; to deprive (an attorney) of legal status and privileges.”

’Disenroll’

Another dis- word that trended in lookups last week was disenroll, after a university announced that this is what it would do to students who opted to not get vaccinated against COVID-19.

The University of Virginia has disenrolled students who didn’t comply with the school’s Covid-19 vaccine requirement as the institution gets ready to welcome back undergraduate students for in-person classes on Monday, the school said Saturday.
— Nicole Acevedo, NBC News, 21 Aug. 2021

Our definition of disenroll is “to remove (as a name) from a roll,” and note that the word is broadly used to mean “to release (an individual) from membership in an organization (as from a military reserve).” This differs semantically from expel, which is defined as “to force to leave (a place, an organization, etc.) by official action, to take away rights or privileges of membership.”

’Curry’

Curry spiked in lookups as well, after a columnist for The Washington Post wrote about this in a manner that some found ill-advised and slanderous, but that others felt was merely asinine and uninformed.

The Indian subcontinent has vastly enriched the world, giving us chess, buttons, the mathematical equivalent of zero … and the only ethnic cuisine in the world insanely based entirely on one spice. If you like Indian curries, yay, you like Indian food!
— Gene Weingarten, The Washington Post, 19 Aug. 2021

It would be difficult for any curry-based cuisine to be based entirely on one spice, as curry is a combination of many spices. We define the word as “a food, dish, or sauce in Indian cuisine seasoned with a mixture of pungent spices,” and also as “a food or dish seasoned with curry powder.” Curry powder itself we define as “a condiment consisting of several pungent ground spices (such as cayenne pepper, fenugreek, and turmeric).”

’Ivermectin’

Ivermectin was increasingly in the news last week, following a surprising number of stories about people voluntarily ingesting this thing, which is most commonly used as a livestock dewormer.

https://twitter.com/US_FDA/status/1429050070243192839

We define ivermectin as “a drug mixture of two structurally similar semisynthetic lactones that is used in veterinary medicine as an anthelmintic, acaricide, and insecticide and in human medicine to treat onchocerciasis.” The careful reader will notice that our definition specifies that this substance is on occasion used in human medicine. The condition ivermectin is used for with humans, onchocerciasis, is defined as “infestation with or disease caused by filarial worms (genus Onchocerca), especially, a human disease marked by subcutaneous nodules, dermatitis, and visual impairment and caused by a worm (O. volvulus) found in Africa and tropical America which is transmitted by the bite of a female blackfly.” Please note that onchocerciasis is not a synonym for COVID-19.

Our Antedating of the Week

Our antedating of the week is deworm, defined as “to rid of worms; to treat (an animal) with a drug to destroy or expel parasitic worms.” Our earliest known use of this word had previously come in 1926, but recent findings show that we’ve been deworming things since at least the late 19th century.

Some of the cattlemen who had their stock dehorned this spring are now kept busy deworming the same.
— Council Grove Guard (Council Grove, KS), 7 May 1897