The Words of the Week - July 19

‘Assassination’

Assassination was in the news a considerable amount last week, following the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump by a 20-year-old gunman.

Former President Donald Trump was shot and injured in an assassination attempt on Saturday night that also killed a spectator and critically injured two others.
— Olivia Rinaldi et al., CBS News, 16 July 2024

We define the relevant sense of assassination as “murder by sudden or secret attack often for political reasons; the act or an instance of assassinating someone (such as a prominent political leader).” Assassination, and its close relations assassin and assassinate, come from the Medieval Latin word assassinus, which itself can be traced to the Arabic ḥashshāsh. This Arabic word means “worthless person,” or, more literally, “hashish user.”

‘Sexpert’

Lookups for sexpert rose following the death of pioneering sex educator Dr. Ruth.

“Dr. Ruth” Westheimer, the diminutive sexpert whose heavy German accent and straight talk about sex on radio and TV brought frank discussion about relationships into American pop-culture, has died. She was 96.
— Sharon Jayson and Maria Puente, USA Today, 13 July 2024

We define sexpert, a portmanteau of sex and expert, as “a person whose job involves the academic study of or the providing information and advice about sexual relationships and sexual intercourse between human beings.”

‘Dew point’

Dew point climbed the lookup charts this week as the term tends to do in summer, when heat and humidity combine to make headlines around the country.

The area has endured high temperatures and humidity for much of July. The humidity levels this week are expected to be slightly lower than they were during a heat wave last week, but temperatures will be hotter, forecasters said. “The dew point will be a little lower, but you are still going to feel warmer,” said John Murray, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service. The service said that temperatures could feel like 100 degrees in northeast New Jersey and New York City on Monday and into the mid and upper 90s for the rest of the region.
— Johnny Diaz and David Waldstein, The New York Times, 15 July 2024

Dew point refers to the temperature at which a vapor (such as water) begins or would begin to condense. A given volume of air containing much water vapor has a higher dew point than the same volume of drier air; thus the dew point gives an indication of the humidity.

‘Elegy’

More people than usual were looking up elegy following the announcement on Tuesday of former president Donald Trump’s pick for vice presidential candidate in the 2024 election, JD Vance.

At the heart of JD Vance’s swift journey from venture capitalist to vice presidential candidate is a memoir he first thought of in law school, “Hillbilly Elegy.”
— Hillel Italie, The Associated Press, 16 July 2024

Elegy (which may be traced to the Greek word elegos, “song of mourning”) commonly refers to a song or poem lamenting one who is dead; the word may also refer somewhat figuratively to a nostalgic poem, or to a kind of musical composition.

‘Solar flare’

Solar flare had a burst of lookups this week reflecting the fact that an enormous sunspot has been causing radio blackouts across parts of the globe.

The sun continues firing off solar flares during what has been a period of intense activity. Sunspot AR3738 might be making its exit as it rotates out of our view on the sun’s western limb, but not before firing off a powerful X-class solar flare, the strongest of its kind. The solar flare from sunspot AR3738 occurred Tuesday morning.... A shortwave radio blackout in conjunction with the latest event was reported over mostly the Atlantic Ocean and also noted across much of Africa, Europe, and parts of North and South America.
— Meredith Garofalo, Space.com, 16 July 2024

We define solar flare as “a sudden temporary outburst of energy from a small area of the sun’s surface,” while the word sunspot is used to refer to any of the dark spots that appear at times on the sun’s surface and are usually visible only through a telescope.

Word Worth Knowing: ‘Serotinal’

Serotinal is an adjective used to describe that which is “of or relating to the latter and usually drier part of summer.” It hails from the Latin word serotinus, meaning “coming late." It’s not a terrifically common word, but when it does appear, it usually describes the time of year itself (as in “the serotinal season”) or plants or animals (such as insects) that bloom or hatch during the dog days of summer. Nothing is preventing you from inviting your compadres to a serotinal game of cornhole or a serotinal dip at the lake, however, so have at it.