The Words of the Week - Mar. 10

‘Hush money’

Hush money saw a spike in lookups last week, after several news sources reported that former president Donald Trump was possibly going to be indicted, and that payments of this nature were part of the reason why.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office recently signaled to Donald J. Trump’s lawyers that he could face criminal charges for his role in the payment of hush money to a porn star, the strongest indication yet that prosecutors are nearing an indictment of the former president, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.
— William K. Rashbaum, Ben Protess, and Jonah E. Bromwich, The New York Times, 9 Mar. 2023

We define hush money as “money paid so that someone will keep information secret : money that a person pays someone to hush something up.” Although it has the sound of recency to it, hush money is a fairly old term: our records show it has been in regular use since the end of the 17th century.

Foster saith, that he was Coachman to Mr. Germaine, and carried the Dutchess of Norfolk often, about two Years since in his Coach, and brought her home, and the Footmen have had four Half-Crowns given them, and Martin a Dutchman his helper, called it Hush-Money.
— Henry Howard, His Grace the Duke of Norfolk's Charge Against the Dutchess, 1692

Who are in Places we may find out, but God knows who have Pensions, yet every man that made the least observation can remember that some who opened loudly at the beginning of the last Sessions, who came up as eager as is possible for Reformation, had their Mouths soon stopped with Hush-money.
— Charlwood Lawton, A Short State of our Condition, 1693

‘Woke’

Woke, a word that is often among our top lookups, spiked in searches even higher than usual after it was reported that many people feel pretty good about this word and its connotations.

A majority of Americans in a new poll have a positive association with the term “woke,” understanding it to mean “to be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices.”
— Julia Shapiro, The Hill, 8 Mar. 2023

We define woke in multiple (and semantically distinct!) ways, due to the fact that the word is used in multiple (and semantically distinct!) ways. The older sense of the word (in use since 1972) is “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).” While this sense is in some ways positive, it also is often used in contexts that suggest someone's expressed beliefs about such matters are not backed with genuine concern or action.

We have a second definition of woke, labelled as disapproving, which is “politically liberal (as in matters of racial and social justice) especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme.” Neither of these definitions is right or wrong; they are simply reflections of how people are currently using this word.

‘Eradicate’

Eradicate was in the news last week, after a speaker at a political event used this verb to call for action against the transgender community.

CPAC speaker sparks alarm with call for transgenderism to be ‘eradicated’
— (headline) The Independent (London), 5 Mar. 2023

The sense in which eradicate is often used today (“to do away with as completely as if by pulling up by the roots”) is a figurative one; the word came into English about 500 years ago, with the literal meaning of “to pull up by the roots.” By the middle of the 17th century the word had taken on its figurative sense, and in modern use eradicate is rarely, if ever, used to refer to actually pulling plants out of the ground.

‘Concussion’

Concussion had a sharp increase in lookups last week; this is something that something that happens fairly often, but is more often precipitated by a football player suffering a blow to the head than it is from a politician.

U.S. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, 81, fell Wednesday during a dinner at a Washington hotel. The Kentucky lawmaker is now being treated for a concussion and is being observed at a hospital.
— Tami Abdollah, USA Today, 9 Mar. 2023 

A concussion is “a stunning, damaging, or shattering effect from a hard blow; especially, a jarring injury of the brain resulting in disturbance of cerebral function.” The word comes in part form the Latin quatere, meaning “to shake.” Concussion shares this root with a number of other English words, including percussion (“an act or process of striking together”) and succussion (“ the action or process of shaking or the condition of being shaken especially with violence”).

Words Worth Knowing: ‘Disobligation’

Our word worth knowing this week is disobligation, defined as “an act that purposely inconveniences or offends.” Because some weeks it feels like everyone around you is committing one of these, and it’s nice to know what the word for this thing is.