Merriam-Webster's Words of the Week - Dec. 24

’Feliz Navidad’ & ’Noel’

Both Feliz Navidad and noel were high in lookups this past week, as people drew closer to making their holiday-season choices between avoiding relatives and avoiding Covid-19.

Noel spikes in lookups every December. The word, meaning "a Christmas carol" or "Christmas," was borrowed from the French noël, itself from the Latin natalis ("birthday"). We've written more about its annual chart dominance here. Feliz Navidad comes from Spanish, in which it means “Merry Christmas.”

’Comfortable’

Comfortable had a busy end of the week, after President Biden used the word in describing how he thought certain people should feel about making holiday plans.

Biden: Vaccinated, boosted Americans should ‘feel comfortable’ celebrating the holidays as planned
— (headline) The Week, 21 Dec. 2021

Comfortable comes to English from the Anglo-French confortable, meaning “comforting, encouraging.” The word has a wide range of possible meanings; among the most common are “affording or enjoying contentment and security,” “free from vexation and doubt,” and “free from stress or tension.”

’Commander’

In other Biden-related news, commander spiked in lookups after it was announced that this was the name of the new dog bequeathed to the first family.

President Joe Biden on Monday introduced the newest member of his family, a purebred German shepherd puppy named Commander, while the first lady’s office said the cat she promised more than a year ago to bring to the White House will finally join them in January.
— Darlene Superville, Associated Press, 21 Dec. 2021

We define commander as “one in an official position of command or control,” and provide a number of more specific meanings, including but not limited to “a commissioned officer in the navy or coast guard ranking just below a captain and above a lieutenant commander” and “the officer in charge of a fire company in certain fire departments.” The President of the United States is often referred to as the commander in chief of the nation’s armed forces.

’Ambush’

Ambush was on the minds of many people, after a television host exhorted attendees at an event to perform this verb on Dr. Fauci.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Fox News host Jesse Watters should be “fired on the spot” for telling a crowd that they should “ambush” the nation’s leading infectious disease doctor.
— Peter Wade, Rolling Stone, 21 Dec. 2021

When used as a verb, as Watters did, ambush means “to attack by surprise from a hidden place, to waylay,” “to station in ambush,” or “to lie in wait; to lurk.” As a noun ambush may be defined as “a trap in which one or more concealed attackers lie in wait to attack by surprise” or “the act of approaching or confronting someone with something unexpected” (in this latter sense the word is often used before another noun, as in ambush journalism). Ambush may be traced to the Anglo-French embuscher, meaning "to place (in the woods) in order to attack by surprise, conceal, lie in wait to attack by surprise.” 

’Tenderloin’

Tenderloin was featured in numerous articles about San Francisco last week, following plans by that city’s mayor to address criminal behavior in a neighborhood of this name.

District Attorney Chesa Boudin joined other elected officials and activists Monday to criticize Mayor London Breed’s plan to flood San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood with police and crack down on drug dealers as well as people who use drugs in the open.
— Mallory Moench, San Francisco Chronicle, 20 Dec. 2021

The initial meaning of tenderloin is “a strip of tender meat consisting of a large internal muscle of the loin on each side of the vertebral column.” The word has a secondary meaning of “a district of a city largely devoted to vice.” This meaning is thought to have derived from its making possible a luxurious diet for a corrupt police officer. In particular, it is thought to have come from remarks by a New York City police officer, Alexander (Clubber) Williams.

The Tenderloin is in the Twenty-third police precinct, but in the days of its glory it was the Nineteenth, and subsequently the Twenty-ninth. When Capt. Williams was transferred there he remarked that he had been eating rump steak long enough and now proposed to have some tenderloin.
— Fall river Daily Evening News (Fall River, MA), 19 Sept. 1912

New York was the first city to have its vice-infused neighborhood affiliated with this name, beginning in the early 1880s.

What is the matter in the Twenty-ninth precinct, “the tenderloin steak of the city?”
— New York Herald, 4 Sept. 1880

He was the author of the series of articles which appeared some time ago in Truth, showing up the “tenderloin” district in New York. For this he had his left eye gouged out by a rough.
— The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY), 27 Aug. 1881

However, prior to this use, tenderloin had been applied to other neighborhoods of New York City, and to neighborhoods in other cities as well, usually designating areas that were considered desirable or wealthy.

The tenderloin has been amputated out of Boston, but all the best of the steak is here, and nobody knows the difference but the moneyed epicure.
— Chicago Daily Tribune, 13 Nov. 1872

Mr. Scott, of the firm Scott & Myers, real estate agents, said:—“The sales lists are lengthening daily. Fourth and Fifth avenues constitute what may be called the tenderloin of New York real estate.”
— The New York Herald, 9 Jun. 1879

Our Antedating of the Week

Our antedating of the week is grumpy, defined as “moodily cross,” since we have a feeling that this is a word that is of considerable application in the lives of many readers at this time. Our earliest known use had previously come in 1778, but recent findings show that we have been grumpy since at least the 1750s.

To be one day in a good humour, the next grumpy, to be as variable as a Weathercock, to like and dislike the same thing in five minutes, and to be of an hundred and fifty minds in half an hour; these are the artifices, to practice which a great deal of Judgment is requisite, and few Women dare venture to seesaw in this age, for they are frequently by so doing taken in for the Rubbers, but seldom gain the odd trick, Matrimony.
— Prater (London, ENg.), 24 Jul. 1756