A.Word.A.Day --resurrect

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Dec 9, 2024

This week’s theme
Back-formations

This week’s words
resurrect
penetralium
brindle

FOR SALE: Single owner tomb. Only used three days, and still has that new tomb smell. Reason for sale... resident was resurrected.

Cartoon: Jeff Larson

Previous week’s theme
Illustrated words

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

Which came first: make or maker? The answer may seem obvious. The verb make came first (earliest documented use 1150), and we later turned it into the noun maker (1297) by adding a suffix.

But that’s not always the case. Sometimes, we remove a real or supposed affix from a word to create a new word. This process is known as back-formation. For example, dressmaker (1793) gave rise to dressmake (1836).

In a self-referential twist, the verb back-form is itself a back-formation from back-formation.

While back-formations from noun to verb are more common, there are other possibilities. For example, the already singular word pease gave rise to a new singular pea.

Have you come up with your own back-formations? We’d love to hear them. For example, could regist be the place where things are registered? (Who needs a registry?)

Share your creations on our website or email us at words@wordsmith.org. Don’t forget to include your location (city, state).

resurrect

PRONUNCIATION:

(rez-uh-REKT)

MEANING:

verb tr.:	1. To raise from the dead.
	2. To restore to use, practice, view, etc.
verb intr.:	To rise from the dead.

ETYMOLOGY:

Back-formation from resurrection, from Anglo-French resurrectiun, from Latin resurgere (to rise again), from re- (again) + surgere (to rise). Earliest documented use: 1772.

USAGE:

“Sweden ended [mandatory military service] in 2011, only to resurrect it in 2018.”
Your Country Needs (More of) You; The Economist (London, UK); Apr 20, 2024.

See more usage examples of resurrect in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. -John Milton, poet (9 Dec 1608-1674)

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