z English has a large number of synonyms and related words for maw
or mouth, including craw, gullet, jaws, muzzle, piehole, gob, yap,
trap, chops, and NLVVHU.Two Latin Roots: rupt and junct
z The Latin root rupt means “break” and gives us a number of derived
words, including rupture, EDQNUXSW, disrupt, interrupt, and erupt.
One rupt word you might not be familiar with is irruption. The
initial ir-LQWKLVZRUGLVDQDEVRUEHGSUH¿[DYDULDQWVSHOOLQJRIWKH
SUH¿[in-, meaning “into.” Thus, an irruption is a sudden, violent
breaking or bursting in. This word is used to describe a sudden
increase in the plant or animal population of a region.
z In direct contrast to rupt, meaning “break,” is the Latin root junct,
meaning “join.” This root appears in such words as juncture (the
time, place, or point at which two things are joined) and conjunction
(a word that joins other words together).Cleave (verb)
- To split or divide by cutting.
- To stick closely to; to cling to.
z The word cleave has two meanings that are the exact opposite of
each other: to split apart and to stick closely to. Such words that are
their own antonyms are called contronyms, or Janus words, named
after the Roman god Janus, who is the two-faced god of gates,
doorways, and beginning and endings.
ż %XFNOH is another Janus word, meaning either “to fasten
together,” as in “I buckled my belt,” or to “bend and break,” as
in “My knees buckled.”ż In the same way, bolt can mean either “to secure and lock,” as
in “Bolt the door,” or “to run; to make a sudden, swift dash,”
as in “The rabbit bolted toward the undergrowth when it saw
the dog.”