Building a Better Vocabulary

Ablution (noun)

The washing of one’s body, or part of it, especially as a religious ritual.

z The second word part of ablution comes from the Latin verb luo,

meaning “wash.” English words that contain the lu root often have

something to do with washing, such as deluge, a torrential downpour.

Antediluvian (adjective)

1. 2IRUUHODWLQJWRWKHSHULRGEHIRUHWKHELEOLFDOÀRRG


2. Very old-fashioned, out of date, antiquated, or primitive.

z Antediluvian was originally coined by Sir Thomas Browne in the

1600s by combining the Latin preposition ante, meaning “before,”

with the Latin noun diluvium PHDQLQJ³GHOXJHRU ÀRRG ́7KXV

originally, antediluvian was an adjective meaning of or relating to

WKHSHULRGEHIRUHWKHELEOLFDOÀRRG

z However, by the 1700s, antediluvian took on a second sense: very

old-fashioned, out of date, antiquated, or primitive. You’ll probably

see this second sense of antediluvian more often, as in: “Because of

the company’s antediluvian views on social media and the Internet,

it lost the opportunity to market its products to 18- to 35-year-olds.”

Absquatulate (verb)

7RÀHHDEVFRQG

z According to vocabulary.com, absquatulate was an Americanism

coined in the 1830s during a fad for creating Latin-sounding words

that were playful and snappy. It might be used in a context sentence

such as this: “When we returned to our campsite, we realized that

the other hiker had absquatulated with most of our gear.”