r/logophilia

A noun, from the French. ("o-rahnzh-ree" or "aw-rinzh-uh-ree" or "or-inj-uh-ree")

A dedicated winter home for tubbed or potted non-hardy citrus. Orangeries are typically built in the Northern Hemisphere.

Also seen as "orangery," which has a somewhat different flavor in text, but the same meaning-- a building for citrus trees.

Oranges are botanically referred to as a hesperidian berry, and the fruit, orange itself is a "hesperidium." . . . From this arises a new question-- would an ancient Roman orangerie perhaps be a hesperidiumarium?

inchoate (adj.), /ɪnˈkoʊ.ət/ — just begun; only partly in existence; not yet fully formed.

Etymonline dates that sense to the 1530s. The Latin is inchoatus, from inchoare, itself an alteration of an older incohare. Here is the part I like, with the caveat that the trail is not solid: the traditional derivation takes incohare back to cohum, the strap that fastened a plough-beam to an ox yoke. De Vaan's reading is that "to yoke a plough to a team of oxen" slid naturally into "to start work." Etymonline allows a core of truth in that ancient connection while noting that cohum itself is of obscure origin, so this is the probable story rather than a settled one.

I like it anyway, because it puts something physical under a very abstract word. An inchoate plan is not a vague cloud of intention. It is a plough with the animals just being tied on.

Two practical notes. The ch is a hard k, so it is in-KOH-ut, and the -ch- spelling is the later form; the classical shape was incohare.

And it does not mean chaotic, which is the usual misfire. Inchoate says early, not disordered. The cleanest place to see that is law, where an inchoate offence is a real technical category: an attempt, a conspiracy, a crime begun and not completed. Nothing messy about it. Just unfinished.

adj-

-having the power, intent, or capacity to save, rescue, or redeem someone or something from harm, loss, or ruin.

(noun)

The essential nature or distinctive quality of something; what makes a thing what it is.

Quiddity comes from the Medieval Latin quidditas, from quid meaning “what.” Philosophers used it to describe the fundamental “whatness” of a thing.

💬 Challenge: Can you use quiddity in a sentence, or name something whose essential quality is difficult to put into words? 🧠📚

"Relating to a word or an expression whose meaning depends on who says it, where they are, who they are talking to."

"with all possible speed"

1: a parenthetical flourish in an aria or other solo piece commonly just before a final or other important cadence

2: a technically brilliant sometimes improvised solo passage toward the close of a concerto

3: an exceptionally brilliant part of an artistic and especially a literary work