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Today's Word "Recreant"

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Published in Vocabulary

recreant \RE-kri-yehnt\ (adjective) - 1 : Disloyal, unfaithful, apostate; 2 : cowardly, faint-hearted, craven.

"Jeannie, you knew I was going to buy that dress tomorrow; how could you be so recreant as to buy it today?"

 

From Old French "recreant," present participle of recroire "to give up in battle or go over to the enemy" from Medieval Latin recreere "to yield, pledge" based on Latin re- "re-, again" + credere "to believe." "Miscreant" comes from French mescroire "disbelieve," based on the same Latin root. This root comes from Proto-Indo-European k'erd- "heart," found today in English "heart," German "Herz," Greek "kardia," and French "coeur" from Latin cor, cordis "heart." The special fronted [k'] in this root became an [s] in the Eastern PIE languages, so the same stem turns up in Armenian "sirt" and Russian serdce "heart." The root "cred-ere" ostensibly underwent metathesis, the switching of places by two letters, so that original cerd- > cred-.


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