Today's Word "Vandal"
Published in Vocabulary
vandal \VAEN-dehl\ (noun) - 1 : A member of a Germanic tribe that invaded Western Europe and North Africa from the Baltic in the 4th and 5th centuries A.D., establishing settlements along the way, and sacked Rome in 455; 2 : a nasty person who destroys property that does not belong to them.
"Michael felt that Enron was an example of what happens to a company ransacked by vandals rather than operated by responsible corporate executives."
Today's word is a commonization of the Latin name of the Vandals, a Germanic people who vandalized much of Europe and northern Africa. We took the word, however, from their Latin name, "Vandalus," after the Romans had borrowed it from some Germanic language, probably some *wandal-. It is related to Old English "Wendlas" and Old Norse "Vendill," both designating the inhabitants of northern Jutland and, probably, to "Wends," a people now living in Poland who call themselves Sorbs. These words probably share a common root with "wend" (whence the current past tense of "go") and "wander." During their destructive meandering through Europe, the Vandals settled for a while in the area of Spain known as "Andalusia," probably from an original "Vandalusia."
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