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Today's Word "Talisman"

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talisman \TAE-liz-mehn\ (noun) - An object with magic apotropaic powers, a charm to ward off evil and attract good fortune.

"Daniel always kept a talisman of fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror of his car to attract good luck on his way to the casino."

 

Today's word is a world-class world traveler. It began as an Indo-European word, late Greek telesma "consecration ceremony," later, a statue that protected a temple, derived from the verb telein "to consecrate, fulfill." From Greek it went to a Semitic language, Arabic, as tilsam "talisman" and tilsimani "one dealing in talismans." From Arabic it was borrowed back into the Romance languages as French "talisman," Spanish "talisman," and Italian "talismano." It came to English from one of these.


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