Today's Word "Treacle"
Published in Vocabulary
treacle \TREE-kehl\ (noun) - 1 : Syrup, especially from the first pressing of sugar cane but also the molasses left over after the sugar crystals are removed; 2 : sugar-coating, cloying sentiment, sweetness of speech, especially insincere compliments.
"When Geoffrey's Aunt Mildred schmoozes someone, the treacle fairly drips from her words."
Today's word is another that took a wild ride to get here. We borrowed it, via Old French triacle "antidote" from Latin "theriaca," a word borrowed from Greek "theriake," an antidote against poisonous animal bites, based on Greek ther "wild animal." As it entered English at the beginning of the 14th century, it already referred to a cure-all, a panacea. By the end of the 17th century, either because (theory 1) the cure-all had a honey base or (theory 2) it looked like honey or syrup, the meaning slid to sugar syrup thence to molasses. The original root, however, was *ghwer "wild animal," which emerged in Russian and other Slavic languages as zver' "wild animal, beast." In Latin it appeared in the words underlying feral "wild, raised in the wild," "ferocious," and "fierce."
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