Today's Word "Osculate"
Published in Vocabulary
osculate \AH-skyeh-leyt\ (verb) - To come together, to contact (as two osculating circles); to kiss.
"After the perfunctory game of 'spin the bottle,' all the couples retired to darkened corners of their dorm rooms to various and sundry osculating activities."
In case you hadn't guessed, today's word comes from Latin, specifically the verb osculari "to kiss," based on osculum "kiss" (as osculum pacis "the kiss of peace"). "Osculum is the diminutive of os "mouth." We discussed this root recently in connection with the word "orotund," noting that in Latin it changed to or- in most words, so that it is the same root underlying "oral," "orifice," and "orator." Osculate comes from a large, happy family with several adjectives, such as osculable "kissable" (such osculable lips), osculant "kissing" (an osculant cousin?), and "osculatory" (an osculatory couple in the shadows). There are two nouns, the expectable osculation "a kiss" and an eccentric osculary "something to be kissed," which might refer to an icon, a rosary, or anything else you find kissable.
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