Today's Word "Videlicet"
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Published in Vocabulary
videlicet \vye-DEH-luh-set or vih-DAY-lih-ket\ (adverb) - That is to say; namely.
"Janice wanted to improve her vocabulary so she subscribed to one of the Internet's language-learning sources, videlicet, Arcamax's Vocabulary ezine."
The abbreviation of "videlicet" is "viz," so the question is how the "z" got there, as the word's Latin roots, "videre" ("to see") and "licet" ("it is permitted") don't have it either. It seems that originally it was a symbol that looked like a "z" and that was used in medieval manuscripts to indicate the contraction of Latin words ending in "-et." When the symbol was carried into English, it was converted into the more familiar "z."
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