Today's Word "Copacetic"
Published in Vocabulary
copacetic \ko-peh-SE-tik\ (adjective) - More than satisfactory, fine, running very smoothly, going quite well.
"Things are not so copacetic at the office right now, as the new director is a bit overbearing."
Today's word entered the language around 1919 among black jazz musicians, but its etymology is unknown. This term is rarely used outside North America. It was popularized by the dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson (1878-1949), the African American dancer who was so popular that schools were closed in New York when he died. Later it spread among developers of the U.S. space program. Etymologists have speculated that it originates from an African word in southern U.S. Black English, from the Yiddish phrase kol b'tzedek "all with justice," the Creole French word coupersetique "able to cope with things," and from the Chinook word copasenee, "everything is satisfactory."
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