Words, Meanings, Language & Quotes

cacimbo [ noun] [kuh-sim-boh]  A heavy mist or drizzle that occurs in the Congo Basin, often accompanied by onshore winds. ORIGIN Cacimbo “a heavy mist that occurs in the Congo Basin” is a borrowing from Portuguese, which in turn likely adapted the term from the word for “well (for water)” in Kimbundu, a Bantu language of northern Angola. Because the former Portuguese Empire maintained a presence in several parts of western and southern Africa, numerous terms originating in African languages (particularly the Niger-Congo family) passed into Portuguese, which is still an official language in six African countries. With Portuguese as an intermediary, English has inherited batuque , samba , and the recent Word of the Day capoeira , all probably from West African languages. Cacimbo was first recorded in English in the early 1860s. EXAMPLE The wind can really get strong here, very powerful, you know. It’s so sweet in the cacimbo, when you’re inside with something warm to drink and you ...

ratoon [ra-toon] NOUN  A sprout or shoot from the root of a plant, especially a sugarcane, after it has been cropped. ORIGIN Ratoon “a sprout from the root of a plant” is likely anglicized from Spanish retoño “sprout,” which is based on the verb retoñar “to sprout again in the fall,” from re- “again” and otoño “fall, autumn.” Spanish otoño and English autumn together come from Latin autumnus, which is of uncertain origin, even stumping expert linguists! Among the few proposals are connections to the Etruscan language, to Latin augēre (stem auct-) “to increase,” or distantly to English sere “dry, withered” (compare archaic English sere month “August”). Old English ​​hærfest “autumn” is the source of modern English harvest. Ratoon was first recorded in English circa 1630. EXAMPLES  Sugarcane is one of the few crops that has seen an increase in planting area. But across Maharashtra, large fields of sugarcane ratoons—the new cane that grows from the stubble left behind from the pr...