A.Word.A.Day --craic

A.Word.A.Day

About | Media | Search | Contact

Home

Today's Word

Archives

Apr 17, 2023

This week’s theme
Reborrowed words

This week’s words
craic
anime
turquoise
quarry
cosplay

The Craic, 1999

Poster: Roadshow Entertainment

Previous week’s theme
Words about words

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

The world is interconnected. We depend on each other. Give and take, lend and borrow, adopt and adapt. Share. The same goes for language. No language is an island. Whenever two languages meet, they borrow from each other.

This borrowing happens all the time. See some examples here, here, and here. In the process of borrowing, a word usually undergoes a change in its spelling, meaning, or pronunciation. Sometimes all three. As flight attendants say, articles may have shifted around during the flight. You thought they were talking about your luggage. Language or luggage, shift happens.

Now here comes the fun part. Sometimes this “new” word gets borrowed back into its source language with its new sense.

This week we’ll look at words that have bounced back and forth between two languages.

craic

PRONUNCIATION:

(krak, pronounced as the word crack)

MEANING:

noun: Good times involving pleasant company, enjoyable conversation, etc.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Irish craic. It was a borrowing from English crack, respelled as craic, and then reborrowed into English. Earliest documented use: 1972.

USAGE:

“‘Unbelievable golf course, brilliant craic, and stoked to record my best major finish with a T16,’ Ryan Fox said on his Instagram account.”
Fox Signs off with a Flourish; Dominion Post (Wellington, New Zealand); Jul 23, 2019.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Many who have spent a lifetime in it can tell us less of love than the child that lost a dog yesterday. -Thornton Wilder, writer (17 Apr 1897-1975)

We need your help

Help us continue to spread the magic of words to readers everywhere

Donate

Subscriber Services
Awards | Stats | Links | Privacy Policy
Contribute | Advertise