The Words of the Week - Dec. 8

‘Income’

Income rose in lookups this week as the US Supreme Court heard a lawsuit on Tuesday over $14,729 in taxes levied by the government on an investment made by a Washington state couple.

The legal question in the case involves how to define income for tax purposes. But the Supreme Court’s decision could have sweeping implications for how much the government can dip into the earnings of wealthy Americans who can shield those holdings from taxes.
— John Fritze, USA Today, 5 Dec. 2023

We define income as a gain or recurrent benefit usually measured in money that derives from capital or labor, as well as the amount of such gain received in a period of time, as in “they have an income of $70,000 a year.”

‘Cameo’

Cameo saw a bump in lookups after former New York representative George Santos created an account on the website Cameo.

George Santos already has a new gig. The former congressman, fresh off his historic expulsion last week, has created a Cameo account where the public can pay for a personalized video message.
— Anthony Izaguirre, The Associated Press, 5 Dec. 2023

The oldest sense of cameo in English, coming from the Middle English camew and further back from Middle French, is “a gem carved in relief.” The senses of cameo most relevant to the video-sharing website as defined in our dictionary are “a small theatrical role usually performed by a well-known actor and often limited to a single scene” and, more broadly, “a brief appearance or role.”

‘Atmospheric river’

Atmospheric river saw more lookups than usual this week after heavy rain and flooding affected the Pacific Northwest.

A level 4 out of 5 atmospheric river event is forecast to hit roughly the entire coastline of Oregon this week. Not all atmospheric river events are bad. In fact, AR event levels 1 and 2 are considered mostly beneficial rains and are much needed across the western US to build water supply levels. But AR event levels 4 and 5 are more hazardous than they are beneficial as the risk for flooding and travel dangers outweigh the benefits.
— Elizabeth Wolfe and Robert Shackelford, CNN, 5 Dec. 2023

We define atmospheric river as “a concentrated band of water vapor that flows through the atmosphere and that is a significant part of the global hydrologic cycle and an important source of regional precipitation.” The first-known use of atmospheric river in print occurred in 1993.

‘Peach fuzz’

Lookups for peach fuzz climbed this week, likely in connection to reporting about “Peach Fuzz” being chosen by the Pantone Color Institute as its “Color of the Year” for 2024.

Depending on your preference, Peach Fuzz is either a nice shade of mellow orange or a, well, peachy, almost-neutral pink. I’m choosing to think of it as the former; it doesn’t feel like a true pink to me—there’s a distinct yellow undertone that sets it apart from the exhausted Millennial Pink trend of 2016—but it certainly has that old-school femme appeal.
— Katy Kelleher, Refinery29.com, 7 Dec. 2023

We define a few senses of peach, including “the edible fruit of a low spreading freely branching Chinese tree (Prunus persica) of the rose family,” “one resembling a peach (as in sweetness, beauty, or excellence),” and “a moderate yellowish pink.” We define a figurative sense of peach fuzz as “fine, light hair and especially such hair growing on the face.”

Word Worth Knowing: ‘Umbratile’

Umbratile is defined in our Unabridged Dictionary as an adjective meaning “carried on in seclusion” or “hidden away or otherwise concealed so as not to be seen.” It is rarely used today, but may be found in older texts, such as the essay “Rural Funerals” by Washington Irving, published in the 1819 collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent (which also contained the better-known stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle”). In it, Irving details different decorations and adornments of gravestones: “The rose was sometimes blended with the lily, to form a general emblem of frail mortality. ‘This sweet flower,’ said Evelyn, ‘borne on a branch set with thorns and accompanied with the lily, are natural hieroglyphics of our fugitive, umbratile, anxious, and transitory life, which, making so fair a show for a time, is not yet without its thorns and crosses.’”