The Words of the Week - October 18

"The way... it... melts."

‘Indigenous’

Indigenous trended sharply in lookups this week, as is now the case in early October every year; this is prompted by Indigenous Peoples’ Day, which falls on the second Monday of October.

Today and over the next few days, communities across the country celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day with prayer vigils, powwows, symposiums, concerts, lectures, rallies and more to acknowledge the sovereignty, cultures, history and languages of Native peoples. The day also marks an opportunity to move forward together armed with an understanding of our history into a kinder, more compassionate and equitable future.
— NativeNewsOnline.net, 14 Oct. 2024

The relevant sense of indigenous is “of, relating to, or descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a place and especially of a place that was colonized.” When used in this manner the word is typically capitalized. Other meanings of indigenous (which are not usually capitalized) include “produced, growing, living, or occurring natively or naturally in a particular region or environment" and “innate, inborn.” The word comes from the Latin noun indigena, meaning “native.”

‘Militia’

Lookups for militia were higher than usual following reports over the weekend of an armed militia in western North Carolina threatening federal emergency response workers.

An official with the U.S. Forest Service, which is supporting recovery efforts along with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), sent an message to numerous federal agencies at around 1 p.m. on Saturday warning that FEMA has advised all federal responders in Rutherford County to “stand down and evacuate the county immediately,” The Washington Post reported. National Guard troops had come across two trucks of “armed militia saying they were out hunting FEMA,” the email said. “The IMTs [incident management teams] have been notified and are coordinating the evacuation of all assigned personnel in that county.”
— Khaleda Rahman, Newsweek, 14 Oct. 2024

Militia has had a large number of meanings over the past few centuries; the earliest sense of the word (in use since the middle of the 17th century) is “a body of citizens organized for military service.” Among the most recent senses of militia, and the one most relevant to the above news story, is “a private group of armed individuals that operates as a paramilitary force and is typically motivated by a political or religious ideology.” In this latter use the word is specifically used in the sense “such a group that aims to defend individual rights against government authority that is perceived as oppressive.”

‘Enemy’

Enemy rose in lookups this week in connection to widely reported remarks made by former president Donald Trump.

With three weeks left before Election Day, former President Donald J. Trump is pushing to the forefront of his campaign a menacing political threat: that he would use the power of the presidency to crush those who disagree with him. In a Fox News interview on Sunday, Mr. Trump framed Democrats as a pernicious “enemy from within” that would cause chaos on Election Day that he speculated the National Guard might need to handle.
— Lisa Lerer and Michael Gold, The New York Times, 16 Oct. 2024

We define several senses of enemy, including “a military adversary,” “something harmful or deadly,” and “one that is antagonistic to another, especially one seeking to injure, overthrow, or confound an opponent.” Enemy traces back (via Middle English and Anglo-French) to the Latin inimīcus, noun derivative of the adjective inimīcus, which was used to describe an unfriendly or hostile opponent.

‘Aurora’

Lookups for aurora have flared this month, as the northern lights have been visible (at least by camera) across much of the northern hemisphere.

In early October, the Oregon Coast and much of the Pacific Northwest were treated once more to the captivating sight of northern lights. A major solar storm, similar to the one that brought the aurora borealis to the region back in May, caused colorful flares to be visible over several nights across many parts of the world, including here in the Columbia-Pacific region. From the top of Coxcomb Hill in Astoria, the aurora was visible—just barely—as eager photographers, stargazers and kids up past their bedtime came and went to catch a glimpse. One, then another, spotted a hazy green glow over the Columbia River, then a streak above a silhouette of trees. Smartphone cameras glowed, and long shutter speeds caught what the eye couldn't, for a while until cloud cover moved in.
— Lissa Brewer, The Coast Weekend (Astoria, Oregon), 17 Oct. 2024

An aurora is a luminous phenomenon that consists of streamers or arches of light appearing in the upper atmosphere of a planet’s magnetic polar regions and is caused by the emission of light from atoms excited by electrons accelerated along the planet’s magnetic field lines. Aurora borealis refers specifically to such a phenomenon as it occurs in the northern hemisphere.

Word Worth Knowing: ‘Eldritch’

Curse, cobweb, witch, ghost, and even Halloween—all of these potentially spooky words have roots in Old English. Eldritch, although less common, is another, hailing from a time when otherworldly beings were commonly thought to inhabit the earth. The word dates back to the 16th century and may have its origin in the Middle English word elfriche, meaning “fairyland.” (The two components of elfriche—“elf” and “riche”—come from the Old English words ælf, “elf,” and rīce, “kingdom.”) Nowadays, eldritch is used to describe things that are eerie, weird, or frightful. You may also recognize the word as the name of the popular video game Eldritch, inspired by the stories of H.P. Lovecraft, who often used the word in his horror fiction. Or perhaps you've encountered it in the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.