More Valentine Vocabulary Trivia Quiz

Answer: cynosure

Cynosure comes from the Greek 'kynosoura' and literally means "dog's tail". Though it seems like it should have something to do with Sirius (the Dog Star), in the constellation Canis Major, it doesn't! Rather, it's an obsolete name for the constellation now called Ursa Minor (or the Little Dipper or the Little Bear). The tail of the Little Bear contains the North Star (Polaris), which is the focus of navigation. So by extension, a cynosure is anything or anyone that attracts one's attention for a considerable amount of time.

The word entered the English language by way of French in the late 16th century.

Answer: smitten

While "smitten" is still in fairly frequent use, it comes from an archaic word that still might appear in literary contexts: to "smite" is to strike with a heavy blow. It comes from Anglo-Saxon, with the same Proto-Germanic root as the German "schmeissen" (to cast or fling), the Danish "smide" (to smear or fling), and so on.

When "smitten" first appeared in English, it meant "visited with disaster" or "struck hard", but by the 1660s the sense of "struck by love" was certainly in use.

Answer: swain

A swain in the 12th century was an attendant for a knight, literally a "boy" from the Old Norse word 'sveinn'. If that looks like "swine" to you, then you are perceptive as it has the same root as one who herds swine or other livestock. So it was also used to mean a (young) pastoral or agricultural laborer in general, the sort of servant boy who would be able to attend a knight, and it wasn't long before it used in pastoral poetry to mean a young male lover or admirer or beau.

The word "swain" also shows up in coxswain (usually pronounced KOK-sun), meaning the person who steers a lifeboat or racing shell and directs the rest of the crew. Then there's the boatswain (pronounce BOH-sun) which is the person in charge of a ship's rigging, anchors, and other such equipment. (On a naval ship that would be a warrant officer, and on a mercantile ship that would be a petty officer.)

Answer: bawcock

First attested in the late 16th century, bawcock comes to us straight from the French 'beau coq', meaning "handsome or bold rooster". (Some sources say the first half comes from the Old French 'baud' meaning "bold, gay").

There is a legendary figure from Cornwall, England called Tom Bawcock, who allegedly in the 16th century saved the village of Mousehole from starvation by catching a miraculously large amount of fish a couple of days before Christmas. (Mousehole is not far from Penzance.)

Answer: inamorata

Dropping one letter 'n', the English language borrowed this one straight from the Italian word 'innamorata', the feminine of 'innamorato', the "enamored one" or the one with whom one is in love. (One much more rarely would see the masculine form in English.) It first appeared in English in the mid-16th century. Of course we can trace the word back to its Latin root, 'amāre' (to love) or 'amor' (love).

Answer: recondite

If something is recondite (pronounced REK-un-dyte), then
someone of ordinary knowledge cannot fathom it. (Perhaps this could describe one's love for another?) Another sense of the word is "hidden" or "concealed".

Remove the prefix "re-" and you are left with a very obscure root. "To condite" means either "to pickle or preserve" or "to embalm".

Answer: concupiscence

A concupiscible person is someone worthy of such ardent, lustful feelings, and a concupiscent person has such feelings toward another. The words come from Latin 'concupere' meaning "to be very desirous of [someone]".

You might recognize the root is Cupid, the son of Venus and god of love in the ancient Roman religion. (His name was Eros to the Greeks, whence we derive the word erotic). A related word is cupidity, meaning excessive desire, especially to possess something, or even covetousness. A person with such avarice would be cupidinous, though, not cupiditous.

Generally, we use "concupiscence" for people and "cupidity" for things.

Answer: redemancy

Redemancy is the act of loving someone in return, requiting love. This word is very uncommon, but it seems to be undergoing a revival in the 21st century since there really isn't any other English equivalent with quite the specificity. ("Requite" could be the reciprocation of any feeling.) The earliest lexicon in which it appears is a 1676 dictionary by Elisha Coles, a Latin teacher and a stenographer.

It's from the New Latin 'redemantia' from Old Latin 'redamo' ("I requite love").

Answer: venery

"Venery" came to us from the Latin word 'veneria' (sexual intercourse), from an older Indo-European root referring to desiring or striving for something in general.

In English there was another sense of "venery" which referred both to the sport of hunting and also to that which was hunted. Spanish still uses 'el venado' (from Latin for "the hunted") to mean deer, a favorite beast of the chase, but this sense has really fallen by the wayside in English, with the exception of "venison" (deer meat).

The adjective "venereal" in English usually only appears in euphemistic phrases like "venereal disease" (once the medical term for sexually transmitted disease). "Venereous" is even more rare and used facetiously to describe something that inspires lust.

You might recognize the related word "veneration", which means the act or expression of revering or honoring someone (or it can mean a feeling of reverence).

Answer: ocillade

This curious-looking and nearly completely vanished word entered English in the 15th century from the French 'oeillide', from 'oeil' meaning "eye", which in turn came from the Latin 'oculus'.

A related word would be "ogle". This used to mean "to eye" or "to look at" in English (or it could be used as a synonym for the eye itself). But it was also a used a cant word (a word to disguise the meaning to outsiders) for gazing amorously at someone (as in an ocillade), and it eventually took on the specific meaning. So much for secrets!