This week’s theme
Words originating in horses

This week’s words
hippodrome
horse race
chivalry
warhorse
wrangler

---

A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(SHIV-uhl-ree)

MEANING:

noun:
1. The ideal qualifications of a knight: courtesy, honor, bravery, gallantry, etc.
2. The institution of knighthood, a group of knights, a gallant deed, etc.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Old French chevalerie, from chevalier (knight), from Latin caballus (horse). Earliest documented use: 1297.

NOTES:

Chivalry sounds nice, but it hides a dark side. While pretending to treat women with courtesy, we also treat them as if they are less capable, in leadership, in intelligence, and so on. It took as late as 1919 for women to get the right to vote in the US, for example. As late as 2016, some people voted for an incompetent over a highly accomplished woman, because, in their view, a “man can do a better job than a woman”.

USAGE:

“If Ambler details the death of chivalry, she also exposes the dark underbelly of that very culture -- a culture that feared outsiders and prized violence, while purporting to embody the values of ‘honour’ and bravery.”
Reformer or Violent Thug?: A New Biography of Simon de Montfort Is Enthralling and Horrifying in Equal Parts; Sunday Times (London, UK); Jun 2, 2019.

See more usage examples of chivalry in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: