This week’s theme
Words about words

This week’s words
kenning
mot juste
holophrasm
pochismo
antonomasia

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(KEN-ing)

MEANING:

noun: A figurative, usually compound, expression used to describe something. For example, whale road for an ocean and oar steed for a ship.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Old Norse kenna (to know). Ultimately from the Indo-European root gno- (to know), which is also the source of know, recognize, acquaint, ignore, diagnosis, notice, normal, prosopagnosia, gnomon, anagnorisis, and agnosia. Earliest documented use: 1320. Kennings were used especially in Old Norse and Old English poetry.

USAGE:

“The hero, Beewolf (a kenning for bear, named the ‘bee wolf’ for its plundering of hives), heads to the Golden Hall.”
John Garth; Monster Munch; New Statesman (London, UK); May 30, 2014.

“In the dawn of the English language the earliest poets or scops invented words like ‘battleflash’ to describe a sword, or they would identify a boat by its function with a kenning like ‘wave-skimmer’.”
Samuel Hazo; What’s in a Name?; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Feb 17, 2008.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: