RIFE

[Dr. Goodword]

• rife •

Pronunciation: raif • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: 1. Highly prevalent, occurring widely and profusely, filled with, packed with. 2. Occurring in great numbers over a wide area; superabundant, plentiful, abounding in.

Notes: As we will see in the Word History, today's Good Word is a genuine English word, not a borrowing, which means it is subject to the original English comparative forms, rifer and rifest. The adverb is rifely and the noun, rifeness, though they are rarely used.

In Play: Today's Good Word is particularly appropriate as we approach Thanksgiving in the US (November 22), when we stop to give thanks for the bounty of our lives and particularly the rifeness of the land: "The country markets are rife with freshly picked flowers and vegetables this time of the year." But then rifeness can be a blessing or a curse: "My e-mail is so rife with spam I can barely get to the messages I want to read."

Word History: This word, as mentioned above, seems to be an English original. The Germanic languages are rife with relatives: Dutch rijf "abundant," Icelandic rifr "abundant" and Norwegian riv. Icelandic reifir "giver" may also be related. It does not seem to be related to ripe (German reif) and reap, even though the semantics of all these words touch: ripened fruit is usually reaped at the height of its abundance. Clear evidence, however, is lacking. (I hope our thoughts today are rife with words of gratitude to Chris Stewart for suggesting a word inclined toward US Thanksgiving from his home in South Africa.)

[Perry]

Today's word is rife with potential uses.