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INVECTIVE

Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2012 10:51 pm
by Dr. Goodword

• invective •

Pronunciation: in-vek-tiv • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: An abusive or profane denunciation, castigation, a railing condemnation.

Notes: This Good Word is quite versatile: it may be used as a mass noun (to heap on invective) or a count noun (a speech filled with invectives). It is also an adjective: invective language. This word is the noun from the verb inveigh, as to inveigh against the injustices of the world.

In Play: Save today's good word for outrageous railing: "Rather than suggest measures to reduce tensions in the office, Donny Brooks unleashed a torrent of invective about plots and conspiracies to undermine his authority." This is how today's word is used as a mass noun; it may also be used as a countable one: "Dad treated us all with a sermon, bristling with invectives against rap music."

Word History: Latin invehi "to attack with words, inveigh against", the passive form of invehere "to carry in", is based on in "in" + vehere "to carry", whose root is visible in the Latin borrowing vehicle. The root of the Latin verb came from an earlier Proto-Indo-European root wegh- "to carry (in a vehicle)". The same root ended up little changed in English weigh, referring to the movement of something in a balance scale. The semantic connection is clearer in wagon, a means of carrying, way, and Latin via "way, road", where wagons travel. Vex came to us from the same root in Latin vexare [vek-s-are] "to agitate", and originally meant to set someone in motion. The English derivatives wag and wiggle reflect the same semantic connection.

Re: INVECTIVE

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2012 5:36 am
by abbeylubber
Inveigh- wagon - hay-wagon - hay-wain?

Re: INVECTIVE

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2012 8:12 am
by MTC
Haywagon,
Playwagon,
Cabriolet wagon,
But never inveigh wagon.

Re: INVECTIVE

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2012 12:30 pm
by LukeJavan8
Political advertisements, very very good word for them in
this state.

Re: INVECTIVE

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2012 1:50 pm
by Slava
Inveigh- wagon - hay-wagon - hay-wain?
Welcome to the Agora, abbeylubber. Are you by any chance a lazy monk?

Re: INVECTIVE

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2012 2:23 pm
by Perry Lassiter
Yes indeed, welcome. We won't always treat you like Slava, who's been on heree for years and never told us whose slave he is. Let us hear more from you.

Re: INVECTIVE

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2012 3:07 pm
by Slava
Yes indeed, welcome. We won't always treat you like Slava, who's been on heree for years and never told us whose slave he is. Let us hear more from you.
He's no one's slave.

Re: INVECTIVE

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2012 9:40 pm
by LukeJavan8
His avatar was a Russian postage stamp when I joined.
And the "slava" may be a reference to "Slav", eastern
European, but I am only guessing.

Re: INVECTIVE

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2012 10:12 pm
by Slava
ImageHere it is, though it's not really "Russian". It is in Russian, but was issued by the Denikin anti-Bolshevik forces during the Civil War.

Slava is an informal shortening of any first name ending in -slav.

Rostropovich and Richter were most likely called Slava in childhood and by their friends and family.

Mine comes from Vyacheslav.

Re: INVECTIVE

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2012 9:14 am
by Philip Hudson
abbeylubber: Welcome to the post. Perry, who has also been on this forum for years, did not really need to apologize for Slava's remarks. We all, Perry included, try to get a little fun out of what we discuss. Wain is a lovely bucolic word. Are you familiar with the painting by John Constable of the hay wain? Constable is my favorite painter and his hay-wain is lovely.

I'm glad to get Slava's take on his posting name. Etymological kinship of words does not impress one definition of a word onto another. Slav may have meant the same as slave in the past, but it no longer does. My name may have meant lover of horses when it was first coined in Greek, but horses are not high on my list of things to love.

Re: INVECTIVE

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2012 11:55 am
by Perry Lassiter
Etymologically, I am either a white pear or a white pear tree (Albin Perry), or possibly full of white pears!

Re: INVECTIVE

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2012 1:27 pm
by LukeJavan8
Thanks slava.
Unfortunately mine is a shortened form of a long
Polish word now lost in the pages of history.