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Exuviate

Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 11:57 pm
by Dr. Goodword

• exuviate •

Pronunciation: eg-zuv-ee-ayt • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Verb, transitive

Meaning: To shed an outer skin or other covering, as do certain insects, crustaceans, and reptiles when they molt (slough off their shells or skins as they grow).

Notes: Today's Good Word has been hiding in the bushes of science until today. It is related to exuvia (plural exuviae), the name of molted skin. The abstract noun is exuviation. We have two adjectives, exuviable "capable of being sloughed off" and exuvious "related to exuviae".

In Play: The most common usage of this word—if common is at all at home here—relates it to sloughing off an exoskeleton to accommodate growth: "This softshell crab has not exuviated its shell if, in fact, exuviation ever started." However, we can use it figuratively in a much broader set of contexts: "The fictitious Senator Frank Underwood in the Netflix series "House of Cards" is expert at exuviating embarrassing situations." (I suppose this is true of all agile politicians.)

Word History: Today's Good Word comes from Latin exuere "to take off", from Proto-Indo-European eu- "to dress". We don't find many words with this root in the Indo-European family of languages, because the root apparently comprised only two vowels. But we do find much evidence of its extension, wes- "to dress, wear". First and foremost among them is Latin vestis "garment" (from vestire "to dress"), ancestor of French veste, which English couldn't resist borrowing in the sense of a very small garment. In fact English wear traces its ancestry back to wes-. The shift of S to R is known as 'rhotacism', and it is fairly common in PIE languages. We find the original S in Sanskrit vaste "he dons, puts on" and Greek esthes "clothing".

Re: Exuviate

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 12:36 am
by Slava
Hmm, birds can molt, but do they exuviate? Dogs, too. They shed, but that's not exuviation or molting. Is there any connection?

As to the root, vest is there, but what about the fancier term, vestments? Is this strictly a religious usage, or can it find applicatin elsewhere?

Re: Exuviate

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 1:30 pm
by LukeJavan8
Vestry.
Vestibule.

Re: Exuviate

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 2:12 pm
by Perry Lassiter
Hmnnn...vestry Can be a place for dining clerical garb, and a vestibule can be a place for hanging up outer garb.

Re: Exuviate

Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 3:20 am
by Philip Hudson
Perry: "...dining clerical garb"?? Try donning and doffing too.

Re: Exuviate

Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 10:27 pm
by Perry Lassiter
No. I am retired.