VOGUE
Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 12:54 am
• vogue •
Pronunciation: vog • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. The current popular fashion, mode, or style. 2. The things that define a current fashion.
Notes: Today's word remains so closely associated with the French language, whence it came to English, that it has not produced a large family of English derived words. Voguey and voguish have been tried as adjectives but do not seem to have stuck. This noun is also used in rap slang as a word for wire rim wheels, as cruising on vogues, probably because they are in vogue.
In Play: Vogue can be a state of mind or a fashion status: "I find myself longing for the old ducktail hair style every time I see one of the styles that are currently in vogue." It can also be the things that define the current vogue: "I miss the days when poodle skirts were the vogue."
Word History: Not only are vogues subject to radical change, the word vogue has undergone mind-boggling changes over its lifetime. The original Proto-Indo-European root of vogue is *wegh- "to go by means of transport". We are not surprised that wagon came from the same root, but weigh apparently goes back to an original sense of "carried on scales". Latin vehere "to carry" yielded a noun vehiculum, which was borrowed by English as vehicle. But the Old Low German verb wogon "to sway, rock" was nicked by Old French as voguer "to sail, row". The noun from this verb, vogue, shifted from "rowing" (rocking the boat) to "fashion" by 1571 when English assimilated it.
Pronunciation: vog • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. The current popular fashion, mode, or style. 2. The things that define a current fashion.
Notes: Today's word remains so closely associated with the French language, whence it came to English, that it has not produced a large family of English derived words. Voguey and voguish have been tried as adjectives but do not seem to have stuck. This noun is also used in rap slang as a word for wire rim wheels, as cruising on vogues, probably because they are in vogue.
In Play: Vogue can be a state of mind or a fashion status: "I find myself longing for the old ducktail hair style every time I see one of the styles that are currently in vogue." It can also be the things that define the current vogue: "I miss the days when poodle skirts were the vogue."
Word History: Not only are vogues subject to radical change, the word vogue has undergone mind-boggling changes over its lifetime. The original Proto-Indo-European root of vogue is *wegh- "to go by means of transport". We are not surprised that wagon came from the same root, but weigh apparently goes back to an original sense of "carried on scales". Latin vehere "to carry" yielded a noun vehiculum, which was borrowed by English as vehicle. But the Old Low German verb wogon "to sway, rock" was nicked by Old French as voguer "to sail, row". The noun from this verb, vogue, shifted from "rowing" (rocking the boat) to "fashion" by 1571 when English assimilated it.