• baseborn •
Pronunciation: bays-born • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: 1. Born to poor parents, of lower-class birth. 2. Born to unmarried parents, illegitimate. 3. Mean, ignoble, contemptible.
Notes: Like most compounds, today's word is a lexical loner (not loaner). It comes with three meanings: one acceptable, one demeaning (No. 3 above), and one between the two (No. 2 above).
In Play: The first two senses of today's word fit Tom Jones: "Tom Jones in the Henry Fielding novel, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling was a baseborn foundling adopted by Mr. Alworthy, the local magistrate." The third sense of this word may be heard in expressions like this: "That baseborn villain Robin Banks invested his ill-gotten gains in a pizzeria, which he ran successfully the rest of his life."
Word History: Today's Good Word is obviously a compound adjective comprising two constituents: base "foundation, bottom support" + born "having been given birth to". Base was borrowed from French bas "bottom", inherited from Latin basis "foundation" (which English also fetched for itself) and which Latin lifted from Greek basis "a (stair) step, pedestal". Greek acquired its word from PIE gwa- "to go, come", found in Sanskrit gayam "footstep", Armenian kam "I stand", Danish gå "to go", Dutch gaan "to go, walk", German gehen "to go, walk", and English go. Born, of course, is the past participle of bear, which originated in PIE bher-/bhor- "to bear, carry", source also of burden and birth, Latin ferre "to bear, carry", and Russian brat' "to get, take", bremya "burden", and beremennaya "pregnant". (Now for a nod of gratitude to our long-time contributor and editor of this series, Luciano Eduardo de Oliveira, tor yet another informative Good Word.)
