• acme •
Printable Version Pronunciation: æk-mee • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: The highest point, the peak or culmination of development.
Notes: Today's word is a lexical orphan without adjective, adverb, or verb forms. However, today's word was mispronounced acne so many times in the past that this pronunciation became the word for those little points of infection on the faces of adolescents. We might consider this word a step-brother.
In Play: This word has been used as the commercial name of so many companies and products that today it carries with it a sense of the plain and ordinary with it, despite its original meaning. It is now the John Doe of commercial names: "Let's say you want to sell some product, let's say Acme widgets, in this market; where would you begin?" However, it has not lost that original meaning: "When Frederica was at the acme of her career, she made a million dollars a picture."
Word History: Today's Good Word is a simple transliteration of Greek akme "point". The Greek word is based on an ancient Proto-Indo-European root ac- "sharp, pointed", a root also found in Greek akis and Latin acus "needle". The Latin root is visible in words like acupuncture, acuity, and acute, all borrowed from Latin. In Old English the same root showed up as ecg "sharp side" which today is edge. In Old Norse, it was eggja "to incite, goad", a word English borrowed as (to) egg (on). (Today we offer thanks to the sharp mind of Perry Dror, who suggested today's edgy word.)
P.S. - Register for the Daily Good Word E-Mail! - You can get our daily Good Word sent directly to you via e-mail in either HTML or Text format. Go to our Registration Page to sign up today!
