• conclave •
Printable Version Pronunciation: kahn-klayv • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. A secret meeting. 2. A meeting of a family. 3. The rooms in which the cardinals meet to elect a new pope or the meeting to elect a new pope itself.
Notes: The adjective for this word is conclavical as in a conclavical meeting of the family elders. The agentive noun, conclavist, is generally reserved for the cardinals who participate in a papal conclave; however, there is no grammatical reason to confine its application to that select group.
In Play: Of course, this Good Word did not come to us out of the blue but out of the current news, which has been covering the Roman Catholic conclave that yesterday elected Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany the 265th pope, Pope Benedict XVI. That conclave is a far cry from the conclaves of the Mafia families that Mario Puzo describes in his novel, The Godfather, though these two applications of the word amply demonstrate its flexibility and breadth.
Word History: This Good Word came to us from Latin conclave "lockable room", comprising com- "with" + clavis "key". The Proto-Indo-European root for key was *(s)kleu-, with a variable [s] that did not appear in Latin clavis or Greek kleis "hook, bold, bar". It also does not appear in Slavic languages, like Russian, with its kljuc' "key". However, it is visible in the Germanic languages, where we find Modern German Schloss "fortress, castle" and Schlüssel "key". (Be sure to read the good news at the bottom of this Good Word.)
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