• visceral •
Printable Version Pronunciation: vis-ê-rêl • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: 1. Of or related to the viscera, the innards, the guts. 2. Profound, instinctive rather than intellectual or spiritual, so powerful that it seems to twist your insides.
Notes: Today's adjective is derived from the rarely used word for one internal organ, viscus [vis-kęs], whose plural is viscera, all the internal organs. While the singular is seldom heard, it is still around for those awkward moments when something goes wrong inside you but you don't know exactly what: "I seem to have a bad viscus somewhere but I can't determine which one it is."
In Play: We recently offered a word that meant animal innards that would replace guts (offal). But what about our own? Guts is even more inappropriate for beautiful animals like us; we need a word to help us out here, closer to home. Your gut feelings now become visceral feelings, with a cleaner, smoother even wetter sound: "In the movie, Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg aimed at a visceral rather than an intellectual response from the audience."
Word History: Today's Good Word is derived from the Latin word viscera "internal organs". The same root is found in eviscerate "to disembowel" and a few other similarly disturbing words. It does not seem to be related to Latin vivere "to live", even though we can see a semantic relation and slight spelling similarity. Rather, it seems to be related to the English words "ooze" and "weasel". The original Proto-Indo-European root apparently referred to something wet, limp, and smelly, so may have been the progenitor of Latin virus "slime".
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