Nemoral
Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2023 7:30 pm
• nemoral •
Pronunciation: ne-mê-rêl • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Inhabiting a forest or grove or otherwise related to them.
Notes: This word is pleasant to the ear because all its sounds are sonorous, what linguists call sonorants: [n], [m], [r], [l], plus vowels. Its meaning is pleasant, too. It comes with a rarely used synonym, nemorous, and its equally rare noun, nemorosity. Someone who loves forests is a nemophile, and his or her weakness is known as nemophily.
In Play: Nemoral is most at home in discussions of botany: "A small area along the southern coast of Norway belongs to the nemoral vegetation zone." However, anything having to do with forests is fair game for today's word: "Randy Mann had fond memories of his nemoral adventures with Ally Katz."
Word History: Today's Good Word is an Anglified version of Latin nemoralis, from nemus, nemor- "copse, grove" + -alis, an adjectival suffix. Nemus shares a source with Greek nemos "(wooded) pasture, glade", Sanskrit namas "obeisance" and namati "bends, bows"; both were made from PIE nem-/nom- "to bend, bow". Irish neiamh "sky, firmament" and neimheadh "sanctuary" may share the same source, influenced by Gaulish nemeton "sacred grove, temple". Gaulish was a Celtic language spoken in Europe during the Roman Empire. The sense of bending could have a metaphorical relation to willows and other trees on a windy day. Since our ancestors bowed when entering a sacred place, we can see how the sense of the PIE word might have meandered over to these sacred ones. (Now, a double bow again to Luciano Eduardo de Oliveira for his long service on our editorial board and for finding the interest in this word and sharing it with us.)