Word of the Day

Several months ago I added the Merriam-Webster online dictionary website to my favorites list. Each morning I check it for the "Word of the Day". I had/have three reasons for doing this: 1) I love words and their etymology; 2) I hoped to increase my vocabulary; 3) and the main reason: I thought it would help keep my brain working if I were to learn a new word each day.

Unfortunately my vocabulary hasn't increased and I don't retain the meanings of new words, but I still enjoy reading the word of the day and learning its origins.

This morning we were talking about books and movies when my sister-in-law Susan mentioned she thought the new Susan Sarandon-Richard Gere movie looked good. I hadn't heard about it and asked her what the title was. Bud had seen a clip of the movie and said it was something like Acquisition or something starting with an A which sent brother Les looking it up on his tablet.

It turns out the name of the movie, which came out last Friday, is Arbitrage. We watched this trailer which makes me think this is a movie I would enjoy seeing.

In the meantime, I wondered exactly what Arbitrage means which sent me to my trusty M-W online dictionary and learned:

Definition of Arbitrage:

1

: the nearly simultaneous purchase and sale of securities or foreign exchange in different markets in order to profit from price discrepancies

2

: the purchase of the stock of a takeover target especially with a view to selling it profitably to the raider

Origin of Arbitrage:

French, from Middle French, arbitration, from Old French, from arbitrer to render judgment, from Latin arbitrari, from arbitr-, arbiter

First Known Use: 1875

Coincidentally, the Merriam-Webster word for today is mercurial an adjective "characterized by rapid and unpredictable changeableness of mood.

"The Roman god Mercury ("Mercurius" in Latin) was the messenger and herald of the gods and also the god of merchants and thieves. (His counterpart in Greek mythology is Hermes.) He was noted for his eloquence, swiftness, and cunning, and the Romans named what appeared to them to be the fastest-moving planet in his honor. The Latin adjective derived from his name, "mercurialis," meaning "of or relating to Mercury," was borrowed into English in the 14th century as "mercurial." Although the adjective initially meant "born under the planet Mercury," it came to mean also "having qualities of eloquence, ingenuity, or thievishness attributed to the god Mercury or the influence of the planet Mercury," and then "unpredictably changeable."

I don't know about you, but I'm seeing a correlation here between that movie and today's word.