Hello,
This week’s word is cohort (pronunciation here), which I came across in “Sticklers, Sideburns and Bikinis” by Graeme Donald.
A cohort is a Roman military term. You might remember a legion, it contained 600 soldiers. Each legion was sub-divided into cohorts of 60 infantry men each. They were a self-contained company, which makes sense as the original Latin referred to enclosure.
Roman Helmets
Cohort arrived in English in the 1400s with the meaning of being self-contained and it came to mean a walled court, garden, yard, or enclosure. It also retained the meaning of a group of companions which has persisted to modern English.
The hort element of the word, which has Latin roots as hortus or garden, went on to be part of horticulture. Perhaps the idea was that a garden is a way of enclosing part of nature. I love the notion of Roman infantry sharing linguistic roots with the flowers of a walled garden.
Enclosed medieval garden (Bloom 2016)
Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,
Grace (@Wordfoolery)
p.s. I got that damaged thumb of mine checked out – I’ve torn ligaments apparently so my blog posts will be shorter than usual for the next 6 weeks.
Wordfoolery 