Snood

Snood (pronounced snood)

(1) A headband once worn by young unmarried women in Scotland and northern England.

(2) A headband for the hair.

(3) A pouch or net-like hat or part of a hat or fabric that holds or covers the back of a woman's hair.

(4) In zoology, a long fleshy appendage of pendulous red skin that hangs over the upper beak of male turkeys.

(5) A short line of horsehair, gut, monofilament etc, by which a fishhook is attached to a longer (and usually heavier) line; a snell.

(6) A piece of clothing to keep the neck warm; a neck-warmer.

(7) To bind or confine (the hair) with a snood or (in other contexts) to put on a snood.

Pre 900: From the Middle English snod (fillet, ribbon (the plural was snoden)), from the Old English snōd (headdress, fillet, ribbon for the hair), from the Proto-Germanic snōdō (rope, string), from the primitive Indo-European snohtéh (yarn, thread), from sneh & snehi- (to twist, wind, weave, plait).  It was cognate with the Scots snuid (snood) and the Swedish snod & snodd (twist, twine) and related in various ways to the Old Saxon snōva (necklace), the Old Norse snúa (to turn, twist) & snúðr (a twist, twirl), the Old Irish snathe (thread) and the English needle.  The alternative spellings were snod & sneed, both now obsolete.  In Dutch, snood means “villanous and criminal.  The Dutch form was from the Middle Dutch snôde, from the Old Dutch snōthi, from the Proto-Germanic snauþuz (bald, naked, poor), from the primitive Indo-European ksnéw-tu-s, from the root ksnew- (to scrape, sharpen) and cognates included the German schnöde and the Old Norse snauðr.  Snood is a noun & verb and snooding & snooded are verbs; the noun plural is snoods.

In the Medieval period, snoods were most associated with young unmarried girls, the implication being “in a state of maidenhood or virginity” so were something like advertising one’s status on Facebook as “single”.  Merely adorning one’s hair with a snood was of course no guarantee of chastity so the system was open to abuse but social media profiles can be misleading so in a thousand or more years little seems to have changed.  Modern adaptations of the word have been opportunistic.  Since 1938 snood has been used to describe the pouch or net-like “bags” use to contain hear at the back of the scalp and these were well-documented as widely worn in the Middle Ages but nobody seems to have thought them snoods which were culturally specific.  The accessories dating from the late 1930s were sold in parallel with conventional hairnets and were worn almost exclusively by women, long hair for men not then a thing in the West.  Typically, they were a close-fitting hood worn over the back of the head but differed from a hairnet proper in that the fit was looser, and they were constructed with a noticeably thicker yarn, weaved in a coarser mesh.  The way they were worn varied greatly according to the preference of the user and the nature of the hair to be contained.  Sometimes, a tighter-mesh band around the forehead or crown, running over or behind the ears and under the nape of the neck held things in place, the woven “bag” containing the hair dangling at the back.  There were also snoods fashioned from a solid fabric, but the advertising of the era suggests these were for fashion rather than function and tended to be colored to match an outfit.  Snood-like constructions are also worn by some women in a variety of religions which demand some form of hair-covering although the interpretation varies.  In the post-war years as health regulations began more rigorously to be imposed in food production and other sensitive facilities, snood seems briefly seems to have been used to describe the hairnets which were being mandated for employees and others in the space.  There were “hair snoods” and “beard snoods” but it was a brief linguistic phenomenon and soon it was hairnets all the way down.

Samir Nasri (b 1987) in football snood.

In Association football (soccer), the word was for some years used to describe the specialized garments players used as “neck-warmers”.  Popular with some players and understandably so in a sport played in the depths of the northern winter, the team managers were divided on their desirability and there were reports that as recently as 2009, (male) media commentators (presumably from a nice warm commentary position) were recorded as saying snoods as neck-warmers were “unmanly”.  Use of such as word would now probably see a commentator cancelled (or worse) and if may be that if a player chose again to wear one on grounds of the ubiquitous H&S (health & safety), they might find officialdom too timid to react. 

Nike Football Snood.

Demand clearly exists because manufacturers continue to maintain the product lines despite bans on their use at the professional level, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) and the Fédération internationale de football association (FIFA, the International Association Football Federation) acting in 2011.  The concern apparently was on grounds of player safety, the suspicion that injuries might result from a snood being pulled from behind and in those circumstances the awarding a penalty for the infringement would not be sufficient because the need was to avoid injuries, not simply punish transgressors.  However, there was no empirical data and the risks were all theoretical so both authorities outlawed the things on the technical basis of them being “not an approved part of the football kit”.  The football snoods aren’t actually exclusively “neck-warmers” because, fully unfolded, they actually can cover the nose and ears, both vulnerable areas in cold conditions and in competitions where they’re not banned, they’re popular with goalkeepers, usually the most static position on the pitch.  So, instead of being thought of as neck-warmers, they’re really half-balaclavas and in the US, where “football” is something different, they’re often called “soccer scarfs”.

Lindsay Lohan illustrates the difference in a muffler (designed for warmth, left) and a scarf (designed to be decorative, centre).  A football player is a fully extended football snoot, worn in extended, half-balaclava style (right); in the US these are sometimes called “soccer scarfs”.

There is a logic to that although “soccer muffler” might be more precise although, lacking the alliterative punch, it’s unlikely to catch on.  Until well into the twentieth century, muffler and scarf were used interchangeably but with the introduction of the baffled mechanical device used to reduce the noise from car engines, the automotive use swamped the linguistic space and muffler became less associated with the neck accessory.  Historically, muffler was mostly British in use, Americans always preferring scarf but scarf is now almost universal although in the upper reaches of the fashion business however, the distinction is sometimes still drawn between the two, a scarf defined as an accessory to enhance the look and made from fabrics like silk, cotton or linen whereas a muffler is more utilitarian, bulkier and intended to protect from the cold and thus made from wool, mohair or something good at retaining body-heat.  Confusingly, muffler occasionally is used in commerce as a label of something which looks like a small blanket, worn over the shoulders and resembling an open poncho.

Macabre

Macabre (pronounced muh-kah-bruh, muh-kahb or muh-kah-ber)

(1) Gruesome and horrifying; ghastly; horrible; grim.

(2) Of, pertaining to, dealing with, or representing death, especially its grimmer or uglier aspect.

(3) Of or suggestive of the allegorical dance of death, the danse macabre.

1400–1450: As Macabrees daunce, a Middle English borrowing from the Middle French danse (de) Macabré (dance of death), of uncertain origin, thought perhaps identified with the Medieval Latin chorēa Machabaeōrum a representation of the deaths of Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers, but there’s no documentary evidence.  An interesting technical point is the French pronunciation with a mute “e” is a misreading of the Middle French forms.  The abstracted sense of "characterized by gruesomeness" was used first in French in 1842, spreading to English by 1889 and dictionaries date a racial sense from 1921.  The sense "comedy that deals in themes and subjects usually regarded as serious or taboo" was first recorded in 1961, in the figurative sense of "morbid".  The origin, although contested, is most associated with the French left and new wave of the late 1950s (pièce noire, comédie noire) which may have and the source of the terms “black comedy” & “dark comedy” in English.  A revisionist theory suggests derivation from the Spanish macabro, from the Arabic مَقَابِر‎ (maqābir) (cemeteries), plural of مَقْبَرَة‎ (maqbara) or مَقْبُرَة‎ (maqbura).  Borrowing from the Arabic in plural form is not unusual (eg magazine, derived from the plural مخازن (maxāzin) of the Arabic singular noun مخزن (maxzan) (storehouse; depot; shop) so the theory is etymologically possible but, like the preferred French source, evidence is wholly lacking.  Related meanings include spooky, ghastly, ghoulish, grisly, morbid, gruesome, weird, frightening, grim, lurid, cadaverous, deathly, dreadful, frightful, ghostly, hideous, horrible, offensive & scary; Macabre is an adjective, macabrely the adverb.  The alternative spelling is macaber but few approve.  Macabre is an adjective.

Dance of Death

Danse Macabre of Basel, memento mori painting, unknown artist, circa 1450, Basel Historical Museum.

The Danse Macabre (Dance of Death) was an artistic genre of allegory dating from the late middle ages; exploring the universality of death, it made clear that however exulted or lowly one’s station in life, the Dance Macabre unites all.  It was a popular artistic motif in European folklore and the most elaborated of medieval macabre art.  During the fourteenth century, Europe was beset by deathly horrors, recurring famines, the Hundred Years’ War and, looming over all, the Black Death.  All these were culturally assimilated throughout Europe, the omnipresent chance of either a sudden or a long and painful death spurring not only a religious desire for penance but also a sometimes hysterical desire for amusement while such things remained possible; a last dance as cold comfort.  The Danse Macabre satisfied these desires, the dance-with-death allegory originally a didactic dialogue poem to remind people of the inevitability of death and to advise them strongly to be prepared at all times for death.

During the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the theme was a source of the vivid and stark paintings on the walls of churches and the cloisters of cemeteries and ossuaries.  Art of the Danse Macabre was typically a depiction of the personification of death summoning representatives from all walks of life to dance along to the grave; often included were popes, emperors, kings, children and labourers. They were produced as mementos mori (a phrase from the Latin which translates literally as "remember that you will die"), artistic or symbolic reminders of the inevitability of death and intended to remind the living of the fragility of life and how one should try to live a more fulfilling and purposeful life, making the most of one's brief few years.  The tradition, although it became increasingly detached from its religious associations, never died and has enjoyed periodic resurgences over the last six-hundred years, notably after horrific events such as pandemics or the First World War.  COVID-19 seemed not to stimulate similar art; popular culture’s preferred platforms have shifted.

Sense of the macabre: Terry Richardson's (b 1965) suicide-themed shoot with Lindsay Lohan, 2012.

Sconce

Sconce (pronounced skons)

(1)  A bracket for candles or other lights, placed on a wall, mirror, picture frame etc (a development of the earlier use relating to candles).

(2) The hole or socket of a candlestick (for holding the candle).

(3) A fortification; a small detached fort or defense work, as to defend a pass, bridge etc; a protective screen or shelter (obsolete).

(4) In the University of Oxford, informally to fine an undergraduate for a breach of rules or etiquette (the penalty drinking a specified quantity of ale); a fine so imposed; a mug or tankard used in sconcing (typically a beer bong).

(5) The head or skull; sense or wit (now rare, probably obsolete); a piece of armor for the head; headpiece; helmet (now for historic reference only).

(6) A poll tax; a mulct or fine.

1350–1400: From the Late Middle English sconce, sconce & sconse (defensive fortification or fortification work), from the Old French esconce (hiding place; lantern) from the Medieval Latin scōnsa, an aphetic variant of abscōnsa (noun use of feminine past participle of abscondere (to conceal; dark lantern) (also the source of the modern abscond)).  The Latin absconsus (hidden) was the perfect passive participle of abscond (hide).  Related was the Dutch schans (defensive fortification or fortification work) and the Middle High German Schanze (bundle of brushwood).  The Dutch word also had an interesting evolution, used to mean (1) a type of small fort or other fortification, especially as built to defend a pass or ford, (2) a hut for protection and shelter; a stall, (3) a fragment of a floe of ice ( (4) as fixed seat or shelf.  Sconce is a noun & verb and sconced & sconcing are verbs;  the noun plural is sconces.  In English, while other meanings emerged, in military use sconce continued to be used to refer to fortifications or defensive works and during the English Civil War (1642-1651) a sconce was a small fortification or earthwork that was built quickly to defend a position. 

An Oxford tradition

Beer bong half-yard.

A tradition of the Oxford colleges, a sconcing was a demand a person drink a tankard of ale as a penalty for some breach of etiquette.  The word in this context is attested from 1617 and originally described a monetary fine imposed for a more serious breach of discipline, the use as a kind of high table drinking game becoming common only in the early nineteenth century.  Offences which might have attracted a sconce included talking at dinner about women, religion, politics, one's work, the portraits hung in the college hall or making some error in the reciting of the Latin Grace.  Originally reserved for the senior scholar or fellow at each table, the right to demand a sconce (usually in Classical Latin (and mixing in later variants was not tolerated) or Ancient Greek) was later extended to all.  The quantity of a sconce varied from two imperial pints (1.1 litres) and three and three-quarters (2.1 litres) although the larger measures are believed to have been "rare".  The Oxford tradition was essentially the same as "fining" at Cambridge although in the narrow technical sense, a sconce was the act of issuing a penalty rather than the penalty itself, a distinction often lost on undergraduates, especially after a couple of sconces.

Lindsay Lohan with bandaged sconce: Falling for Christmas (2022).

In the Netflix film Falling for Christmas, the plot line includes Lindsay Lohan suffering trauma-induced amnesia after a blow to the sconce.  In English slang (UK and most of the Commonwealth although it seems not to have reached the critical mass needed for survival in the US & Canada) the use of sconce (which may have peaked in the early nineteenth century although any measure of oral use is difficult to estimate) to mean "the head, the skull" remained common until just after World War I (1914-1918).  Etymologists suspect the decline may have been the result of UK & Commonwealth troops mixing with those from other nations and developing a preference for their slang, a trend by which US English (formal & informal) has influenced the language for well over a century.

Leman

Leman (pronounced lem-uhn or lee-muhn)

(1) A sweetheart; lover; beloved.

(2) A mistress.

(3) As Lac Léman, the French name for Lake Geneva.

1175-1225: From the Middle English lemman (loved one of the opposite sex; paramour, lover; wife (and also (1) "a spiritually beloved one; redeemed soul, believer in Christ; female saint devoted to chastity; God, Christ, the Virgin Mary" & (2) "a term of intimate address to a friend or lover")), variant of leofman, from the Old English lēofmann (lover; sweetheart; attested as a personal name), the construct being lief +‎ man (beloved person).  Lief was from the Middle English leef, leve & lef, from the Old English lēof (dear), from the Proto-Germanic leubaz.  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian ljo & ljoo, the West Frisian leaf, the Dutch lief, the Low German leev, the German lieb, the Swedish and Norwegian Nynorsk ljuv, the Gothic liufs, the Russian любо́вь (ljubóv) and the Polish luby.  Man is from the Middle English man, from the Old English mann (human being, person, man), from the Proto-Germanic mann (human being, man) and probably ultimately from the primitive Indo-European man or mon (man).  The origins of the use of "Dear" as a salutation in letters (a convention some preserve in email though apparently not in other digital comms) is thought derived ultimately from the the Old English leofman (the construct being leof (dear) + man) as a term of intimate address to a friend or lover.

Bader Shammas (b 1987) and his leman.

A linguistic relic, leman applied originally either to men or women and had something of a romantic range.  It could mean someone of whom one was very fond or something more although usage meant the meaning quickly tended to the latter; a sweetheart or paramour.  In the narrow technical sense it could still be applied to men although it has for so long been a deliberate archaic device and limited to women, it would be confusing.  It tends now to be used as a term of disparagement against women in the same way a suggestion of the mendacious is thought a genteel way to call someone a liar.  In early-modern English, alternative spellings did emerge, lemman between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries and remarkably, lemon in the fifteenth and sixteenth.  No explanation for lemon in this context has emerged and it may have been an imperfect echoic.  The word certainly had a curious path on its way to obscurity, beginning as meaning "one's beloved", it came to be applied to God, Christ, the Blessed Virgin and other notables of Christianity before being specifically re-purposed around the turn of the fourteenth century to mean "one's betrothed" yet by the late 1500s it had acquired the  at the turn of the sense of a "concubine or mistress".   

The Faerie Queene (1590) by Edmund Spenser (circa 1552-1599)

Woodcut illustration for Book II (Cantos VII-XII) of the Faerie Queene.

As long ago as the late sixteenth century, leman was rare word, supplanted by other forms, some gender-specific.  However, that very quality of the obsolescent made it attractive as a literary device for those seeking some historic flavor, the use exemplified in The Faerie Queene, an epic-length poem recounting tales of knightly exploits.  Written in a deliberately archaic style, Spenser merged history and myth, drawing especially on the Arthurian legends with each of the books an allegorical following of a knight who represents a particular virtue (holiness, temperance, chastity, friendship, justice and courtesy) which will be tested by the plot.  It’s long been of interest to Shakespearean scholars because book two appears to be a source for much of King Lear.  It’s also attracted the attention of feminist critics.

Such is the crueltie of womenkynd,
When they have shaken off the shamefast band,
With which wise Nature did them strongly bynd,
T’obay the heasts of mans well ruling hand,
That then all rule and reason they withstand,
To purchase a licentious libertie.
But virtuous women wisely understand,
That they were borne to base humilitie,
Unlesse the heavens them lift to lawfull soveraintie. (Book five) 

The poem is unfinished: Spenser planned twelve books but only six were completed, a seventh left incomplete.

Faire Venus seemde vnto his bed to bring

Her, whom he waking euermore did weene

To be the chastest flowre, that ay did spring

On earthly braunch, the daughter of a king,

Now a loose Leman to vile seruice bound. (Book one)

Yogurt

Yogurt (pronounced yo-gurt, yog-urt or yog-utt)

(1) A milk-based product stiffened by a bacterium-aided curdling process, and sometimes mixed with fruit or other flavoring.

(2) Any similar product based on other substances (used very loosely except in jurisdictions with prescriptive legislation).

1620s: From the Ottoman Turkish یوغورت‎ (yoğurt) (yogurt).  Deconstructions of the original Turkish suggest the root yog meant something like “to condense” and was related to yoğun (thickened; intense), yogush (liquify (of water vapor)), yogur (knead) & yoğurmak (to knead; to be curdled or coagulated; to thicken) and there are similar words in other languages including the Welsh iogwrt (yogurt).  Yogurt is a noun; the noun plural is yogurts.

In the English speaking word there’s the usual Atlantic divide, yog-urt the usual pronunciation in the UK whereas in the US it tends to be yo-gurt.  This is mirrored by the various spellings and they in turn influence the regional differences in pronunciation.  In the UK, the usual spelling is yoghurt (although some imported product is different) while in the US it’s nearly always is yogurt.  In the far-flung outposts of the linguistic empire (Australia, New Zealand and South Africa), both spellings are found.  Canada (influenced by the UK because of the imperial legacy, the US because of proximity and France because of the special position of the province of Quebec) uses both the common spellings and has its own, unique blend (yogourt), a variant of the French yaourt.

Lindsay Lohan eating yogurt, Los Angeles, 2009.

The origin of the UK’s spelling (yoghurt) is said by etymologists to date from a mispronunciation of the Turkish from which the dairy treat came.  The sound ğ was in the early seventeenth century rendered as gh in transliterations of Turkish (the “g” a "soft" sound, in many dialects and closer to an English "w").  Across the channel, the French universally say yaourt, thus exactly following the spelling so while the English got the “g” wrong in transliteration, the French don’t pronounce the “g” at all and that appears to be the closest to the original.  The French pronunciation pays tribute to the Turkish letter “ğ” (yumuşak ge (a “g” with a squiggle)) which in Turkish is silent, the squiggle denoting only that the length of the preceding vowel should be lengthened.  The linguistic theory is that France being geographically closer to Asia Minor (the land mass which encompasses most of the modern Republic of Türkiye), yogurt must have been introduced by Turkish traders who demonstrated the correct pronunciation whereas the more remote English and Scandinavians received their yogurt by ship and had only the spelling with which to work.  They did their usual phonetic thing and the variations are with us to this day.

Ether

Ether (pronounced ee-ther)

(1) In chemistry, Pharmacology and (pre-modern) surgery, A colorless, highly volatile, flammable liquid (C₄H₁₀O), having an aromatic odor and sweet, burning taste, derived from ethyl alcohol by the action of sulfuric acid.  It was used as a powerful solvent and as an inhalant anesthetic (also called diethyl ether, diethyl oxide, ethyl ether, ethyl oxide, sulfuric ether.

(2) In pre-modern chemistry, one of a class of compounds in which two organic groups are attached directly to an oxygen atom (the general formula ROR), as in diethyl ether (C₂H₅OC₂H₅).

(3) In Greek mythology, the upper regions of the atmosphere; clear sky or heaven (and from this long a rarely used word for “air”).

(4) In physics, a hypothetical substance supposed to occupy all space, postulated to account for the propagation of electromagnetic radiation through space, an idea picked up in the early days of radio broadcasting, the signal said to be “in the ether”.

(5) In chemistry, a starting fluid.

(6) Figuratively, a particular quality created by or surrounding an object, person, or place; an atmosphere; an aura (probably most familiar in the form ethereal). 

1350-1400: From the Middle English ether (the caelum aetherum of ancient cosmology in which the planets orbit; a shining, fluid substance described as a form of air or fire; air), from the Middle French & Anglo-Norman ether, from the Old French aether (highest and purest part of the atmosphere; the medium supposedly filling the upper regions of space), from the Ancient Greek αἰθήρ (aithḗr) (purer upper air of the atmosphere; heaven, sky; theoretical medium supposed to fill unoccupied space and transmit heat and light), (akin to aíthein (to glow, burn)) or directly from its etymon New Latin aethēr (highest and purest part of the atmosphere; air; heavens, sky; light of day; ethereal matter surrounding a deity).  The ultimate source of the Greek was αἴθω (aíthō) (to burn, ignite; to blaze, shine), from the primitive Indo-European heyd- (to burn; fire).  It was related to the Old English ād (funeral pyre) and the Latin aestus (heat).  As late as the nineteenth century, it was not uncommon in English for the Latin-derived spelling aether to be used, probably because so much of what was in the books of apothecaries remained for so long unchanged.  The German-born chemist August Sigmund Frobenius (circa 1690-1741) was the first to use the name for the volatile chemical, his bestowal based on its properties.  The name entered English science in 1757 although it wasn’t until 1842 the anaesthetic properties were fully documented.  The English word was cognate with the obsolete Italian etere (ether & ethera both obsolete), the Middle Dutch ether, the modern Dutch ether (aether obsolete), the German Äther, the Portuguese éter and the Spanish éter.

In ancient cosmology, ether was the element filling all space beyond the sphere of the moon, constituting the substance of the stars and planets; in the imagination of Antiquity it was held by one school of thought to be a purer form of fire or air, by another as a fifth element.  From the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, ether was part of scientific orthodoxy and the technical word for an assumed framework within which the forces of the universe interacted, perhaps without material properties.  As the scientific method evolved increasingly to demand proof of theories, doubts were expressed about the validity of the traditional view and in 1887 an experiment by American physicists Albert Michelson (1852-1931) and Edward Morley (1838-1923) cast such doubts on the notion that among others, Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was moved to begin calculations and the view of the nature of ether from Antiquity was completely dismissed after conclusive proof of the theory of relativity in 1919.  Despite that, having first been so used in 1899, the word endured well into the twentieth century to describe the path of the then seemingly mysterious radio broadcasts.

Lindsay Lohan during her dabble with Ethereum fueled NFT drops.  

Although the volatility and churn rate make it a hard sector to track, there are apparently over 20,000 currently active (in the sense of being listed somewhere and thus able to be traded) cryptocurrencies.  There are obvious attractions to creating one's own virtual currency because in a sense one is creating one's own money (usually in the millions) and if one can convince others (and guides to market manipulation have been published) to exchange their convertible currency for one's tokens, it can be a good business model.  One thankless task associated with cryptocurrencies however is coming up with a suitable name, something not of great importance once the creation gains critical mass but possibly quite influential when first listed.  It must be something like thinking of names for racehorses but harder still because not only must it be unique but it should also not be too close to other financial products (not just other virtual currencies).  Ethereum (ETH) was coined by Russian-Canadian programmer Vitalik Buterin (b 1994) who has in interviews revealed he chose the name after browsing Wikipedia for a list of fictional elements on based on ether.  One can certainly see the link and it makes more sense than the earlier Ethernet, originally a trademark of the Xerox Corporation, the construct being ether +‎ net(work).  Ethernet was a collection of cabling and network connectivity protocols standards for bus topology computer networks and to use the word "ether" was a bit of a leap, everything originally connected by cable whereas at least part of the Ethereum traffic travels through the ether (as it was understood in Antiquity).  With Ethernet cabling, there was thick and thin Ethernet and the physical cabling literally was thick and thin, the choice dictated by things like the distance to be covered, the number of nodes to be connected and the available budget.  In the world of cryptocurrency, think & thin means "going through thick & thin", hodling (holding) one's coins no matter what the fluctuations.

Byzantine

Byzantine (pronounced biz-uhn-teen, biz-uhn-tahyn, bahy-zuhn-tyne or bih-zan-tin)

(1) Relating to Byzantium, the Byzantine Empire, or the Eastern Orthodox Church.

(2) Of or about a situation deemed excessively complicated and typically involving a great deal of seemingly pointless administrative detail (usually without initial capital).

(3) A citizen of Byzantium or the Byzantine Empire.

(4) Of or belonging to the style of architecture developed from the fifth century AD in the Byzantine Empire, characterized especially by a central dome resting on a cube formed by four round arches and their pendentives and by the extensive use of surface decoration, especially veined marble panels, low relief carving, and colored glass mosaics.

(5) Of the painting and decorative style developed in the Byzantine Empire, characterized by formality of design, frontal stylized presentation of figures, rich use of color, especially gold, and generally religious subject matter.

(6) Characterized by elaborate scheming and intrigue, especially for the gaining of political power or favour (usually without initial capital).

(7) In numismatics, a coin issued by the Byzantine Empire.

(8) A dark, metallic shade of violet.

1651 (in English use): From the Late Latin Bȳzantīnus (of Byzantium), the name derived ultimately from the ancient Greek city Byzantion on the Bosporus and the Sea of Marmara, said to have been named in 657 BC for it founder, Byzas of Megara.  Constantine I (circa 272–337; Roman emperor 306-337 (and the first to convert to Christianity) rebuilt the city and renamed it Constantinople.  The city fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 although the modern-day name Istanbul wasn’t (except in the Vatican and the Orthodox Church) universally adopted until the years after World War II (1939-1945).  Although in Greek legend the ancient city name Byzantion came from King Byzas, leader of the Megarian colonists, who is said to be its founder, the etymology remains uncertain although most historians of the period seem to agree it must be of Thraco-Illyrian origin and there’s no doubt Byzantium is a Latinization of the original.  Centuries later, in Western literature, the name Byzantium became the standard term with which to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire (the "Byzantine Empire” centred on the walled capital Constantinople.  For all the generations which lived while the empire stood, the term would have been mysterious and it gained currency only after 1555 when introduced by the German historian Hieronymus Wolf (1516-1580), a century after Constantinople had fallen and the empire had ceased to exist.  Until Wolf introduced the phrase, the word Byzantium was restricted to just the city, rather than the empire which, in the way of such things, had waxed and waned.  Byzantine is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is Byzantines.

Byzantium

A hand-painted rendition of Byzantine Constantinople after the style of medieval mapmakers.

Standing for centuries on blood-soaked soil on the Bosporus where Europe ends and Asia begins, Greek forces laid siege during the Peloponnesian war and Sparta took the city in 411 BC before it was reclaimed by the Athenian military in 408 BC.  Almost razed, by Roman forces in 196 AD, Byzantium was rebuilt by Septimius Severus (145-211; Roman emperor 193-211) and quickly regained its previous prosperity.  The location of Byzantium attracted Constantine I (circa 272–337; Roman emperor 306-337 (and the first to convert to Christianity)) who in 330 AD re-created it as an imperial residence inspired by Rome itself and after his death, it was called Constantinople (Κωνσταντινούπολις (Konstantinoupolis (literally "city of Constantine"))).  For a thousand years, it was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and a commercial, cultural & diplomatic centre and from its strategic position, Constantinople’s rulers controlled the major trade routes between Asia and Europe, as well as the passage from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea.  On 29 May 1453, in the first example of a major city falling to a siege by artillery, Constantinople fell to the Turks, becoming the capital of the Ottoman Empire.  The great walls which for centuries had defied invaders from land and sea, crumbled to modern cannon fire.  Even then, the Turks called the city Istanbul (from the Greek eis-tin-polin (to-the-city) although it was not officially renamed until 1930, almost a decade after the Empire was dissolved and it remains Turkey’s largest and most populous city, although Ankara is now the national capital.

Lindsay Lohan meeting Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (b 1954; prime-minister or president of the Republic of Türkiye since 2003), Istanbul (formerly Constantinople), January 2017.

The other senses of byzantine (as often used without the initial capital): (1) “characterized by a devious and usually surreptitious manner of operation, often for some nefarious purpose” and (2) “something intricate, complicated; inflexible, rigid, unyielding” are both of dubious historical validity.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), “byzantine” was first used in English in 1937 (of the impenetrable despotism of the Soviet Union which appeared to those in the Foreign Office schooled in the classics to be much the same as what they’d learned of the antics practiced in Constantinople) in the sense of “reminiscent of the manner, style, or spirit of Byzantine politics; intricate, complicated; inflexible, rigid, unyielding” but in French political scientists had earlier applied in the same figurative context, something which would surprise few familiar with the politicians of inter-war France, a generally rotten crew about whom it was remarked “they can’t keep a government for nine months, nor a secret for five minutes”.  Still, it was probably the English who lent the word its loaded meaning.  Edward Gibbon’s (1737–1794) magisterial The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (six volumes: 1776-1788) was influential for generations in forming the construct of the period in the European imagination and he caricatured the history of the empire as endless chicanery, shadyness, back-channel deals, low skulduggery, back-stabbing, and naked grabs for power.  Until late in the twentieth century, phrases like “bewildering Oriental intrigue” flowed easily from the pens of English historians and hints of the attitude, cloaked in wokish words, appear even since they’ve switched to keyboards.  Much modern scholarship though has been more forgiving and there’s now an understanding that while like everywhere, low politics and dirty deeds were sometimes done, a remarkable civilization grew on the Bosporus.

Byzantium architectural styles.

The association with needless complexity and pointless administrative duplication was probably born of the same prejudices to which was added the view the empire was infused with strange religious rituals and stubbornness in the way it clung to superstition.  Historians have of late have refined this view, suggesting words like “intricate” or even “labyrinthine” might better capture the spirit of the place which was, by any standards and certainly those of medieval Europe, a complex and highly developed society.  The loaded meaning though seems here to stay, perhaps reinforced in the public imagination by the phonetic similarity between “byzantine” & “bizarre”.  Bizarre means “strangely unconventional; highly unusual and different from common experience, often in an extravagant, fantastic or conspicuous ways” and was from the French bizarre (odd, peculiar (and formerly “brave; headlong, angry”), either from the Basque bizar (a beard (on the notion that bearded Spanish soldiers made a strange impression on the French) or from Italian bizzarro (odd, queer, eccentric, weird (and, of a horse “frisky” in the sense of the English “bolter”)) of unknown origin but thought probably related to bizza (tantrum), which may be of Germanic origin.  In summary then, the Byzantines would have had their moments but were no more nasty and duplicitous that politicians everywhere and when describing convoluted things as byzantine it might be more accurate to instead call them labyrinthine or just bizarre.

Kosher

Kosher (pronounced koh-sher)

(1) In Judaism, a legal definition of food fit or allowed to be eaten or used, according to the dietary or ceremonial laws of the of the Talmud; in conformity with canonical texts or Rabbinical edict, the kosher rules can be applied also to non-food items such as clothing.

(2) In Judaism, adhering to the laws governing such fitness.

(3) In informal use (without any religious connotations), proper, legitimate, genuine, authentic.

1851: From the From Yiddish כּשר‎ (kosher), from Hebrew כָּשֵׁר‎ (kāshēr, kasher and kashruth) (right, fit, proper), the Yiddish reflecting the original meaning.  In the US, in the mid-nineteenth century, the forms kasher & coshar were also in use and beyond the Jewish community, the use as a general verbal shorthand for proper, legitimate, genuine, authentic etc dates from 1896 or the 1920s depending on source although it’s only “kosher” (the original, simplified form of the Hebrew) which endured thus.  Kosher is a verb, adjective & adverb, kosherness is a noun, kosherize, koshering & koshered are verbs and kosherly an adverb.  Because the state of kosherness is a matter of fact under the rules of the Talmud, the adjectives nonkosher & unkosher are often used though whether there are nuances which dictate the choice of which (or even if any such nuances are consistent) isn’t clear.  Although it’s grammatically non-standard, kosher & non kosher are sometimes used as nouns.  Even among those who tend to work in English or an English-Yiddish mix, the transitive verb “to kasher” is commonly used to describe the preparation of food to conform to Jewish law.  As a modifier it’s applied as required thus formations such as kosher salt, kosher kitchen, kosher pickle etc.

Lindsay Lohan on a visit to Westminster Synagogue with former special friend Samantha Ronson, London, March 2009.

The rules for kosher foods are codified in the Torah in the kashrut halakha (dietary law) which exists mostly in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.  Food that conforms is called kosher; that which does not is treif.  Although many elements of the rules are well known (no hare, hyrax, camel, and pig; no shellfish or crustaceans, no creeping things that crawl the earth and no mixing of meat and dairy at the same meal), for adherents, it can at the margins be complex and sometimes the adjudication of the rabbi is needed although, Judaism as practiced is not monolithic and while those who are practicing will probably adhere to a core set or rules, the interpretation varies between communities, their traditions and their level of observance.  The history is also acknowledged by scholars of the texts and it’s admitted many of the original rules about the consumption of animal flesh were a kind of health code in the pre-refrigeration era, the proscriptions applied to the animals which had been found most prone to spread illness or disease if eaten after too long after slaughter or subject to inadequate preparation.  However, despite advances in technology & techniques meaning health concerns no longer apply, because of the long tradition, the rules have no assumed the function of a devotional obligation.

McDonald's at Abasto Mall, Buenos Aires, Argentina, said to be the world’s only kosher McDonald's outside of Israel.  On some days, it’s open until 2am.

The core rules of kosher food

(1) Animals must be slaughtered with a specific method: The beast must be killed by a trained kosher slaughterer (a shochet) using a sharp blade without nicks or imperfections.  The animal must be healthy and not suffer during the process.

(2) Only certain animals are considered kosher: The Torah lists several permitted animals including cows, sheep, goats, and deer. Pigs, camels, rabbits, and other animals are proscribed.

(3) If from the sea, river or lake, only fish with fins and scales may be considered kosher; crustaceans & shellfish are proscribed.

(4) Certain parts of an animal must not  be eaten including the sciatic nerve and certain fats.

(5) Insects which dwell or habitually crawl on the ground are proscribed but flying and leaf-dwelling insects such as locusts are permitted.

(6) Fruit and vegetables must carefully be inspected for bugs and other contaminants; a contaminated item can be cleaned if only touched by a bug but if partially eater, it must be discarded.

(7) Meat and dairy must never be mixed; not stored, prepared, cooked or consumed together.  Separate utensils and dishes must be used for each.