Auspicious

Auspicious (pronounced aw-spish-uhs)

(1) Promising success; propitious; opportune; favorable.

(2) Favored by fortune; prosperous; fortunate (rare).

1590s: From the Latin auspicium (divination by observing the flight of birds), the construct being auspex (augur) (genitive auspicis) + -ous (the suffix used to form adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree, commonly in abundance.  It's from the Middle English -ous, borrowed from Old French -ous and -eux, from Latin -ōsus (full, full of); Doublet of -ose).  The usual modern rendering of the Latin auspicium is “augury” which reflects the influence of French on the adoption of Latin forms in English.  Auspicious has long been understood to mean “of good omen” and, although it’s still sometimes used to mean “fortunate”, this probably indicates a misunderstanding.  The related forms are the adverb auspiciously and the noun auspiciousness.  Unfortunately, most may be more familiar with the companion adjective inauspicious (ill-omened, unlucky, unfavorable), dating from the 1590s, from the Latin inauspicatus (without auspices; with bad auspices) which briefly enjoyed a place in seventeenth century English as inauspicate.

The Auspicious Incident

Janissary soldiers in the red and white colors dating from the pre-firearms era.

The Auspicious Incident (in the Turkish Vaka-i Hayriye (fortunate event) and spoken of in the Balkans as Vaka-i Şerriyye (unfortunate incident)) was the forced disbandment of the Janissary corps by the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II on 15 June 1826.  Formed during the fourteenth century, the Janissaries (in Ottoman Turkish يڭيچرى‎ (yeñiçeri) (new soldier)) were an elite formation, essentially the Sultan's private army and, remarkably for such blood-soaked soil, the first standing army in the region since antiquity.  Although, as a military unit, the Janissaries were for centuries indispensable to sultans, the character of the corps changed over the years with the creation of bureaucratic and mercantile structures, both run by civilians and thus creating an independent power-base.  It was the kind of mission-creep not dissimilar to the evolution of the Sturmabteilung (the Storm Troopers (SA) or brownshirts) in the Third Reich or the Praetorian Guard in Ancient Rome and like both of them, the Janissaries came to be seen a threat to the leader rather than a protective guard.

Depiction of Janissaries during the slave era.

Curiously, the origin of the Janissaries was in a group of slaves, bound for their lives personally to the sultan after being captured as children and forcibly converted from Christianity. Despite this unpromising beginning, the Janissaries gained a reputation for bravery and loyally and were a critically important military component in many of the Ottoman’s most celebrated battles, most famously the fall of Constantinople in 1453.  The battle-readiness however was affected as a gradual decline in the standards of recruitment and training diminished both their effectiveness and loyalty to the sultan; by the early nineteenth century the Janissaries were effectively an armed political party focused on extending their economic interests and controlling the empire by implied military threat which sometimes was expressed in the several coups in which they were implicated, their oath of loyalty which once had been to a sultan personally instead arbitrarily re-interpreted as being to the throne which left them free to overthrow any tiresome sultan and replace him with one more compliant.  From being the king’s protectors, they had become the king-makers.

Depiction of Janissary soldiers in the age when battlefield skirmishes were decided by the "blade of the sword and the splutter of musketry".

The character of the formation had certainly changed but Ottoman law had not been amended to reflect what had happened.  As slaves the Janissaries had no money and were thus untaxed but after the rules began to allow those with an established income to become Janissaries, these recruits brought their businesses and profits with them, thus becoming part of an elite military force yet still exempt from tax, an imbalance which sparked jealously and resentment throughout the empire.  Sultans and their advisors had long been aware of the problem and the threat posed but attempts at reform had always been resisted.

Mahmud II.

When Mahmud II (Mahmud-u s̠ānī (محمود ثانى in Ottoman Turkish) 1785-1839; Sultan of the Ottoman Empire 1808-1839) became sultan in 1808 he was under no illusions, having watched several of his predecessors lose their thrones and lives in Janissary-led coups but he had to be both cautious and furtive for whatever decline in military effectiveness might have afflicted the Janissaries, their intelligence operation had infiltrated much of the state.  Instead of direct conflict, Mahmud choose gradualism, imposing minor reforms which annoyed the Janissaries who resisted things like changes to their uniform which had been suggested as part of a military modernization.  In the face of their opposition to this and other minor matters, the sultan relented, inducing in the Janissaries a complainant assumption that their immunity from change would continue.  Quietly however, Mahmud was forming a modern, Western-style army and when ready, he issued a fatwa which detailed his intended military re-structure, marginalizing the Janissary.  This prompted, as the devious sultan had intended, a Janissary rebellion, the disaffected troops taking to the streets, planning another act of sultanicide.  At this point was executed a brutally efficient plan was using the Sipahi, a cavalry division with a pedigree more ancient even than the Janissaries and with which they shared a bitter rivalry.  Striking without warning, the Sipahi took advantage of their greater mobility to drive the Janissaries back to their barracks which, secretly, Mahmud II had surrounded with artillery imported from Europe disguised as farm machinery.  In a ferocious siege, the barracks were subject to a barrage of such intensity that in the ensuing blaze, over 4,400 Janissaries were incinerated before the survivors scattered, many subsequently exiled while the last were put to death by decapitation in the Thessaloniki fort which Turks came to call the Tower of Blood.  As a reward, the Sipahi formed the core of a new elite force called the Victorious Soldiers of Muhammad and the sultan continued his programme of military modernization.  

The bloody business came to be known to the Turks as the auspicious incident because it lent the Ottoman army (and therefore the empire) a Turkish rather than multi-national character and the structures endured until the empire was dissolved in 1922 (formally in 1924).  In other parts of the caliphate, the events came to be called the unfortunate incident because the consequential centralization of authority in Constantinople dissipated what had been a hard fought for regional autonomy.

Whet

Whet (pronounced hwet or wet)

(1) To sharpen (a knife, tool, etc) by grinding or friction.

(2) To make keen or eager; stimulate:

(3) To stimulate one’s curiosity (usually in the phrase “to whet the appetite”)

(4) The act of whetting or a person or device which whets.

(5) Something that makes more keen or intense; an appetizer or aperitif.

(6) A spell of work; a short period of time (US slang, south of the Mason-Dixon Line, such as the phrase “to talk a whet”).

(7) To preen (obsolete).

Pre 900: From the Middle English verb whetten & noun whete, from the Old English verb hwettan (to whet, sharpen (and figuratively "to incite or encourage”) and noun hwǣte, a derivative of hwæt (bold) and related to hvæt (sharp), from the Proto-West Germanic hwattjan, from the Proto-Germanic hwatjan & hwatjaną (to incite, sharpen), from the primitive Indo-European kehid (sharp).  It was cognate with Dutch wetten (“to whet, sharpen”), the German wetzen (“to whet, sharpen”), the Icelandic hvetja (“to whet, encourage, catalyze”) and the dialectal Danish hvæde (“to whet”).  The Proto Germanic hwatjan & hwatjaną which was from the primitive Indo-European root kwed- (to sharpen), source also of the Sanskrit codati (incites (literally "sharpens")), the Old English hwæt (brave, bold) and the Old Saxon hwat (sharp) was the source also of the Old Norse hvetja (to sharpen, encourage), the Middle Low German & Middle Dutch wetten, the Old High German wezzan, the German wetzen (to sharpen) and the Gothic ga-hvatjan (to sharpen, incite).  Whet is a noun and verb, whetted & whetting (used with object) are verbs, whetter a noun and whetted an adjective.  The noun plural is whets and the homophone wet (in accents with the wine-whine merger).

The Modern English words wet and whet are etymologically unrelated but for a number of reasons are sometimes, understandably, confused.  Nor is the whet/wet thing an isolated example and the reason for much confusion lies in the terminology familiar to historians, translators and etymologists: the source of most modern English being conveniently traced back to Ancient Greek and the surprisingly large number of forks of Latin, through the filter of Old and Middle English.  The Greek & Latin is obviously foreign and for most, words can be recognized only by their similarity to what is now familiar but Middle English is (at least substantially) readable to a modern English-speaking audience prepared to guess a little and pick up wherever possible from the context or sentence structure.  Old English (which once was the “Olde English” which better captures the idea) however really is a misnomer and is almost wholly unrecognizable and is better thought of as pre-English and probably only the most structurally oriented etymologists would regard it as a proto-form.  Indeed, many prefer the alternative “Anglo-Saxon” as a description because it was introduced to the British Isles by the Germanic peoples who settled in the mid-fifth century, a timing which meant it was in that language that were written what came to be regarded as the first works of Literature “in English”.

One suspects that were an anthropologist now to discover the old texts as a novel form, it’s unlikely they’d be labeled as any form of “English”, something which may have happened because of a desire (which long persisted in the study of “English” history) to make Englishness as ancient as possible, historians long seduced by their constructions of all that stretched back to the island’s links with the classical age.  Except when treated as aberrations, uncivilized barbarians and pockets of violent backwardness, much of the non-English contribution to the history of life on the British Isles tended until recently to be neglected or devalued by historians and the attitude to language reflects this but that Modern English contains both wet and whet, pronounced the same yet meaning different things hints at the tangle, an additional twist being that some “whets” and distinguished from others by being used “wet”.

In English use, this meshing of sound and overlap of meaning does produce the odd tendency to error.  For example, a Parthian shot (Parthian an Iranian language of the people of ancient and medieval Parthia) is a metaphor used to describe a barbed insult, delivered as the speaker departs, the construction based on a military tactic used by Parthian mounted cavalry.  While in real or feigned retreat on horseback, the archers would turn their bodies back in full gallop to shoot at the pursuing enemy, quite a trick which demanded fine equestrian skills given that the riders’ hands were occupied by his bows and arrows.  It was more admirable still because the Parthian military used neither stirrups nor spurs, riders relying solely on the pressure from their legs to guide and control their galloping beasts.  However, the literal “Parthian shot” was literally also something of a “parting shot” given the way it was delivered and among English speakers is often rendered as “parting shot”, a use so frequently encountered that many dictionaries now accept it as a legitimate alternative form as long as the correct meaning is conveyed: Whichever word is used, the metaphor refers not merely to an effectively made comment, the essence being that it is delivered at the point of departure.

Part in this sense was from the Old French departir, from the Late Latin departiō (to divide), the construct being dē- (away from) +‎ partiō (part, divide).  Interestingly, “part” (in the sense of “piece of something) existed in Old English and is an example that the relationship with the more recent Middle & Modern English is occasionally recognizable.  Part was from the Middle English part, from the Old English part (part) and the Old French part (part), both from the Latin partem, accusative of pars (piece, portion, share, side, party, faction, role, character, lot, fate, task, lesson, part, member), from the primitive Indo-European par- & per- (to sell, exchange).  It displaced the Middle English del & dele (part), from the Old English dǣl (part, distribution).

Lindsay Lohan wetting her whistle during a fishing trip with Hofit Golan (b 1985, Israeli media personality), July 2016.

Whet and wet are subject to the same linguistic clatter.  To “whet one’s appetite” and “wet one’s whistle” can both mean “to imbibe an aperitif” although there are differences of nuance, the former meaning “to sharpen the desire for more” while the latter references the usefulness of alcohol as a social lubricant.  The occasional mistake is thus understandable and those learning English must think such things surely unnecessary but, as a noun, things don’t improve.  The English whet is a word about sharpening things and a whetstone is a literally a piece of stone, most frequently in the shape of a rectangular cuboid (although there are specialized shapes optimized to sharpen different devices with more complex curves) against which the edges of a blade are worked at an acute angle until sharp.  That’s fine but whetstones are often used with a cutting fluid (water or an oil), both to enhance the sharpening and carry away swarf (the tiny fragments of metal lost from a blade).  A whetstone may thus be used wet or dry but fortunately, the term “wet whetstone” has always been avoided and the variations are instead styled water stones (also waterstones) or oil stones (also oilstones).

Japanese Natural Whetstone.

Whetstones may be cut wholly from natural stone or modern composites.  The natural product (an there are cults among the advocates of the various types), is formed usually of some form of quartz, and documented since antiquity are the locations of the quarries which produce the whetstones able to provide a blade with the sharpest edge although recent research seems to indicate there’s little difference in the results it’s possible to achieve but a huge gulf in the efficiency with which one does the job compared with another and it’s thought the ease of operation was as much a factor in historic preferences as the fineness of the edge.  The classical whetstones, being a natural product were subject also to much variation in appearance and the more pleasing or rare have always been prized, some now collector items, bought to be displayed rather than used for their historic purpose.

The synthetic composites are made usually with a type of ceramic such as silicon carbide (carborundum) or aluminum oxide (corundum), held together with a bonded abrasive.  Popular in industry and commerce because they offer a faster cutting action than natural stone, they have the advantage of being able to be fabricated as a double-block, coarse grit on one side, fine on the other, thus enabling the one reversible piece to be used instead of two.  Unlike a natural stone, the consistency of particle size, distribution and density can be almost perfectly replicated throughout and although artisans may still hanker for the look and feel of real stone, it’s admitted the modern synthetics are usually now superior; the ability to integrate nano-sized particles meaning the construction of composites is now almost infinitely variable.

Dalstrong’s summary of sharpening techniques when using their synthetic composite whetstones.

Borderline

Borderline (pronounced bawr-der-lahyn)

(1) On or near a border or boundary; a border; dividing line; line of demarcation.

(2) Uncertain; indeterminate; debatable; an indeterminate position between two conditions.

(3) Not quite meeting accepted, expected, or average standards.

(4) In psychiatry, as Borderline Personality Disorder, a descriptor of a personality disorder characterized by instability in many areas, as mood, identity, self-image and behavior and often manifested by impulsive actions, suicide attempts, inappropriate anger, or depression. The abbreviation is BPD.

1847: A compound word (also as border-line), created to describe a "strip of land along a frontier" as distinct from the actual line of a border, the construct being border + line.  Border was inherited from the Middle English bordure, from the Old French bordure & bordeure, from border (to border), from bort & bord (a border), of Germanic origin akin and to the Middle High German borte (border, trim) and the German Borte (ribbon, trimming); doublet of bordure.  Line, influenced in Middle English by the Middle French ligne (line), was from the Latin linea, from līneus (flaxen; a flaxen thing) from līnum (flax).  The Middle French ligne was from the Old Danish likna, derived with the inchoative suffix -ne from lig (similar) and was related to the Swedish likna, the English liken and the Middle Low German līkenen.  It replaced galīkōną, an older verb without -n, hence the Old English ġelīcian, the German gleichen and the Gothic galeikōn.  As an adjective meaning "verging on" it is attested from 1903, originally in medical jargon to describe various conditions but from the 1930s, it became most associated with metal health, the diagnosis of the condition Borderline Personality Disorder beginning in 1938 and evolving over several decades.

Borderline Personality Disorder

In clinical psychiatry, although the number of borderline conditions has increased, it’s only the concepts of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and the Schizotypal Personality which are claimed to have adequate diagnostic reliability, the parameters of both first codified in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III (1980)).  The fourth edition (DSM-IV-TR (2000)), established the most commonly followed criteria for BPD and in DSM-5 (2013), these were extended to a remarkable sixteen headings in seven (A-G) categories in what appeared to be a kind of clinical mopping-up of symptoms suffered by those not able, for whatever reason, to be diagnosed with something more specific.  Indeed, the all-encompassing taxonomy appears rendered superfluous by Criterion E which seems just about to sum it up.

Criterion A: Moderate or greater impairment in personality functioning; two or more of the following criteria: (1) Identity: Markedly impoverished, poorly developed, or unstable self-image, often associated with excessive self-criticism; chronic feelings of emptiness; dissociative states under stress. (2) Self-direction: Instability in goals, aspirations, values, or career plans. (3) Empathy: Compromised ability to recognize the feelings and needs of others associated with interpersonal hypersensitivity (i.e., prone to feel slighted or insulted); perceptions of others selectively biased toward negative attributes or vulnerabilities. (4) Intimacy: Intense, unstable, and conflicted close relationships, marked by mistrust, neediness, and anxious preoccupation with real or imagined abandonment; close relationships often viewed in extremes of idealization and devaluation and alternating between over-involvement and withdrawal.

Criterion B: Four or more of the following seven pathological personality traits must be present: (5) Emotional liability: Unstable emotional experiences and frequent mood changes; emotions that are easily aroused, intense, and/or out of proportion to events and circumstances. (6) Anxiousness: Intense feelings of nervousness, tenseness, or panic, often in reaction to interpersonal stresses; worry about the negative effects of past unpleasant experiences and future negative possibilities; feeling fearful, apprehensive, or threatened by uncertainty; fears of falling apart or losing control. (7) Separation insecurity: Fears of rejection by and/or separation from significant others, associated with fears of excessive dependency and complete loss of autonomy. (8) Depressivity: Frequent feelings of being down, miserable, and/or hopeless; difficulty recovering from such moods; pessimism about the future; pervasive shame; feelings of inferior self-worth; thoughts of suicide and suicidal behavior. (9) Impulsivity: Acting on the spur of the moment in response to immediate stimuli; acting on a momentary basis without a plan or consideration of outcomes; difficulty establishing or following plans; a sense of urgency and self-harming behavior under emotional distress. (10) Risk-taking: Engagement in dangerous, risky, and potentially self-damaging activities, unnecessarily and without regard to consequences; lack of concern for one’s limitations and denial of the reality of the personal danger. (11) Hostility: Persistent or frequent angry feelings; anger or irritability in response to minor slights and insults.

Criterion C: (12) The impairments in personality functioning and the individual’s personality trait expression are relatively inflexible and pervasive across a broad range of personal and social situations.

Criterion D: (13) The impairments in personality functioning and the individual’s personality trait expression are relatively stable across time with onsets that can be traced back at least to adolescence or early adulthood.

Criterion E: (14) The impairments in personality functioning and the individual’s personality trait expression are not better explained by another mental disorder.

Criterion F: (15) The impairments in personality functioning and the individual’s personality trait expression are not attributable to a substance (eg, a drug of abuse, medication, exposure to a toxin) or a general medical condition (eg, severe head trauma).

Criterion G: (16) The impairments in personality functioning and the individual’s personality trait expression are not better understood as normal for the individual’s developmental stage or the socio-cultural environment.

The wide BPD net cast in DSM-5 pleased the psychiatrists but in recent years, there’s been interest in changing the name of BPD, a movement led not the profession but by those diagnosed with the condition, the creation of pressure-groups now greatly assisted by social media.  The objections seem to be that BPD (1) somehow marginalizes the sufferers in the hierarchy of mental illness, (2) fails to capture the underlying issues and mechanisms involved in producing its symptoms and (3), denigrates and even invalidates the very existence of their condition, the word “borderline” suggesting their symptoms aren’t sufficiently severe to be a “real” condition.  In that sense, the word does have loaded connotations, “borderline” used first by 1930s psychoanalysts to describe patients whose symptoms lay between psychosis and neurosis but to modern lay-persons, a common interpretation is that the condition “borders” on being a “real” illness.  Some even object to “disorder” but most accept it; they’d just prefer to be diagnosed with a more significant, and fashionable, depressive disorder.

Although it seems hardly more respectable, Emotional Intensity Disorder emerged from a survey as the popular choice of patients, beating out Emotional Regulation Disorder, Emotional Dysregulation Disorder, Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder, Impulsive Personality Disorder & Impulsive-Emotional Dysregulation Disorder.  The clinicians liked Emotional Regulation Disorder but were out-voted.  Unimpressed by either, the committee working on the revision of DSM-5 proposed Borderline Type (which sounds like a sceptical psychiatrist’s casual dismissal of emos), but noted “no decision has yet been made.”

Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin borderline, 1961-1990 

Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967; FRG Chancellor 1949-1963) at Checkpoint Charlie in 1962; car is a Mercedes-Benz 300d (W189).   The 300 was produced in four generations (W186 1951-1957 & W189 1957-1962) and became known informally as the “300 Adenauer”, the association prompted by the chancellor using six (cabriolets, sedans and a landaulet) 300s during his long term in office.  The 300d is also associated with Pope John XXIII (1881–1963; pope 1958-1963) who was presented with one in 1960 and it served as the official papal vehicle until 1965 when Paul VI (1897-1978; pope 1963-1978) took delivery of a Mercedes-Benz 600; both cars were high-roofed landaulets.

Although the most famous, the crossing point in the Berlin Wall (1961-1989) on the borderline between East and West Berlin and named Checkpoint Charlie (Checkpoint C to the military) was one of three, all known by their designation drawn from the NATO phonetic alphabet, the now forgotten pair being Checkpoint Alpha at Helmstedt and Checkpoint Bravo at Wannsee.  The Soviets (officially) didn't use the NATO designation, instead calling Checkpoint Charlie the КПП Фридрихштрассе (KPP Fridrikhshtrasse (Friedrichstraße Crossing Point)) while the government of the GDR (German Democratic Republic (East Germany)) listed it as the Grenzübergangsstelle (Border Crossing Point) Friedrich-Zimmerstraße.

Checkpoint Charlie, 1963.

In one of the charming coincidences of the Cold War, Checkpoint Charlie was located at the intersection of Friedrichstraße, Zimmerstraße & Mauerstraße (which for historical reasons means "Wall Street").  It became the only well-know crossing point because for reasons of security and administrative convenience, it was the sole designated crossing point (whether for foot or vehicular traffic) for foreigners and members of the three Allied (the France, the UK & the US), (previously occupying) forces stationed in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG (West Germany)).  The manned structures associated with Checkpoint Charlie were also in a location which lent itself to photography from a number of angles and replicas were built by film studios producing the many productions made during the Cold War.  The Cafe Adler (Eagle Café), adjacent to Checkpoint Charlie was for decades one of West Berlin's tourist hotspots.

Checkpoint Charlie, 1982 showing the larger aluminum building which that year replaced the original wooden hut.

To those accustomed to seeing the gargantuan installations the US military tend to erect wherever they take root, Checkpoint Charlie must have been a surprise, a modest (though enlarged in 1962) and obviously temporary wooden hut was for more than twenty years all that stood on the western side, the little building replaced in 1982 only because it had become so dilapidated it was literally falling down around the guards stationed within and even then, the metal structure which replaced it, while larger, was no more permanent.  However, if people were surprised, it’s doubtful many were disappointed, the compact architecture providing a single point of focus and even in the pre-selfie era at one glance what tourists could take in was evocative of the Cold War cinema with which so many were familiar.

Checkpoint Charlie, 1970.

The attitude of the allied powers reflected their political position that while obviously a line of control, the Berlin Wall was not a legitimate international borderline and thus only small, temporary buildings were required.  To the authorities in the Kremlin and the GDR, whatever some might suggest was the position in international law, the Berlin Wall was a borderline and thus on their side the infrastructure quickly grew to include watchtowers, a military barracks and a multi-lane, enclosed clearing zone in which those wishing to cross could be interrogated and searched.

Checkpoint Charlie, 2020 showing replica “1961” hut and sandbags.

The Berlin Wall “fell” in November 1989 and the checkpoint booth was removed some six months later although, because East and West Germany remained legally separate countries, the checkpoint at the point of the borderline was retained as the designated official crossing-point for foreigners and diplomats an arrangement ended in October 1990 when German reunification was formalized in law.  Checkpoint Charlie has since remained one of Berlin's tourist attractions and, just as some parts of the once demolished wall have been re-created because supply of the real thing wasn’t enough to meet demand, the municipal government soon erected an almost exact replica of the checkpoint as it stood in 1961 although the quality of the construction is said to be rather more robust than the original and it’s expected to enjoy a longer life.  Better to capture the flavor, even the sandbags which gradually were removed during the 1970s are carefully stacked in place.  During the tourist season, selfies are now taken by the thousand.

Wet & Dry

Wet (pronounced whet)

(1) Moistened, covered, or soaked with water or some other liquid.

(2) In a liquid form or state.

(3) Something that is or makes wet, as water or other liquid; moisture.

(4) Damp weather; rain.

(5) In historic (US prohibition era) use, a person in favor of allowing the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages; still used as a descriptor of political candidates or activists in “dry” counties who advocate the status be changed to “wet” but now substantially a retronym.

(6) To make (something) wet, as by moistening or soaking (sometimes followed by through or down).

(7) To urinate on or in (applied usually to pets or children).

Pre 900: From the Middle English wet wett & wette (past participle of weten (to wet)), (wet, moistened), from the Old English wǣtan (to wet, moisten, water), replacing the Middle English weet, from the Old English wǣt, from the Proto-Germanic wētijaną (to wet, make wet), from the primitive Indo-European wed- (water, wet), also the source of “water”.  It was cognate with the Scots weit, weet, wat & wete (to wet), the Saterland Frisian wäitje (to wet; drench) & wäit (wet), the Icelandic væta (to wet) & votur (wet), the North Frisian wiat, weet & wäit (wet), the Old Frisian wēt, the Old Slavonic vedro (bucket), the Swedish and Norwegian våt (wet), the Danish våd (wet), the Faroese vátur (“wet”) and the Old Norse vātr; akin to water.  Wet is a noun, verb & adjective, wetter, wettability & wetness are nouns, wetly an adverb, wetted & wetting are verbs, and wettish, wetter, wettest & wettable are adjectives.  The noun plural is wets and the homophone whet (in accents with the wine-whine merger).

Words in some way related to wet include damp, drench, misty, drizzle, mizzle, humid, dank, fog, mist, muggy, rain, slippery, snow, soak, sodden, soggy, stormy, dip, douse, drench, hose, irrigate & liquid.  For all related words, context and the history of use define the relationship (of extent, type etc).  For example, to drench or soak something implies saturate whereas moistening means only some degree of dampness whereas to soak something suggests an immersion of extended duration until saturated.  With reference to rain, which can always be referred to as wet weather, mizzle & drizzle are expressions of graduation which suggest a lighter fall.

The multi-media US personality Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West (b 1977)) with Australian architect & model Bianca Censori (b 1995) in "Wet" themed top, Huacai Intercontinental Hotel,Beijing, China, September 2024.

The word wet has proved convenient shorthand for many technical purposes including in calligraphy and fountain pens where it referred to depositing a large amount of ink from the nib or the feed.  To audio engineers, a “wet sound” recording is one to which the audio effects have been applied.  In aviation, it’s a reference to having used the afterburners or water injection for increased engine thrust (maximum wet thrust can be more than twice maximum dry thrust (afterburners consuming huge quantities of fuel)).  In mining a “wet extraction” is a method using fluids whereas a dry extraction relies on the employment of dry heat or fusion.  In soldering, to wet is to form an intermetallic bond between a solder and a metal substrate.  In bench-top science, to wet is to employ a liquid (typically water) as a method of chemical analysis.  A wetback (also called a wet-heater) was a form of heater which in addition to radiating heat to an external space was also attached to the building’s hot water supply, thus providing in whole or in part the energy used to maintain its temperature (wetback was applied also from 1924 as a derogatory description of undocumented Mexican immigrant to the US, a reference to their usually sodden state after crossing the Rio Grande.  There presumably have been bed-wetters (involuntary urination while sleeping) since there have been beds but etymologists can find no instance of the term bed-wetting prior to 1844 (it has also gained an idiomatic identity in politics (qv)).  In ecology, a wetland is an area where water covers the soil, or is present either at or near the surface of the soil all year or for varying periods of time during the year, including during the growing season.  The wet-nurse, though an ancient profession, was first so described in the 1610s.

As vulgar slang, as applied to women, it referred to the sexual arousal indicated by the vulva being moistened with vaginal secretions (which may or may not be related to the word “moist” being often rated as the most disliked in the English language).  The sexual slang associated with men is the “wet dream” which most etymologists insist dates only from 1851 although Middle English in the same sense had ludificacioun (an erotic dream), these nocturnal adventures mentioned by Henry VIII in letters as proof of his virility, called into doubt by his inability to be aroused by one of the wives he didn’t wish to keep.

Wet is widely applied in idiomatic use: To be “wet behind the ears” is to be inexperienced; a “wet blanket” (from 1871, from use of blankets drenched in water to smother fires (the phrase is attested in this literal sense from the 1660s)) is someone who spoils the fun of others by failing to join or disapproving of their activities; to “wet one's whistle” is to have one or more alcoholic drinks, an allusion to the idea intoxicants stimulate sociability; in politics a “bed wetter” is a politician who reacts nervously to every passing vicissitude, the label usually applied by those with safe seats to those holding marginal electorates; to be “all wet” is (1) to be mistaken or (2) a really bad idea, both used since the early 1920s (thought built on the earlier sense of “ineffectual”, perhaps ultimately from the circa 1700 slang meaning "drunken"; in computing there’s hardware and software and those working in AI (artificial intelligence) refer to the human brain as wetware; In crime and espionage, wet-work is a euphemistic reference to jobs involving assassination and known also as a wet affair, a wet job & wet stuff, all phrases alluding presumably to other people’s blood.  In historic UK slang, a wet was someone thought ineffectual, feeble or with no strength of character, a weak or sentimental person (although this use faded as the specific political construction (qv) which emerged in the 1980s prevailed.

Dry (pronounced drahy)

(1) Free from moisture or excess moisture; not moist; not wet.

(2) In climatic matters, having or characterized by little or no rain.

(3) Characterized by absence, deficiency, or failure of natural or ordinary moisture.

(4) Not under, in, or on water.

(5) Not now containing or yielding water or other liquid; depleted or empty of liquid.

(6) In dairying and other forms of animal-based milk production, a beast not yielding milk (also used by analogy for oil wells).

(7) The absence of lachrymosity, free from tears.

(8) Drained or evaporated away.

(9) Desiring drink; thirsty; causing thirst.

(10) A food (typically toast) served or eaten without butter, conserves (jam, jelly), honey etc.

(11) Of food, lacking enough moisture or juice to be satisfying or succulent.

(12) Of bread and bakery products, stale.

(13) Of or relating to non-liquid substances or commodities (usually as dry goods, dry measure; dry provisions etc).

(14) Of wines (though now also used of beer, cocktails and other beverages), not sweet.

(15) Characterized by or favoring prohibition of the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors for use in beverages (mostly prohibition-era US but still a term used in political debates in “dry” counties).

(16) As a general descriptor, anything plain; bald; unadorned; something expressed in a straight-faced, matter-of-fact way.

(17) Dull; uninteresting:

(18) Indifferent; cold; unemotional.

(19) An unproductive period.

(20) Of lumber, fully seasoned.

(21) Of masonry construction, built without fresh mortar or cement.

(22) Of a wall, ceiling, etc in an interior, finished without the use of fresh plaster.

(23) In ceramics unglazed (if deliberate) or insufficiently glazed (if in error).

(24) In art, hard and formal in outline, or lacking mellowness and warmth in color.

(25) To make something free from moisture (or with its moisture substantially reduced.

(26) Something tedious, barren, boring, tiresome, jejune.

(27) Of wit, shrewd and keen in an impersonal, sarcastic, or laconic way.

(28) In sheep farming, a ewe without a lamb after the mating season

(29) In electronics, an imperfectly soldered electrical joint (where the solder has not adhered to the metal), thus reducing conductance

(30) In food preservation, to preserve (meat, vegetables, fruit etc) by removing the moisture.

(31) In chemistry as anhydrous, free from or lacking water in any state, regardless of the presence of other liquids.

(32) In audio engineering, a sound recording free from applied audio effects (especially reverberations).

(33) In animal breeding, an impotent male beast (applied especially to bulls).

(34) In the rituals of certain Christian denominations, of a mass, service, or rite: involving neither consecration nor communion.

In acting (especially on stage, to forget one’s lines.

Pre 900: From the Middle English drye, dryge, drüȝe & drie (without moisture, comparatively free from water or fluid), from the Old English drӯge, from the Proto-Germanic draugiz (source also of the Middle Low German dröge, the Middle Dutch druge, the Dutch droog, the Old High German truckan & trucchon, the German trocken and the Old Norse draugr), from the Germanic root dreug- (dry), from the primitive Indo-European dherg (to strengthen; become hard), from dher (to hold, support).  Dry is a noun, verb and adjective, dryable, drier, driest, dryer (or dryest) are adjectives, dryly an adverb, dries, drying & dried are verbs and dryness is a noun.  The noun plural is drys or dries; the spelling drie is long obsolete.

The meaning "barren" dates from the mid fourteenth century.  As applied to “persons showing no emotion, use emerged circa 1200; of humor or jests (delivered without show of pleasantry, caustic, sarcastic), it’s of early fifteenth century origin (and implied in dryly).  The sense of "uninteresting, tedious" was from the 1620s.  Of wines, brandy etc which were "free from sweetness or fruity flavor", use dates from circa 1700.  Dry was first used of places prohibiting alcoholic drink in 1870 (although, ad-hoc, there had been “dry feasts” & “dry festivals” at which no alcohol was served since the late fifteenth century and the colloquial dry (prohibitionist) entered US political slang in 1888.  Prior to and during the prohibition era in the US, the “drys” were those who supported prohibition and in the isolated counties in the US where it’s still imposed, they remain a (local) political force.  Dry goods, first so named in the 1560s were those dispensed in dry, not liquid, measure.  Dry land (that not under the sea) as a concept (first in the law of real property) was from the early thirteenth century.  The dry-nurse (a back formation from wet-nurse) was “one who attends and feeds a child but does not suckle it", use dating from the 1590s.  The dry-run (rehearsal) dates from 1941 and was adopted by the military and just about everyone else dates from 1941.  Dry ice "solid carbon dioxide" became available in 1925.  Dry out in the drug addiction sense is from 1967.

The first process of dry-cleaning (to clean clothes or textiles without using water) appears to have been advertised first in 1817.  The long-known "fungal decay in timber" was in 1779 first described as dry rot, the figurative sense of "concealed or unsuspected inward degeneration" dating from 1821.  As a hair-drying device, the first use of blow-dry appears to be a surprisingly late 1971.  The process of preserving vegetables as freeze-dried was a wartime development in the US, first announced as a patented commercial process in 1946, the earlier sun-dried documented since the 1630s although the technique dates from early human culture.  The dry sense of humor (with apparent unintentional humor or sarcasm) was noted first in the early fifteenth century, dryly meaning "without moisture" in the 1560s and "without affection" by the 1620s.  The drywall (plasterboard, sheetrock; gypsum-based manufactured panel used in interior construction) was first sold in 1952, the earlier use (1778) of dry wall meaning (a wall built without mortar).  A drier (used since the early fourteenth century as a surname) as “one who dries and bleaches cloth," agent noun from the verb dry (that which dries or is used in drying), dated from the 1520s.  Dryer was used to describe a piece of machinery in 1848 although the first drying-machine appears to have entered service as early as 1819.

Wet & Dry

Wet and dry must be one of the most obvious and commonly cited dichotomies in English and there are a number of noted examples.

Perilli's Dry, Intermediate and Wet tyres for use in Formula One.

In motorsport, there are wet and dry tyres, the former (obviously) used when the track is wet and the latter (also called “slicks”) when the surface is dry.  There are also various flavors of “intermediate tread” tyres for conditions which are damp rather than wet.  The difference is that dry tyres have no tread (the grooves cut into the contact surface) pattern, the purpose of which is to provide passages into which the water is forced to be expelled at the sides.  In the early 1970s, there were competitions with rules which demanded the use of street tyres (ie those used on street cars as opposed to racing rubber) and some drivers discovered a unique property of BF Goodrich’s square-shouldered T/A Radial was that if the tread was (in advance) carefully worn down to a certain point, it would behave much like a slick and last long enough not to have to be replaced for the duration of most races (or until fuel-stop sessions in endurance events).

In the law of real property, there are wet and dry leases, typically issued in conjunction when handling riparian property.  The leases are often divided because it’s not uncommon for the one commercial operation to have part of a business on land and part on water (such as a marina or docking facility) and being very different, may have different operators.  It’s thus normal commercial practice for a head-lessor (perhaps a hotel operator) to enter into both a dry lease (for the hotel property on land) and the wet lease (for whatever happens on the water) and then sub-lease the wet lease to someone with the appropriate expertise.

Wet and dry sandpaper is the tip of the sanding iceberg.  Wet sanding, which is sanding with the addition of water to act as a lubricant, is less abrasive than dry sanding, and results in a smoother finish and whenever possible, it’s best to wet-sand when finishing a project.  Dry sanding removes more material, and smooths rough material more quickly and if the ultimate in smoothness isn’t required, is the choice of many.  So, wet sand for a super smooth finish but the two are of course frequently combined, dry sanding first to remove most of the unwanted material before wet sanding.

Lindsay Lohan in Cynthia Rowley wetsuit.

In diving, wetsuits and drysuits use different engineering but operate on a similar principle.  Wetsuits use a layer of water (heated by the wearer's body) to provide insulation while a drysuit uses a layer of air and is completely water-proof, stopping water from coming into contact with the skin.  Wetsuits are made from rubber neoprene and are designed so the diver’s body heat is retained but, unlike drysuits, are not waterproof.  For that reason, a loose fitting wetsuit is suitable only for warm-water conditions; skin-tight wetsuits are ideal for cold water surf because they are warm and permit more movement than drysuits.  Where the drysuit excels is in predominately out-of-water conditions such as kayaking, paddle-boarding or water-based photography.  For extreme winter conditions a drysuit is really the only choice because for warmth, additional layers can be added beneath the suit, something not possible with a wetsuit.

In northern Australia, the concepts of spring, summer, autumn (fall) & winter really don’t make climatic sense the way defined seasons do in more temperate regions.  Instead, there’s just the wet and the dry.  The dry is long and hot, rain is rare and towards the end of the dry there is the “build-up” which unfolds over a month or more as the air becomes warmer and heavier, the clouds in the evenings begin to darken and the humidity becomes increasingly oppressive.  Locals call it the period of mango madness because as the fruit ripens, emotional instability is apparent in some, mood swings induced by the inexorable rise in heat and humidity.  The wet usually begins in late November or early December and is marked by heavy monsoonal downpours, spectacular lightning, increased cyclone activity and a rise in crimes of violence.

Makita 20 litre Wet Dry Vacuum Cleaner 1000W.

Wet and dry vacuum cleaners are devices regarded with some awe because we’re all schooled to take care to ensure water is kept way from electrical appliances yet the manufacturers of these things encourage us to suck water into them.  They’re obviously of great utility in handling wet floors or sodden carpets but can be used anywhere where something wet is the problem and suction the answer such as cleaning hot tubs or removing surface condensation.

During the 1980s, in the corrosive, gut-wrenching world of Tory politics, the factions became not quite formalized but certainly well-understood as the “wets and drys”.  The origin lay in the use of the term “wet” which the right-wing fanatics (of which there were a few in the Thatcher government) applied to their less hard-line colleagues (defined as those not in favor of repealing the twentieth century).  Wet was an old term of derision in historic UK slang, someone thought ineffectual, feeble or with no strength of character, a weak or sentimental person.  In an effort to retaliate, the wets labelled the fanatics “the drys” but this backfired because the drys loved the idea and were soon describing themselves thus' presumable because while "a bit wet" had long been an insult, "dry humor" had always been thought clever and sophisticated.