• unction •
Pronunciation: êngk-shên • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. The act of anointing as part of a rite or healing. 2. Ointment, unguent, or a soothing balm used for healing. 3. Affected earnestness or charm intended to soothe or comfort.
Notes: The family of today's word is quite popular among our subscribers, for we have already run two lexical relatives, an adjective, unctuous and a noun, unguent. It comes with a negative adjective, unctionless, too.
In Play: This word has a literal and figurative sense: "The unction the nurse spread across Heather Field's back didn't help at all but the words of comfort from Pete Moss at her close friend's funeral were unction to her soul." Sometimes today's word carries a pejorative connotation: "The unction in Pete's eulogy to her friend, about whom he never spoke charitably when she was alive, grated that same soul."
Word History: Today's Good Word was seized from Latin unction(n) "anointing", based on unctus, the past participle of ungere "to anoint." Latin restructured PIE ongwo- "to anoint", remnants of which we find in Sanskrit anakti "to anoint", Armenian aucanem "I anoint", Swiss German dialect anken "butter", Romanian unt "butter", and Welsh ymenyn "butter". We find no current descendants in Germanic languages, but we do find them among the descendants of Latin, such as French onction, Italian unzione, Portuguese unção, Romanian ungere, and Spanish unción. (Now a word of gratitude to Gary Cook for spotting the interest in today's semantically intricate Good Word and sharing it with us.)
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