Hybrid

Use this forum to discuss past Good Words.
User avatar
Dr. Goodword
Site Admin
Posts: 7417
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:28 am
Location: Lewisburg, PA
Contact:

Hybrid

Postby Dr. Goodword » Tue Apr 28, 2015 8:12 pm

• hybrid •


Pronunciation: hai-brid • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. An offspring produced by genetically disparate parents, a half-breed, cross-breed, mongrel, as a mule is a hybrid of a donkey and a horse. 2. Anything of mixed origin or composition, as the word television is a hybrid of Greek (tele-) and Latin (vision).

Notes: This word comes with a large family of related words. First, there is a verb, hybridize, and all the words it implies: hybridization, hybridizable, and hybridizer. Someone occupied by hybridization is a hybridist. We also have at our disposal a rarely used adjective, hybridous "having the character of a hybrid".

In Play: Driving along the highways in rural Pennsylvania, I frequently see signs in front of cornfields touting new hybrids of corn. However, flora and fauna hybrids are not the only kind of hybrids: "Lois Green can't afford an all electric car, so she drives a hybrid (electric and gasoline)."

Word History: Today's Good Word comes ultimately from Latin hybrida, a variant of hibrida "mongrel", specifically the offspring of a tame sow and a wild boar. But the evidence trail stops here. Latin probably took the word from Greek, since it seems somehow related to hubris, also spelled hybris. However, no one has yet unraveled the semantic problems this phonetic relation produces. (We all owe our pure, unmixed gratitude to Joakim Larsson of Sweden for suggesting today's Good Word.)
• The Good Dr. Goodword

User avatar
Slava
Great Grand Panjandrum
Posts: 8040
Joined: Thu Sep 28, 2006 9:31 am
Location: Finger Lakes, NY

Re: Hybrid

Postby Slava » Sun Jul 16, 2023 9:21 am

Perhaps the relation between hubris and hybrid is that someone way back when felt that it was pure hubris (as hubris frequently is) to create hybrids of things, creation being the realm of the gods.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.


Return to “Good Word Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Ahrefs [Bot] and 45 guests