Revenant

[Dr. Goodword]

• revenant •

Pronunciation: re-vê-nênt • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. Someone returning after a long absence. 2. Someone returning from the dead.

Notes: Today's Good Word is remarkable in its rarity. How commonly do we say, "Welcome, stranger" or (down South) "I haven't seen you in a coon's age" to someone we haven't seen in a long time? Well, everyone we say such things to is a revenant—especially if we thought they were dead. This word is a lexical orphan, except it may be also be used as an adjective, as 'a revenant cousin'.

In Play: Rip Van Winkle, of course, is the most famous revenant, but then all ghosts are equally good revenants. The frequency of circumstances in which we meet revenants belies its rarity: "Family reunions are enjoyable for all the revenants you see." This word may be applied jokingly to someone who has missed work for several days: "Well, look who's decided to come to work: our old revenant, Charlie!"

Word History: Today's Good Word is another contribution by the French language. In French revenant is the present participle of revenir "to return". Revenue, that which is returned, is the feminine past participle of the same verb. This verb comprises re- "back, again" + venir "to come". Venir, believe it or not, goes back to the same source as English come: Proto-Indo-European gwe(m)- "to go, come". Greek bainein "to walk" shares the same origin. We met this word in the Good Word history of acerbate (Today we must thank Sue Gold of Westtown School and a former student for recommending this Good Word.)

[George Kovac]

What a marvelous word!

Here in Miami one of my favorite restaurants serves a sampler of about a dozen different styles of Peruvian inspired ceviche. My personal choice is a bracing, spicy combination called "vuelve a la vida," roughly "return to life," a delicious elixir of life that would awaken Lazarus.

For the revenant foodies who browse this site, I note that the menu describes "Vuelve a la vida" as "shrimp, calamari, octopus & scallops with a tomato sauce prepared with citrus juices, cilantro, serrano chile, onion, tomato & olive oil, with avocado."

[call_copse]

Don't make me hungry already Mr K! The only ceviche I have tried I have made myself, I did enjoy it and would like to try more.

In fantasy fiction and video games the term revenant tends to refer to intelligent zombie like creatures, perhaps given some purpose to return to life and haunt the realm of the living. Or indeed a hero returned from the dead, e.g. Clint in High Plains Drifter.

[George Kovac]

More unearthed treasures from my recent visit to a used book store in San Francisco. Seamus Heaney used “revenant” in his poem “Two Lorries,” about the bombing of the bus station in Magherafelt (Northern Ireland) during the Troubles. The use of the word is perfect: it quickly and efficiently pivots the poem, which began as a nicely observed, if slightly boring, bit about ordinary life in this small town, into a horrific, dream-like vision of the narrator’s mother; how life changes in an instant; how one lorry can be that of the coalman and the next that of a bomber, the ashes of one confused with the ashes of the other. “Revenant” is essential to realizing that poetic vision.

Here is the relevant excerpt:


As time fastforwards and a different lorry
Groans into shot, up Broad Street, with a payload
That will blow the bus station to dust and ashes ...
After that happened, I'd a vision of my mother,
A revenant on the bench where I would meet her
In that cold-floored waiting room in Magherafelt,
Her shopping bags full up with shovelled ashes.