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• sultry •

Pronunciation: sêl-tree • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: 1. Oppressively hot and humid, sweltering. 2. (of women) Sensual, sexually attractive, arousing desire in men.

Notes: Today's Good Word comes with the usual adverb and noun, sultrily and sultriness. It is paralleled by another adjective, sweltry, with the same basic meaning. In fact, sultry is a variant of this adjective. These two words got their wires crossed. We do not use the verb from which sultry is derived, sulter, anymore; we now prefer swelter. But the adjective sweltry has given way to sultry.

In Play: We can ball up the senses of "very hot" and "humid" in this one very Good Word: "The rise of air-conditioning is a major factor in the industrialization of sultry regions, like the southern US states." When we get tired of sexy and hot, this word also works for either of these words, and lifts the level of conversation a bit, too: "Gladys Boise wore a sultry dress to the party, but it only attracted the likes of Phil Anders."

Word History: As mentioned in the Notes, today's word is a variant of sweltry, based on the verb swelter. This verb descended from Middle English swelten "to die (from burning), faint (from the heat)". So, how did we get from death to seduction? Well, the Proto-Indo-European word that today's word came from was swel- "burn slowly, shine". It divided into two words in Old English: swelan "to die" and sweltan "to die". Well, that is exactly what swelan did: it died out. But sweltan remained, though its meaning shifted "to almost die from heat, to faint" in the Middle English period. (We would like to take this opportunity to thank Perry Lassiter, and wish him no sultry weather this summer.)

Jean Philippe Suter sent me a question which I will post here:

Is the root swel behind today's good word also the origin of "sweat," the body's response to sultry conditions? It's a tempting connection to make.

It doesn't seem so. Sweat seems to have come from PIE sweid- "to sweat," source also of Sanskrit svedah "sweat", Greek hidros "sweat", Latin sudor, Lettish swiedri, and Welsh chwys "sweat".

So, how did we get from death to seduction?

That linkage has arisen in other English words as well. John Donne, Shakespeare and the metaphysical poets punningly exploited the word “die” to mean mortal death and, well, not to mince words here, orgasm. Lots of graduate students and assistant professors have published on that theme: just google ““die” as a sexual metaphor in Donne and Shakespeare.”

The connection is also made in French: La petite mort (the little death). It began life as a short loss of consciousness, but took on other meanings.