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• shudder •

Pronunciation: shêd-êr • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Verb, intransitive (No direct object)

Meaning: 1. To tremble or shiver convulsively, as from dread, cold or disgust. 2. To vibrate violently, shake mightily, as an aircraft might shudder when it hits an air pocket.

Notes: This word is a rarity: an authentic unborrowed English word! This means the present participle, shuddering, serves as action noun and active adjective. Three other English adjectives, shuddery, shuddersome, and shudderful seem to have fallen by the wayside, though my spellchecker likes the first two. This verb may be used alone as a countable noun.

In Play: This word is closely associated with fear: "I shudder to think what Jerry Mander would do if elected to office." This shudder is small in comparison with the shake of a machine: "The generator shuddered when first cranked but then spun on smoothly."

Word History: Today's Good Word was probably lent to Middle English by Middle Dutch schuderen or Middle Low German schoderen, which we see now in Dutch schudden "to shake, waver". Both the old verbs were made from Proto-Germanic skudjana- "to shake", source also of German schaudern "shudder, shiver". Proto-German built its word on PIE (s)keut- "to shake", which we find underlying Lithuanian kutenti "to tickle", Latvian kutināt "to tickle", German schütteln "to shake", and Albanian shkund "to shake (off)". (Now let's give Lew Jury an e-ovation for yet another excellent Good Word of the many he has supplied since 2005.)

And of course, sometimes written as judder. The train driver slammed on the emergency brakes and the train juddered to a halt. The meaning is close to identical and so it is, I presume, from the same root.

I have inherited from my father, a twelve (slim) volume course on how to improve one's memory - by a bearded fellow ostensibly called Dr Bruno Furst. Dad passed it to me in 1966 having flunked Volume six because he couldn't remember to continue the course. One thing I recall, because I still use the technique quite successfully, is to remember numbers (passwords and the like) by creating words where each number is represented by a consonant sound. Of course you have to relate somehow, the word with the nature of the number. But that's another skill. The point though, is that the number 6 is represented by a 'j' or an 'sh'. J because it is a little like an inverted 6, and sh because the sound is so similar to a j.