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• tonsorial •

Pronunciation: tahn-so-ree-êl • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: Related to a barber, or what he does.

Notes: So what do you do when you need an adjective that refers to a barber or his work? Barberish (1440) and barberly (1573) didn't last long and apparently appeared in print only once. Barbarian is taken and barberous is too close to barbarous. Today's Good Word solves the problem. It also provides an adverb: tonsorially. If we are brave, we could surrender barber altogether and complete the set by using tonsor instead. Barber originally limited barbers to the treatment of beards, since it is based on French barbe.

In Play: We can use this word around home or at the office: "Pierce Dearing needs tonsorial attention: his hair is getting rather shaggy." We could say things like this about boys who choose those weird hairdos with spikes and colors: "Lindsey Woolsey's head is always a site for tonsorial creativity—not a site for sore eyes."

Word History: Today's Good Word was created by adding the adjectival suffix -al to Latin tonsor "a shaver, barber, shearer". Tonsor came from tonsus, the past participle of tondere "to shear, shave". Tonsure, referring to the partial or whole shaving of the head as part of a religious rite, shares the same source, Proto-Indo-European tem- "to cut". Latin added a suffix -d, which would have turned the [m] into an [n]. We see the same stem without the -d in epitome from Greek epi- "on, over" + tomos "a cut, section", which was to say, "a cut above". The medical terms referring to operations always include tom-, e.g. appendectomy, lobotomy, tonsilectomy. Which reminds me: today's word is unrelated to tonsil, which comes from tonsillae, literally "small goiters", the diminutive of toles "goiter". (Today's Good Word was recommended by call_copse, a full Lexiterian in the Alpha Agora.)

My dad referred to a haircut as a tonsorialectomy. I still use it occasionally. - cf

I like it!

Weldome cfz3. Post often.

Celtic Monks had a different tonsure than Roman Catholic Monks. When the Celtic Christians of England united with the Roman Catholic Church, the Celts had to adopt the Roman tonsure. There is some disagreement on whether the Celtic Christians were already Roman Catholics. Although opinion leans toward the Celtic Christians being Roman Catholics with a different tonsure, there was much more than that to it. The Celtic Church still exists and it is not Roman Catholic. It is very small. I have attended and participated in a Celtic Mass. Sadly, the Pope will not allow me to participate in a Roman Catholic Mass. I have been invited by some Roman Catholic priests to covertly participate in their masses. I haven't done that yet. Perhaps Pope Francis will close the gap between us and we can all partake of one loaf and one cup.

Can you give a reference to the Celtic Church
Christian or otherwise. Your piqued my curiosity.
I know there is a huge Catholic Church separate
from the Roman Church in Brazil and some here in
US. I'd appreciate it. Would that we could all be
one loaf and one cup. So sorry you are barred.

The only reference I can give for an existing Celtic Church is my personal experience. A Celtic Priest came to a Baptist Church I was working with in England. He performed a ceremony he called a Celtic Mass. I do not know what authority he had. A bunch of Baptists cooperated with him.

As for the historical Celtic Church, there is not agreement amongst historians about it. Not every historian sees it this way.

The barbershop my father took my brother and I to when we were still kids had Tonsorial Shop rather than Barber Shop on its sign.

For anyone interested in Modern Celtic Christianity, here are some references that can be gleaned with a single Google search. It is certain that the Celtic Christian movement is small and fragmented. But I stubbornly refuse to believe that Saint Patrick was a Catholic. You may be surprised that this is also the position of the Roman Catholic Church in which Patrick is only tolerated because the Irish insist on it.

http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/sbet/10-1_006.pdf
Interesting but hard to read.

http://www.christiandoctrine.com/index. ... Itemid=562
Calvinistic claptrap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Christianity
Typical wiki, wishy-washy.

http://www.celticepiscopalchurch.com/
Some good thoughts.

http://www.celticchristiancommunion.org ... nities.htm
A little to sacramental for me, but right on to what I have observed.

http://omniumsanctorumhiberniae.blogspo ... anity.html
Scholarly and anti.

http://www.churchinwales.org.uk/life/heritage/celtic/
More historical than contemporary.

I suggest cave lector be applied