Inculcate
Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 11:12 pm
• inculcate •
Pronunciation: in-kêl-kayt, in-kêl-kayt • Hear it!Part of Speech: Verb, transitive
Meaning: To thoroughly teach by frequent repetition or other strong measures; to firmly embed a concept in someone's mind.
Notes: Today's Good Word bears a slight tinge of pejorativity, though it may be used quite positively in the right context. It has produced a large and illustrious family of derivations: inculcator, someone who inculcates, inculcation, the process itself, while both inculcatory and inculcative serve as adjectives.
In Play: Inculcation implies very thorough training: "My mother inculcated good table manners in me so thoroughly that even today I cannot enjoy a meal if I see a salad fork inside the dinner fork." Inculcation also implies thorough, permanent learning: "I don't think anyone can inculcate Gladys Friday with the importance of coming to work on time and finishing out the day."
Word History: The pejorative sense of this Good Word comes from its Latin ancestor: inculcatus "forced upon", the past participle of inculcare "to force upon". This verb was created from the preposition in "in, on" + calcare "to trample, trounce", itself derived from calx (calc-s) "heel". (Teachers of old were much less restrained in their methods than today.) The root of the Latin word for "heel", kalk-, shows up in Lithuanian kulnas "heel", and a few others, but with no spectacular results. (We have thanked Mark Bailey, a Grand Panjandrum at the Alpha Agora, for Good Words like this one enough that our gratitude by this time should be well inculcated.)