• asinine •
Pronunciation: æ-sê-nain • Hear it!Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: 1. Like or pertaining to an ass (donkey). 2. Stupidly stubborn or obstinate. 3. Stupidly nasty, outrageously stupid.
Notes: The English vocabulary bears an odd consistency: animal names tend to be native Germanic, while the corresponding adjective tends to be of French (ultimately Latin) origin: dog : canine, cat : feline, cow : bovine. Today's adjective is a part of that family of words: burro/donkey : asinine. The shift in meaning is due to the demotion of ass because of its phonetic and semantic convergence with a less savory noun (arse). Another feature of this family of words is that each animal name represents some, usually negative, human quality, including, 'it's a dog' (bad), 'he's a fox' (sly, wily), 'he's a hog' (greedy), 'he's a snake' (deceptive). The noun for asinine is asininity.
In Play: Surprise your friends and amaze your neighbors by occasionally using today's word in its original meaning. Something like, "Portabella's donkeys were enjoying their asinine meal when I arrived". That ought to get their attention. Today the word is used to indicate unreasonable stubbornness or extreme stupidity: "Don't be asinine, Ferris. Eat your mushrooms. My first two husbands loved them."
Word History: The English word is cognate with Old Saxon esil, Dutch ezel, German , Esel, and, beyond Germanic, Lithuanian asilas, Russian osel, Czech osel, and Slovak osol. All probably are ultimately from Latin asinus. The form of asinus suggests it was a loan-word into Latin, because most IE words for 'ass' are loanwords. Together with Greek onos, it is conjectured to be from a language of Asia Minor, perhaps Sumerian ansu. In Romanic tongues the Latin word has become Italian asino, Portuguese and Spanish asno, and French âne. The circumflex on the A in the French word reminds us that there once was an S in the word: Old French asne.