• rotunda •
Pronunciation: ro-tên-dê • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. A circular building or room, especially one with a dome. 2. A large central area or lobby in a hotel or convention center.
Notes: Simply adding a final A gets us from rotund to rotunda. Closely related words, like rotundity and rotundate, all refer to roundness in general. Rotunda is far more often used than its synonym, rotundo.
In Play: The rotunda Americans hear most about is in Washington: "The House Speaker's press conference was conducted in the Capitol Rotunda." However, we find rotundas all around us: "Marshall's house features a large rotunda at the entrance, said to be a reflection of Marshall's rotund figure."
Word History: Today's Good Word is an undisguised copy of Latin rotunda, the feminine of the adjective rotundus "round, circular, spherical", used as a noun. It is based on rota "wheel". Latin created its word from PIE ret-/rot- "run, roll", source also of Sanskrit ratha- "cart", Irish roth "wheel", Welsh rhod "wheel", Breton rod "wheel" and redek "to run", and Manx role "to run". We also find its remains in Albanian rreth "hoop, rim", Lithuanian ratas "wheel", and Latvian rats "wheel". The origin of the suffix on this word, -undus, which appears in several other Latin words like secundus and oriundus "born in", remains rather mysterious. (Now let's thank Monika Freund, a subscriber in Wuppertal, Germany, for suggesting this roundly sound Good Word last year and Jeremy Busch for reminding us yesterday.)
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