• ruination •
Pronunciation: ru-i-nay-shên • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun, mass
Meaning: Devastation, destruction, ruin, reduction to ruins.
Notes: Today's word is a synonym of the noun ruin; so, if you want the sense of it but need two more syllables, it serves that purpose well. Its adjective is ruinatious, used mostly in the southern US, but the personal noun, ruinator, is used more broadly.
In Play: This word has the ring of a vain attempt at pomposity: "Daughter, I wish I'd never given you that credit card; you'll drive me to financial ruination." But that is just a connotation, not a part of its denotation: "Anita Job's obsession with her boss led to her ruination."
Word History: Today's Good Word seems to be a hybrid, a word with an English root but a Latinate suffix like flirtation and floatation, but it isn't. It is the natural action noun for a borrowing, ruinatio(n), from Medieval Latin ruinare "to ruin". English also borrowed the now obsolete verb ruinate from the same source. The Latin verb was created in the Middle Ages from Classical Latin ruina "ruins", the noun from ruere "to rush, collapse". Latin made its word from PIE reue-/roue- "to smash, knock down", which made it to English as raw and rough, German rauh "rough, harsh", Dutch ruig "rough", and Lithuanian raukyti "to wrinkle". (Now let's thank Barbara Beeton, a prominent presence in the Alpha Agora, for spotting the interest in today's curious Good Word and sharing it with us.)
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