• zenith •
Pronunciation: zee-nith • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. The highest point on the celestial sphere or, more loosely, the upper region of the sky. 2. The peak, pinnacle, the highest part or best time of anything, as 'the zenith of her career'.
Notes: This word is one of the most frequently encountered words beginning with Z. The adjectives are zenithal "pertaining to the zenith of something" and zenithward "toward the zenith of something." The antonym of zenith is nadir "the lowest point (of a perspective inside an imaginary sphere)".
In Play: We hear the original meaning of this word in expressions like this one: "The sun had risen halfway between horizon and zenith when her eyes finally opened." We hear the metaphorical sense more often: "At the zenith of his career, Malcolm's life had exceeded his wildest dreams."
Word History: Today's Good Word came to us via a rather twisted path, which begins with a rather regular borrowing from Old French cenith (Modern French zénith), inherited from Medieval Latin cenit or, sometimes, senit. This seems to have been a mistranscription of Arabic samt "road, way", a reduction of samt ar-ras "the way overhead". Somewhere along the way the Arabic borrowing was confused with Latin semita "path, way, lane". Between Latin and its granddaughter, French, the nasal consonant M was replaced by another nasal, N. How semita got into Latin is anyone's guess. (Now is time for a word of gratitude for Albert Skiles, at the zenith of his career suggesting splendid Good Words like today's.)
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