• cataract •
Pronunciation: kæ-dê-ræk (US), kæ-tê-ræk (UK) • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. A large waterfall. 2. A large rush of water, white water rapids. 3. (Pathology) An opacity of the eye lens that impairs sight. 4. (Archaic) A portcullis, a heavy raisable grating, protecting the entrance of a castle or fort.
Notes: The Nile River is known for its six cataracts, a series of white water rapids. Cataract comes with two current adjectives: cataractous "having eye cataracts" and cataractal, referring to rushing water.
In Play: Today the second meaning above is more common than the first: "Travel along the trail from the Vikings to the Greeks in Constantinople included portage around the Dnieper cataracts, usually open to attack by Pechenegs." The third sense of this word seems semantically far removed from the first: "Vitamin C supplements are thought to slow the growth of cataracts."
Word History: Today's Good Word was copied from Latin cataracta "waterfall", which Latin borrowed from Greek katarrhaktes "waterfall, portcullis", which consists of kata "down(ward) + arhattein "to strike hard". Kata came from PIE kmt "down, with, along", a suffixed form of kom "by, beside, with". The suffixed form produced Hittite katta "under, by, with", Welsh gan "with, by", from Old Welsh cant, and Breton gant "with, alongside, amongst". Without the suffix and nasalization we find Latin cum "with" and the prefix com- "(together) with", and Russian s(o) "(together) with". As for arrhattein, no one seems to know anything about it. It might be related to rhakhia "roar (of breakers)", but phonological problems block this route. The name of visual cataracts came from the figurative use of the archaic sense, No. 4 above. (Today we owe respect to Susan Ardith who, back in 2013 stirred up a neat Alpha Agora discussion with her suggestion of today's fascinating Good Word.)
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