• solace •
Pronunciation: (US) sah-lês, (UK) so-lis • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. (Mass uncountable) Consolation, relief from grief, soothing comfort in sorrow or distress. 2. (Countable) Source of consolation, comfort.
Notes: This word may be used as a verb meaning "to console" but, since console is a verb, it connotes more activity than the noun used as a verb. It comes with two rarely used adjectives, solaceful and solacious. The verbal use makes way for an equally rare solacer "someone who solaces".
In Play: 'Solace from' may be used to identify the source of solace: "When Patty Downs had a bad day in school, she could always count on solace from her mother." People aren't the only source of solace: "Hardy Belcher finds solace in food when the slings and arrows of modern life overcome him."
Word History: Today's Good Word was taken from Old French solaz "pleasure, comfort", inherited from Latin solacium "a soothing, comfort, consolation", based on solatus, the past participle of solari "to sooth, console". How this word came to be in Latin is a mystery. Some etymologists posit a PIE word, selh-/solh- "to reconcile", but no other IE language has any evidence of it. I can see how it might be related to Latin sol "sun", since solace is a ray of sunshine in a gloomy situation. If this is so, we find that the root for "sun" ends on an N in some IE languages (English sun), some on L (Latin sol), and some, on both (Russian solnce). The solution to this conundrum is that two words were confused coming out of PIE: suen-/suon- "sun" and suel-/suol- "to smolder, burn". Latin sol and German schwelen "to smolder" came from the latter, German Sonne "sun" and English sun from the former, and Russian blended the two.
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