The Words of the Week - Jun 5
Dictionary lookups from botany, tennis, and Pride Month
‘Pride’
June 1 marked the start of Pride Month, leading to a rise in lookups for the word pride.
Pride Month, which celebrates the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) community, is observed each year in June to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan, a tipping point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the United States.
—Gege Reed, The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), 1 June 2026
We define the relevant sense of pride, usually capitalized Pride, as “an event or series of events celebrating and affirming the rights, equality, and culture of LGBTQ people. It is often used before another noun, as in “a Pride march/celebration/parade” or “Pride Month.” It is closely related to another sense of pride meaning “respect and appreciation for oneself and others as members of a group and especially a marginalized group : solidarity with a group based on a shared identity, history, and experience.” The word pride traces back to the Old English word prȳde, from prūd, meaning “proud.”
‘Baobab’
Lookups for baobab have been high lately, perhaps in connection to a recent article about Tsitakakantsa, a baobab in Madagascar estimated to be between 1,000 and 1,500 years old.
Baobabs, with their colossal, mottled trunks and canopies that reach to the sky like upturned roots, have been part of the landscape for millions of years in Madagascar, a species-rich island off the east coast of Africa. Unlike rigid oaks and pines, baobab trees have spongy wood that is made up mostly of water, and many experts consider them giant succulents.
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Baobab often refers to a broad-trunked tropical tree (Adansonia digitata) of the silk-cotton family that is native to Africa and has an edible acidic fruit resembling a gourd and bark used in making paper, cloth, and rope. The word is also used for any of several related trees chiefly of Madagascar and Australia, including Tsitakakantsa. The word is a borrowing of the New Latin word bahobab; its prior origins are unknown.
‘Tennis’
The return of Serena Williams to professional tennis drove higher-than-usual lookups for the word tennis.
Serena Williams, after nearly four years since her last match, is officially making her comeback to professional tennis.
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Tennis was originally used in English in the 15th century to refer to a game played with a ball and racket in an enclosed court divided by a net, a game that is now also called court tennis. Today, tennis more often refers to an indoor or outdoor game that is played with rackets and a light elastic ball by two players or pairs of players on a level court (as of clay or grass) divided by a low net. (Although court tennis contributed its name and scoring system to the tennis played by Serena Williams and others, court tennis is now played at approximately 40 courts in the world.) The word tennis comes from the Middle English tenetz or tenys, which was perhaps borrowed from the Anglo-French word tenez, a form of the verb tenir, meaning “to hold.”
‘Summer’
June in the northern hemisphere marks the beginning of summer, so it’s little surprise that summer began trending this week.
June is here, and while the official start of summer is still a couple of weeks away, the temperatures are already feeling like summer.
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We define the relevant sense of summer as “the season between spring and autumn comprising in the northern hemisphere usually the months of June, July, and August or as reckoned astronomically extending from the June solstice to the September equinox.” The word traces back to the Old English word sumor, which shares an older ancestor with sumer, the word for the season in both Old High German and Old Norse, as well as with the Sanskrit samā, meaning “year” or “season.”
‘Temblor’
An earthquake off the coast of Italy prompted lookups for temblor.
The temblor happened at 12:12 a.m. Central European time about 11 miles southwest of Scarcelli, Italy, data from the agency shows.
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We define temblor as a synonym of earthquake referring to “a shaking or trembling of the earth that is volcanic or tectonic in origin.” Temblor comes from Spanish, where it refers literally to trembling, from the verb temblar (“to tremble”). Temblar in turn comes from Medieval Latin tremulare, which has the same meaning.
Word Worth Knowing: ‘Manavelins’
Leftovers? Boring. Manavelins? Tantalizing! If you find it difficult to rouse yourself to finish off the odds and ends of past meals, calling them manavelins instead makes them a bit more enticing, does it not? The plural noun manavelins is defined in our Unabridged dictionary primarily as “odds and ends of food : leftovers,” though it can also be used for fancy or made dishes. The origins of manavelins are unknown; however, the OED notes that the slang word is chiefly found in nautical contexts, and may be related to manarvel, an obsolete verb also of nautical slang meaning “to pilfer from a ship’s stores.”
The farmers of Orange and Sullivan counties have the reprehensible practice of making their maple syrup by melting the sugar; this they call alamagoozleum. On Staten Island, splendid is galoptious, tit-bits are manavelins, and to turn is to tarve. Patchogue says noink and suink for nothing and something. In the northwestern part of the State when two young hearts begin to beat as one they are said to be sacmuljugated.
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