Whither 'Wuthering'?: 12 Words from Wuthering Heights
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Definition: blowing with a dull roaring sound
Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff’s dwelling. “Wuthering” being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed: one may guess the power of the north wind, blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun. Happily, the architect had foresight to build it strong: the narrow windows are deeply set in the wall, and the corners defended with large jutting stones.
—Chapter I
The verb wuther is an alteration of the chiefly Scottish verb whither, defined in our Unabridged dictionary as a synonym of bluster (“to blow in stormy, noisy gusts”). In the place name “Wuthering Heights,” wuthering is used as an adjective, so can be thought of, essentially, as a synonym of blustery, “blowing boisterously, stormy,” which is borne out by Mr. Lockwood’s description. Interestingly, the first-known use of the variant wuther in print, in this form of wuthering, is attributed to Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights.
Definition: given to tears or weeping, tearful
I suppose Catherine fulfilled her project, for the next sentence took up another subject: she waxed lachrymose. “How little did I dream that Hindley would ever make me cry so!” she wrote.
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The misty-eyed souls among us will appreciate lachrymose, a word that can describe a person who tends to cry often, or an emotional trigger that induces tears. Those more stoic in disposition might be moved (though not to tears) to learn that lachrymose also has a scientific counterpart: its older cousin lachrymal can mean “of, relating to, or marked by tears,” or (usually with the alternative spelling lacrimal) “of, relating to, or being glands that produce tears.” Both lachrymose and lachrymal come from the Latin noun lacrima, meaning “tear.”
Definition: food, or food and drink
... I perceived she was in purgatory throughout the day, and wearying to find an opportunity of getting by herself, or paying a visit to Heathcliff, who had been locked up by the master: as I discovered, on endeavouring to introduce to him a private mess of victuals.
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In the introduction to her 2016 cookbook Victuals, writer Ronni Lundy remarks on the (to some) unusual divergence between how her book’s title is spelled and how it is pronounced: “Say it the way my people have for centuries: vidls. ... Maybe you thought saying it that way was wrong. But look up that word in your dictionary. It turns out my people, the people of the southern Appalachian Mountains, have been right about victuals all along.” Indeed, they have! Victuals refers to supplies of usually prepared foods (rather than raw ingredients) and comes from the Late Latin word victualia meaning “provisions,” and ultimately from Latin vivere, “to live.” It went through French before it came into English, and the pronunciation VIT-ulz was presumably established based on the French spelling vitaille before the spelling was changed to better reflect the Latin root of the word. Victuals would be spelled “vittles” if its pronunciation dictated its form, and vittles is in fact given in our dictionaries as a variant of victuals, though the spelling is used mostly playfully to evoke the supposed language of cowboys as depicted in movies, etc.
Definition: expressed or carried on without words or speech
Not anxious to come in contact with their fangs, I sat still; but, imagining they would scarcely understand tacit insults, I unfortunately indulged in winking and making faces at the trio, and some turn of my physiognomy so irritated madam, that she suddenly broke into a fury and leapt on my knees.
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In the quote above from the first chapter of Wuthering Heights, the character of Mr. Lockwood, the book’s first narrator, is referencing three dogs: a pointer and two sheepdogs. His “tacit” insults are, by the relevant definition of tacit, not made with words, but in this case expressions of his physiognomy (facial features held to show qualities of mind or character). Tacit can also mean “implied or indicated (as by an act or by silence) but not expressed.” A tacit agreement is one that is understood without being directly stated. And if you have your parents’ tacit approval to borrow the car, or if your children have your tacit approval, you don’t have to ask or be asked. Tacit traces back to the Latin verb tacēre, meaning “to be silent,” which is also the ancestor of the English adjective taciturn, used to describe someone who is temperamentally disinclined to speak.
Definition: an erratic, unpredictable, or extravagant manifestation, action, or notion
He held the knife in his hand, and pushed its point between my teeth: but, for my part, I was never much afraid of his vagaries. I spat out, and affirmed it tasted detestably—I would not take it on any account.
—
Let’s say, hypothetically, that two roads diverge in a yellow wood. And (also hypothetically) sorry that you cannot travel both, you opt for the grassy one less traveled by. What makes all the difference is the century in which this scenario plays out. In the 16th century, it could be said that you “made a vagary” by wandering off the beaten path. Today you might be said to lead a vagabond lifestyle. Vagabond can be traced to the Latin verb vagārī, meaning “to wander” or “to roam,” and it’s likely that vagary comes from that same source. Nowadays, however, the noun vagary is mostly used in its plural form to refer to changes that are difficult to predict or control. In Wuthering Heights, Ellen ‘Nelly’ Dean uses vagaries to refer to the unpredictable, erratic actions of Hindley Earnshaw.
Definition: a sudden violent emotion or action, outburst
I was laid alone, for the first time; and, rousing from a dismal doze after a night of weeping, I lifted my hand to push the panels aside: it struck the table-top! I swept it along the carpet, and then memory burst in: my late anguish was swallowed in a paroxysm of despair.
—
Paroxysm’s roots go back to ancient Greek. The word ultimately erupted from the Greek verb paroxynein, which means “to stimulate.” (Oxynein, a parent of paroxynein, means "to provoke" and comes from oxys, a Greek word for “sharp.”) In its earliest known English uses in the 15th century, paroxysm referred to a sudden attack or increase of symptoms of a disease—such as pain, coughing, shaking, etc.—that often occur again and again. This sense is still in use, but paroxysm soon took on a broader and now much more common sense referring to an outburst, especially a dramatic physical or emotional one, as in “paroxysms of rage/laughter/joy/delight/guilt.”
Definition: marked by eager hopefulness : confidently optimistic
... he knew no limits in gratitude and joy when Catherine’s life was declared out of danger; and hour after hour he would sit beside her, tracing the gradual return to bodily health, and flattering his too sanguine hopes with the illusion that her mind would settle back to its right balance also, and she would soon be entirely her former self.
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If you’re the sort of cheery, confident soul who always looks on the bright side no matter what happens, you may be described as sanguine. Sanguine traces back to the Latin noun sanguis, meaning “blood,” and over the centuries the word has had meanings ranging from “bloodthirsty” to “bloodred,” among other things in that (ahem) vein, so how did it also come to mean “hopeful”? During the Middle Ages, health and temperament were believed to be governed by the balance of different liquids, or humors, in one’s body: phlegm, black bile, yellow bile, and blood. Those lucky people who were governed by blood were strong, confident, and even had a healthy reddish glow (all that blood, you know)—they were, in a word, sanguine. In time, the physiological theory behind the humors was displaced by scientific medicine, but the word sanguine is still commonly used to describe those who are cheerfully confident.
Definition: favorable to or promoting health or well-being
His features were pretty yet, and his eye and complexion brighter than I remembered them, though with merely temporary lustre borrowed from the salubrious air and genial sun.
—
Salubrious, like healthful and wholesome, describes things that are favorable to the health of the mind or body. (A rather formal and somewhat rare word, it is related by its Latin ancestor salubris to the very common English word safe.) Unlike healthful and wholesome, salubrious tends to apply chiefly to the helpful effects of climate or air, as in “the salubrious climate of the tropical island.” Salubrious seems to be expanding semantically; we occasionally see evidence of it being used as a descriptor of prosperous people or locales. This is the sense used by British author Zadie Smith in her 2023 historical novel The Fraud when she writes: “Following the more salubrious element of the crowd, they found themselves on the second floor of Lady Blessington’s Old Gore House, recently converted into a restaurant by Alexis Soyer.
Definition: beginning to come into being or to become apparent
“Let me go to bed, then,” answered the boy, shrinking from Catherine’s salute; and he put his fingers to his eyes to remove incipient tears.
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Incipient... incipient... where to begin? Well, there’s its meaning for one: incipient describes something that is beginning to come into being or to become apparent, as in “the incipient stages of the process.” And of course a good starting point for any investigation of incipient is also the Latin verb incipere, which means “to begin.” Incipient emerged in English in the 17th century, appearing in both religious and scientific contexts, as in “incipient grace” and “incipient putrefaction.” Later came the genesis of two related nouns, incipiency and incipience, both of which are synonymous with beginning. Incipere’s influence is also visible at the beginning of the words inception (“an act, process, or instance of beginning”) and incipit, a term that in Latin literally means “it begins” and which refers in English to the opening words of a medieval manuscript or early printed book.
Definition: green with growing plants
Hareton, with a streaming face, dug green sods, and laid them over the brown mould himself: at present it is as smooth and verdant as its companion mounds—and I hope its tenant sleeps as soundly.
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English speakers have been using verdant as a ripe synonym of green since at least the 16th century, and as a descriptive term for inexperienced or naïve people since the 19th century. (By contrast, the more experienced green has colored our language since well before the 12th century, and was first applied to inexperienced people in the 16th century.) Verdant comes from the Old French word for “green,” vert, which itself is from Latin virēre, meaning “to show green growth” or “to be green.” Today, vert is used in English as a word for green forest vegetation and the heraldic color green. A related word is virescent, meaning “beginning to be green.”
Definition: to declare to be evil or detestable : denounce
He neither wept nor prayed; he cursed and defied: execrated God and man …
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To Latinists, there’s nothing cryptic about the origins of execrate—the word comes from exsecratus, the past participle of the Latin verb exsecrari, meaning “to put under a curse.” Exsecrari was itself created by combining the prefix ex- (“not”) and the word sacer (“sacred”). Sacer is also an ancestor of such English words as sacrifice, sacrilege, and of course sacred itself. There’s also execration (used in its plural form twice in Wuthering Heights), which, true to its exsecrari roots, refers to the act of cursing or the curse so uttered.
Definition: gray or white with or as if with age
“He’s doing his very utmost; but his constitution defies him. Mr. Kenneth says he would wager his mare that he’ll outlive any man on this side Gimmerton, and go to the grave a hoary sinner; unless some happy chance out of the common course befall him.”
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Nowadays, you’re most likely to encounter the word hoary in the phrase “hoary cliché,” with the meaning “no longer humorous, interesting, or meaningful due to repetition over time.” But the oldest meaning of the word in English, dating to the early 1500s and still in use, is “gray or white with or as if with age.” It is usually used to describe the hair on top of one’s head or on one’s face. In the above quote from Wuthering Heights, Mr. Kenneth (by way of Heathcliff’s observation) is envisioning himself dying as a old man, with hoary meaning “having white or gray hair.” Hoary comes from the much older word hoar (going back to the Old English hār). As an adjective, hoar also describes someone who is gray-haired with age. It is still in use, though these days you may invite no small about of umbrage if you call your elders “hoar.”
