Word Origins & Etymology

The word birthday  is a Middle English compound, formed exactly the way it looks: birth  + day . But it did not appear as a dominant, everyday word right out of the gate. Early English was perfectly capable of talking about birth without needing a neat annual noun for it—and for a long time, it mostly did. In Old English, the emphasis was on the event  of birth, not its commemoration. You see phrases meaning “day of one’s birth,” but not a tidy, ritualized compound that impli

We are all familiar with tomorrow . It is a time—and possibly a place—that doesn’t really exist: an imaginary container for the things we don’t want to deal with today. It is deferred obligation (“I’ll pay that bill tomorrow”) or promised reward (“Tomorrow is payday!”). Morrow  is its quieter ancestor. It is the modern evolution, streamlined in the name of efficiency, of the morrow —which is specific, as indicated by the definite article, yet somehow lands more softly and wit

A dinkus is a small ornamental symbol used to mark a break in text