The Words of the Week - May 19

‘Codex’

Codex spiked in lookups last week, after a Hebrew Bible of great antiquity sold at auction.

The world's oldest and most complete Hebrew Bible sold for $38.1 million on Wednesday, Sotheby’s said, one of the highest prices ever for a book or document sold at auction. Wednesday's winning bid for the Codex Sassoon was made via a donation by Alfred H. Moses, a former U.S. ambassador and president of the American Jewish Committee, who is giving it to the ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, Israel.
— Aleksandra Michalska & Christine Kiernan, Reuters, 17 May 2023

We define codex as “a manuscript book especially of Scripture, classics, or ancient annals.” The plural form of the word is codices. In the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D., the codex began to replace scrolls as the preferred form for longer writings, offering such advantages as the ability to write on both sides of the surface and allowing more material to be contained in a single work.

Books that have been printed before the 16th century are called incunabula (the singular is incunabulum). However, this term is typically not used for hand-written works (like the the Codex Sassoon), and instead is applied to works created by printing press between when the Gutenberg Bible was first printed (around 1455) and 1501.

‘Manhood’

Manhood has also been in the news a good deal lately, following its use as the title of a recently published book.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has taken up the mantle of manhood, telling Fox’s Mark Levin that “the Left” thinks there’s “something inherently wrong with masculinity” which “contributes to climate change.” Levin introduced Hawley to his viewers as “one of the most important people in the Senate” as Hawley promoted his book, Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs.
— Jennifer Bowers Bahney, Mediaite.com 15 May 2023

Manhood is a very old word (although not as old as the Codex Sassoon), in use since the 13th century. It’s earliest meaning, one that is still current, is “the condition of being a human being.” The word has a number of other senses, including “qualities associated with men” and “the condition of being an adult male as distinguished from a child or female.” It also functions as a synonym of penis.

‘Paparazzi’

Paparazzi appeared in numerous newspaper stories, following accounts of British royalty being chased by photographers.

Prince Harry and Meghan allege ‘near catastrophic’ paparazzi car chase in NY
— (headline) CNN, 18 May 2023

A paparazzi is “a freelance photographer who aggressively pursues celebrities for the purpose of taking candid photographs.” The word is often presented as paparazzo in singular form (Paparazzo was the surname of such a photographer in the film La Dolce Vita (1960) by Federico Fellini; the surname is the source of our word); however, citations suggest that paparazzi is often found used as the singular in published and edited prose.

Former victims like O’Toole, Sinatra, Lancaster and Anita Ekberg could walk down Via Veneto after midnight arm-in-arm without having to smash a single camera or send a single paparazzi to the nearest first-aid station.
—Variety, 26 Apr. 1967

‘Pull the plug’

Pull the plug spiked in lookups as well, after Disney announced that they were not going forward with a planned construction project, as a result of the continuing imbroglio between the entertainment company and the governor of Florida.

Disney Pulls Plug on $1 Billion Development in Florida
— (headline) The New York Times, 18 May 2023

Pull the plug has two idiomatic uses: the one most applicable to Disney’s recent decision is “to withdraw essential and especially financial support.” The other common meaning is “to disconnect a medical life-support system.”

Words Worth Knowing: ‘Ambitionist’

Our word worth knowing this week is ambitionist, defined in our 1934 Unabridged Dictionary as “one excessively ambitious.” We no longer enter this word in our dictionaries, not because there is any lack of overly ambitious people about, but simply because very few people are still using this word.

Finally, it strikes me as a further guarantee of a sound national future that America is adamant in insistence that, while the forgotten man shall henceforth be remembered, the task of improving his status shall be undertaken in accord with Constitutional processes, and not by starry-eyed ambitionists and reformers so impatient to achieve the millennium that they are ready to purge and regiment on lines utterly alien to the civilization which Washington founded and Lincoln preserved.
— The McComb (Mississippi) Daily Journal, 19 Dec. 1938