Wednesday, April 30, 2014

A-to-Z Challenge: Zenith

This is it! The end of the line!



What word did I pick? Well, didn’t you read the title?

Zenith showed up in the late fourteenth century, coming from the Old French cenith and Medieval Latin cenit/senit. It’s believed that cenit/senit is an error in the transliteration (translating a word by its letters rather than its definition) of the Arabic word samt, which means road or path. No word as to why it means peak, though.

Sooooo. We end on a mystery. I guess that’s okay. Thanks for reading all these!

Sources
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

15 comments:

  1. This always brings to mind the TV's I had in the 70's and 80's.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oops, misplaced commas. I meant '70s and '80s.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yup. TVs. Although ours was a Curtis-Mathes.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Peak of the path? Who knows.
    Congratulations on completing the Challenge.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Time for a celebration, having got the end of the Challenge.
    I'm zapped.
    See you soon.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi JE - well done and your theme has been interesting ... I think I'll need to return and read through once again ...

    I was wondering if summit had something to do with the etymological beginnings of zenith .. but probably not ... still we have reached the zenith (one and all)

    Cheers and see you around anon - Hilary

    ReplyDelete
  7. Eek! I missed a ton of them, but I did love what I did read. Too many blogs! Too many amazing things to read! Too much reality demanding I be a person!

    True Heroes from A to Z

    ReplyDelete
  8. I have to laugh. Zenith is the name of one of the starships in one of my sci fi books. I love your etymology posts.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Congratulations on finishing the challenge!

    Zenith turns up in Tom Clancy's last book as the codename for a Russian agent running around Europe killing people.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Congrats! I enjoyed reading your posts, though I had missed a few in between and am catching up today.
    I know you visited my blog and read some of the stories. I would appreciate it, if you would take a few moments to vote for your favorite ones.
    http://peeekaaabooo.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-z-challenge-wrap-up.html

    ReplyDelete
  11. PERFECT word for today...and WE'RE DONE! WE MADE IT! YAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Is it bad that when I see the word "Zenith," I think of TV sets from the 80s and 90s?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Looks like all of us of a certain age had a Zenith TV back in the day...

    It took me many years before I learned its actual meaning besides "the TV in Mom's room with the remote that pinged". And then many years after I learned its antonym.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Maybe traveling the road is the peak itself. The journey not the destination.

    Congrats on making it too the end!

    ReplyDelete
  15. I like your choice: Zenith. Perfect ending.

    ReplyDelete

Please validate me.