Okay, this is
the last week of looking at words related to case (situation), the one that’s
from the Proto Indo
European kad-, to fall.
Prepare for things to get weird.
First, occasion
showed up in the late fourteenth century from the Old
French ochaison/occasion, from
the classical Latin occasionem, opportunity.
It’s from the verb occidere, which
means things like fall down or go down (one definition even has it at to kill).
The o- is from ob-, down, and the -cidere comes from cadere, to fall.
So that part makes sense, although I’m lost on how it got to “opportunity”. Oh,
and the word Occident is from the same place.
Considering that word means “western part”, I’m even more confused.
Next, cadence.
It showed up in the late fourteenth century, meaning rhythm in prose or verse, coming from the Middle French cadence, and Old Italian cadenza—conclusion of a movement in
music. That’s from the Vulgar
Latin cadentia, from the
classical Latin cadens, falling,
from cadere. So because the end of a musical movement is “a falling”, we have
cadence. Also related is the word cadaver, which showed up in the late fourteenth century from the classical
Latin cadaver, a dead body, and wow, we didn’t change that word at all in nearly seven hundred years.
Anyway, it’s thought to be from cadere in the sense that when someone is dead,
they fall down. They’re a cadaver.
That also leads
us to the next words we’ll be looking at. Decay showed up in the fifteenth century,
from the Anglo
French and Old North French decair and Vulgar Latin decadere. That’s also the origin word
for decadence, which seems to just be the same word with de- in front of it,
but of course it’s not. It showed up in the sixteenth century meaning deteriorated condition—it wasn’t until 1970 that things changed to
meaning highly self-indulgent! Also,
it was first used that way in reference to desserts. Anyway! Decadence comes
from the Medieval
Latin decadentia, decay, which is
from decadere, to decay, with de- meaning apart or down.
It’s to fall apart. Well, I do fall apart in front of a dessert…
Sources
