Yeah, a four syllable word when almost every word I’ve done
here has been one. Do you know how hard it is to find a word beginning with U
that isn’t an un- word?
Ubiquitous, which basically means something that’s everywhere,
showed up fairly recently, in the early nineteenth century (in etymological terms, that’s like last week). The reason it’s so recent is
because another word, ubiquity, was used then (and I just found out that
ubiquity is a real word! Wow!). Ubiquity showed up in
the late sixteenth century,
coming from the Middle French ubiquité and the classical Latin ubique. In Latin, ubi means where, and que…well, it has tons of meanings, including giving “universal meaning”
when used as a suffix. So it’s like saying “all across the universe”, but in
three letters and in suffix form.
I don’t pretend to understand Latin. Or any languages for
that matter. They’re weird.
Sources
