Nomenclature - Wednesday Words
Image credit: Nicolas Alejandro, via Flickr I keep a notebook close by when I read, in which I jot down memorable quotes, articles which interest me, and words whose of whose meaning I am unsure. In this series, I hope to catalogue some of the more interesting words I have noted from books, along with their meaning, origin and literary quotes. Nomenclature is a noun attributed to the devising or choosing of names, especially in science and other disciplines. It can also be used to describe: the body or system of names used in a particular specialist field, or the term or terms applied to someone or something. The word, like so many in our language, is rooted in Latin, specifically from the word nomenclatura: comprising of nomen (name) and clatura (calling, or summoning). By the 17th century, nomenclature had found it's way into French; later to be adopted into English. Usage of the word reached it's peak in the 1950's and has since suffered a rapid decline. I came across t...