Word Nerd Wednesday – Bucolic

Posted 29 August 2018 by Katie in Word Nerd Wednesday / 0 Comments

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Happy Wednesday, word nerds! A couple of months ago I posted about a word that I thought really didn’t sound like its definition: effulgent. (You can read that post here.) Last week, I was reminded of another word that fits into that category: bucolic

bucolic: (adj) Relating to the pleasant aspects of the countryside and country life.

Really? Does that word sound pleasant to you? Maybe it’s the colic part of the word that does it. Hands up all mothers out there who have pleasant associations with the word colic.

*crickets*

*more crickets*

Yeah, I thought so. But aside from that, I don’t associate those hard kinds of sounds with pleasant. Do you?

It turns out that the word is actually derived from the Greek word boukolikos which means herdsman (from bous meaning ox). Now that, I can see. Somehow the word bucolic seems much more fitting for the kind of rugged, hardworking man I can imagine working in the fields. Still, while I can see the relationship, it seems like a fairly big leap from herdsman to pleasant aspects of country life.

Incidentally, the word colic isn’t related to bucolic at all. Colic comes from the Latin word colon, which is, of course, the source of all the trouble when it comes to colic.

What do you think of the word bucolic? Is it a fit for its definition?

0 responses to “Word Nerd Wednesday – Bucolic

  1. Hello FA,

    Bucolic does remind of a sickness like colic. You wonder how we broke up word parts to get English words. Maybe a little more like softer version works like idyllic. Not everything translates.

    Thanks,

    Gary

    On Wed, Aug 29, 2018 at 2:32 AM Fiction Aficionado wrote:

    > Fiction Aficionado posted: ” Happy Wednesday, word nerds! A couple of > months ago I posted about a word that I thought really didn’t sound like > its definition: effulgent. (You can read that post here.) Last week, I was > reminded of another word that fits into that category: bucolic. ” >

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