This blog is for everyone who uses words.

The ordinary-sized words are for everyone, but the big ones are especially for children.



Tuesday 27 July 2021

Thing To Do Today: vent.

 Did you know that the kind of vent that means slit or slits in the back of a jacket to allow more comfortable movement (and a bit of ventilation):

illustration from The Compass Black Label style journal

 is nothing to do with the kind of vent that means either the hole in the back end of a creature such as a toad or a stag, or the kind of vent that means spewing forth rock:


gas, or emotion?

Because I didn't.

Still, as they keep telling us about Covid, better out than in.

Thing To Do Today: vent. The slit-in-a-jacket and rear-hole-of-a-toad words comes from the Old French fente split, from the Latin findere, to cleave. The word meaning to release something under pressure comes from the Old French esventer, to blow out, from the Latin ventus, wind.



No comments:

Post a Comment

All comments are very welcome, but please make them suitable for The Word Den's family audience.