Musket

WORD OF THE DAY

musket / noun / MUSS-kut

Definition

1: a heavy large-caliber muzzle-loading usually smoothbore shoulder firearm 

2: a shoulder gun carried by infantry

Examples

"They could see changes going on among the troops. There were marchings this way and that way. A battery wheeled leisurely. On the crest of a small hill was the thick gleam of many departing muskets." 

— Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage, 1895

"It's not the gun that kicked off the Revolution with that shot heard round the world, but it's similar. The musket is now in every history book. It's come to symbolize freedom and independence—even celebrated recently on Broadway, in the smash hit, Hamilton." 

— Lee Cowan, speaking on CBS, 13 Mar. 2016

Did You Know?

In the early era of firearms, cannons of lesser size such as the falconet were sometimes named for birds of prey. Following this pattern, Italians applied moschetto or moschetta, meaning "sparrow hawk," to a small-caliber piece of ordnance in the 16th century. Spaniards borrowed this word as mosquete, and the French as mosquet, but both applied it to a heavy shoulder firearm rather than a cannon; English musket was borrowed soon thereafter from French. 

The word musket was retained after the original matchlock firing mechanism was replaced by a wheel lock, and retained still after the wheel lock was replaced by the flintlock. As the practice of rifling firearms—incising the barrel with spiral grooves to improve the bullet's accuracy—became more common, the term musket gradually gave way to the newer word rifle in the 18th century.

Tempestuous

WORD OF THE DAY

tempestuous / adjective / tem-PESS-chuh-wus

Definition

1: of, relating to, or resembling a violent storm 

2: turbulent, stormy

Examples

Because the player's relationship with his manager had grown more tempestuous over the course of the season, the decision to trade him benefited everyone.

"The U.S. government stripped its embassy in Nicaragua down to bare-bone operations Monday after five days of deadly protests around the country, despite Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's efforts to calm his tempestuous nation." 

— Monique O. Madan and Glenn Garvin, The Miami Herald, 23 Apr. 2018

Did You Know?

Time is sometimes marked in seasons, and seasons are associated with the weather. This explains how tempus, the Latin word for "time," could have given rise to an English adjective for things turbulent and stormy. 

Tempus is the root behind Old Latin tempestus, meaning "season," and Late Latin tempestuosus, the direct ancestor of tempestuous. As you might expect, tempus is also the root, by way of the Latin tempestas ("season, weather, or storm"), of the noun tempest. 

Tempus may also be akin to the Latin verb temperare ("to moderate, mix, or temper"), which made its way through Anglo-French to become the English temper.

Festinate

WORD OF THE DAY

festinate / verb / FESS-tuh-nayt 
 
Definition
: hasten

Examples
The patient's tendency to festinate meant that he was at risk of falling.

"He rocketed almost uncontrollably to the piano, but once there, played a Chopin nocturne with exquisite control and timing and grace—only to festinate once again as soon as the music ended."
— Oliver Sacks, Musicophila, 2007

Did You Know?
Festinate is one among many in the category of words whose early recorded use is in the works of William Shakespeare. He used it as an adjective (which is pronounced \FESS-tuh-nut\) in King Lear, for example: 

"Advise the Duke where you are going, to a most festinate preparation." 

Perhaps the Bard knew about festinatus, the Latin predecessor of festinate, or was familiar with the Latin proverb festina lente—"make haste slowly." 

Shakespeare also used the adverb festinately in Love's Labour's Lost: "Bring him festinately hither," Don Ariano de Armado orders. 

First evidence of the verb festinate, meaning "to hasten," occurs post-Shakespeare, however.

Inchmeal

WORD OF THE DAY

inchmeal / adverb / INCH-meel 
 
Definition
: little by little, gradually

Examples

"The big beam in the back room … came out with less trouble than Lydia had expected…. Cataracts of fine mortar dust fell continuously along most of its length as Lydia levered it inchmeal onto the cradle of scaffolding she had built."
— Peter Dickinson, The Lively Dead, 1975

"Judy fights against her own body to accomplish the smallest tasks, fighting battles inchmeal in a war she'll never win."
— Serena Donadoni, The Village Voice, 22 June 2018

Did You Know?
"All the infections that the sun sucks up / From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him / By inch-meal a disease!" So goes one of the curses the hated and hateful Caliban hurls in the direction of Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest. 

The origin of inchmeal is simple; the inch half is the familiar measurement, and the meal is the suffix we know from the more common word piecemeal (which shares the "gradually" meaning of inchmeal, and has several other meanings as well). 

An old suffix that means "by a (specified) portion or measure at a time," -meal is related to the modern German word mal, meaning "time," as in the German word manchmal, meaning "sometimes."

Behemoth

WORD OF THE DAY

behemoth / noun / bih-HEE-muth 
 
Definition
1: something of monstrous size, power, or appearance

2: a mighty animal described in Job 40:15-24 as an example of the power of God. 

Examples

"Dowd, who has lived in the same housing development since 1989, keeps a plot in the community garden: a mulchy oasis amid brick behemoths."
— Michael Schulman, The New Yorker, 25 June 2018

"Pietro's tiny shop has become a behemoth that sells goods in more than 160 countries, employs 40,000 people and makes 365,000 tons of Nutella per year."
— Noah Kirsch, Forbes, 30 June 2018

Did You Know?
The original behemoth is biblical; it designates a mysterious river-dwelling beast in the Book of Job. 

Based on that description, scholars have concluded that the biblical behemoth was probably inspired by a hippopotamus, but details about the creature's exact nature are vague.
The word first passed from Hebrew into Late Latin, where, according to English poet and monk John Lydgate, writing in 1430, it "playne expresse[d] a beast rude full of cursednesse." 

In English, behemoth was eventually applied more generally to anything large and powerful.

Languid

WORD OF THE DAY

languid /adjective / LANG-gwid  

Definition
1a: drooping or flagging from or as if from exhaustion 
1b: weak
2a: sluggish in character or disposition 
2b: listless
3a: lacking force or quickness of movement 3b: slow

Examples
The trial proceeded at a languid pace as each attorney called up a whole roster of witnesses to testify.

"Of all the musicians whose work might cry out for a razzle-dazzle jukebox musical, Jimmy Buffett—he of the languid odes to umbrella drinks and beach vacations—would seem to be at the bottom of the list." 
— Christopher Kelly, The Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey), 23 Mar. 2018

Did You Know?
The letter L holds claim to a payload of words in English that connote a lack of energy or enthusiasm. Two of them—languid and languorous—derive from the same source, the Latin verb languēre ("to languish"). Languid describes the kind of sluggishness that one often experiences from fatigue or weakness ("the illness left her feeling languid"). 
Languorous applies more to someone who just doesn't feel the will to get up and do anything ("he felt languorous on a rainy Sunday afternoon"). There is also lackadaisical, which implies a halfhearted effort given from lack of care ("lackadaisical seniors just floating along until graduation"), as well as listless, which suggests a lack of spirit caused by physical weakness, dissatisfaction, or sadness ("she was listless for a few weeks following the breakup").

Pro rata

WORD (Phrase!) OF THE DAY

pro rata / adverb / proh-RAY-tuh  

Definition
: proportionately according to an exactly calculable factor (such as a share or liability)

Examples
"The Senate also structured the budget bill so that any new money must be added pro rata, meaning proportionally to all areas where a deficit now exists." 
— Tim Morris, The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana), 13 June 2018

"Specifically, an S corporation is not a separate taxable entity for federal, and most state, income tax purposes. Instead, profits and losses of an S corporation are divided pro rata among the shareholders and 'passed through' to their personal returns." 
— Mike Cote, The Union Leader (Manchester, New Hampshire), 27 May 2018

Did You Know?
The Latin phrase prō ratā, meaning "in proportion," is a shortening of prō ratā parte/portiōne, meaning "according to the fixed proportion." English users borrowed the shorter phrase in the 16th century, dropping the diacritics along the way, and began applying the term in contexts formal enough that Latin doesn't seem too out of place: in finance and law. 
There pro rata refers to distributing or allocating a quantity proportionately—for example, dividing up an annual interest rate pro rata into monthly rates; distributing pro rata a profit amongst shareholders; paying part-time employees pro rata (according to full-time pay); or allocating liability for a defective product pro rata. In the early 19th century, pro rata demonstrated its usefulness as an adjective, as in "a pro rata share" or "pro rata distribution." 
The verb prorate (based on pro rata) followed soon thereafter. Incidentally, the familiar noun and verb rate (as in "tax rates" and "rating on a scale of 1 to 5") also trace back to Latin prō ratā parte, but they entered the language back in the 15th century by way of Anglo-French.

Paste

WORD OF THE DAY 

paste / verb / PAIST

Definition

1: to strike hard at

2: to beat or defeat soundly

Examples

"But, Moody came up next and pasted a liner into right for a single, which fueled a five-run inning for the Roughers." 

— Mike Tupa, The Bartlesville (Oklahoma) Examiner-Enterprise, 7 June 2018

"A year ago, the Miners were pasted by Texas early in the season but had reason to leave feeling all right about itself.… This one is a bit tougher to rationalize…." 

— Bret Bloomquist, The El Paso Times, 3 Sept. 2017

Did You Know?

We're not talking about adhesives here: the paste of interest here came to be as an alteration of the word baste, which means "to beat severely or soundly." (This baste is unrelated to the two distinct baste homographs that mean "to sew with long stitches" and "to moisten while cooking.") 

The exact origin of baste is uncertain, but it probably comes from the Old Norse word beysta, meaning "to bruise, thrash, or flog." 

Baste was first seen in the 16th century, but paste didn't turn up in print until the mid-19th century, and it only recently acquired its "defeat" sense. Baste is now less popular than paste, though its relative lambaste ("to beat" or "to censure") is prevalent.

Halcyon

WORD OF THE DAY

halcyon / adjective / HAL-see-un 
 
Definition
1: calm, peaceful
2: happy, golden
3: prosperous, affluent

Examples
"Today, California is in the black and has even banked an emergency fund of eight billion dollars. Unemployment is less than five per cent. Still, there is nothing halcyon about Brown's vision of the future. At a press conference in January, he unveiled his valedictory budget proposal … and made clear that this was no cause for celebration."
— Connie Bruck, The New Yorker, 26 Mar. 2018

"There was a time when the gates opened at Molson Stadium and fans flocked in to watch the Alouettes play. And mostly, win. Until those halcyon days return, the organization realizes something must change." 

— Herb Zurkowsky, The Gazette (Montreal), 31 May 2018

Did You Know?
According to Greek mythology, Alkyone, the daughter of the god of the winds, became so distraught when she learned that her husband had been killed in a shipwreck that she threw herself into the sea and was changed into a kingfisher. As a result, ancient Greeks called such birds alkyōn or halkyōn.
The legend also says that such birds built floating nests on the sea, where they so charmed the wind god that he created a period of unusual calm that lasted until the birds' eggs hatched. This legend prompted people to use halcyon both as a noun naming a genus of kingfisher and as an adjective meaning either "of or relating to the kingfisher or its nesting period" or "calm."

Salvo

WORD OF THE DAY

salvo / noun / SAL-voh 
 
Definition
1a: a simultaneous discharge of two or more guns in military action or as a salute
1b: the release all at one time of a rack of bombs or rockets (as from an airplane)
1c: a series of shots by an artillery battery with each gun firing one round in turn after a prescribed interval
1d: the bombs or projectiles released in a salvo
2a : a sudden burst
2b: a spirited attack

Examples
The newspaper article was intended as a salvo against the mayor's policies.

"Soda industry fires salvo at Harvard researchers over sugary drink study warnings"
— headline, The Boston Globe, 19 June 2018

Did You Know?
Salvo derives via Italian and French from the Latin adjective salvus, meaning "healthy." Salve, another form of the word, means "hail!" in Latin and was used as a greeting by ancient Romans. (Incidentally, the English salve, referring to a medicinal substance, is no relation.)
In English, salvo originally referred to a simultaneous discharge of two or more firearms performed as a salute—which is appropriate, since salute is another descendant of salvus. With time salvo came to refer to such a discharge performed as an act of war.
Nowadays a salvo is most often an act of figurative war—such as a critical remark aimed at a debate opponent, or a business decision in a highly competitive industry.

Vouchsafe

WORD OF THE DAY

vouchsafe / verb / vowch-SAYF 
 
Definition
1a: to grant or furnish often in a gracious or condescending manner
1b: to give by way of reply
2: to grant as a privilege or special favor

Examples

"Juan Carlos, who announced on Monday that he is abdicating the throne, was long revered for his role in vouchsafing Spain's transition to democracy following the death, in 1975, of the country's geriatric Fascist leader, Generalissimo Francisco Franco."
— Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, 2 June 2014

"By the end of 'This Flat Earth,' Julie comes to seem like a latter-day variation on Emily, the heroine of Wilder's 'Our Town,' who is vouchsafed a glimpse of small human lives within a cosmic framework."
— Ben Brantley, The New York Times, 9 Apr. 2018

Did You Know?
Shakespeare fans are well acquainted with vouchsafe, which in its Middle English form vouchen sauf meant "to grant, consent, or deign."
The word, which was borrowed with its present meaning from Anglo-French in the 14th century, pops up fairly frequently in the Bard's work—60 times, to be exact. "Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love," beseeches Proteus of Silvia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
"Vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food," King Lear begs his daughter Regan. But you needn't turn to Shakespeare to find vouchsafe.
As illustrated by our examples, today's writers also find it to be a perfectly useful word.

Declivity

WORD OF THE DAY

declivity / noun / dih-KLIV-uh-tee 
 
Definition
1 : downward inclination
2 : a descending slope

Examples

"Early afternoon finds me off-trail by mistake among fog banks, using both hands and feet to scramble sideways and skyward along a perilously steep, grassy declivity toward the pass of Les Mattes."
— Jeffrey Tayler, The National Geographic Traveler, 1 June 2017

"We make straight for the swimming pool, set in a warm declivity and surrounded by orange-trees."
— Alex Preston, Harper's, October 2016

Did You Know?
Three different English words descend from clivus, the Latin word for "slope" or "hill"—with the help of three Latin prefixes. Declivity combines clivus with the prefix de-, meaning "down" or "away." 

Acclivity uses ad- (which changes its second letter depending on the root word), meaning "to" or "toward." Hence, an acclivity is an upward slope. 

The third word has a figurative meaning in English: proclivity makes use of the prefix pro-, meaning "forward," and this word refers to a personal inclination, predisposition, or "leaning."

Gumption

WORD OF THE DAY

gumption / noun / GUMP-shun 
 
Definition
1 (chiefly dialectal): common sense, horse sense
2: enterprise, initiative

Examples
"When fatigue began to take over his body and his legs started to quake, LaDonna had the gumption to throw his best fastball of the day."
— Gregg Sarra, Newsday (New York), 29 May 2018

"Negotiating salary increases requires finesse, timing and being informed. It also requires a certain measure of gumption."
— The Laramie (Wyoming) Boomerang, 10 June 2018

Did You Know?
English speakers have had gumption (the word, that is) since the early 1700s. The term's exact origins aren't known, but its earliest known uses are found in British and especially Scottish dialects (which also include the forms rumblegumption and rumgumption).
In its earliest uses, gumption referred to common sense. American English speakers adopted the word and took it in a new direction, using it refer to the kind of courage or get-up-and-go that makes undertaking difficult things possible.
Artists may know the word with another application: it's also used to refer to the art of preparing painters' colors.

Cerebrate

WORD OF THE DAY

cerebrate / verb / SAIR-uh-brayt

Definition

1: to use the mind 

2: think

Examples

"You can't cerebrate over what you can't see, which therefore becomes an object of loathing and mistrust." 

— Howard Portnoy, Examiner.com, 25 June 2012

"I can never decide if Derek is incredibly shallow or so deep that he's cerebrating on two levels at once and I'm privy only to the superficial one." 

— Susan B. Johnson, Spirit Willing, 2006

Did You Know?

When you think of the human brain, you might think of the cerebrum, the large, fissured upper portion of the brain that is recognized as the neural control center for thought and sensory perception. 

In 1853, Dr. William Carpenter thought of the cerebrum when he coined "unconscious cerebration," a term describing the mental process by which people seem to do the right thing or come up with the right answer without conscious effort. 

People thought enough of Carpenter's coinage to use it as the basis of cerebrate, though the verb refers to active thinking rather than subconscious processing. Cerebrate, cerebrum, and the related adjective cerebral all derive from the Latin word for "brain," which is cerebrum.

Nimiety

WORD OF THE DAY

nimiety / noun / nih-MYE-uh-tee 
 
Definition
: excess, redundancy

Examples
As she organized the potluck lunch, Julie offered suggestions for dishes that were still needed so that we wouldn't end up with a dearth of salads or a nimiety of desserts.

"Like all good haunted houses, it hovers atop a hill surrounded by large gnarled oak trees. There are broken windows with little fragments in the jambs, like transparent teeth. There is an iron fence; a graveyard in the back; and a nimiety of ghosts."
— Richard Bangs, The Huffington Post, 6 Dec. 2017

Did You Know?
There's no scarcity of English words for too much of a good thing—words like overkill, plethora, superfluity, surfeit, surplus, and preponderance, to name a few. 

In fact, you might just feel that nimiety itself is a bit superfluous. And it's true—English speakers have never found much need for it, though it has been part of our language for over 450 years. For reasons long forgot, we borrowed it from Late Latin nimietas, a noun taken, in turn, from the Latin adjective nimius, meaning "excessive." If nimiety appeals to you but you'd like it in adjective form look no further than its only English relative: nimious, also from nimius, means "excessive, extravagant," and is even rarer than nimiety.

Benevolent

WORD OF THE DAY

benevolent / adjective / buh-NEV-uh-lunt

Definition

1a: marked by or disposed to doing good

1b: organized for the purpose of doing good

2: marked by or suggestive of goodwill

Examples

"The sky above was blue, the whole scene lit by a bright benevolent sun on that crisp winter day." 

— Arnold Thomas Fanning, The Irish Times, 2 June 2018

"At the center is a boy who is poor but honest, brave and hard-working—attributes that eventually attract the attention of an older, well-off and benevolent stranger who, accustomed to greedy jerks, is moved by the strength of his character and helps to lift him from indigence." 

— Ginia Bellafante, The New York Times, 3 June 2018

Did You Know?

Someone who is benevolent genuinely wishes other people well, which is not surprising if you know the word's history. 

Benevolent can be traced back to Latin bene, meaning "good," and velle, meaning "to wish." 

Other descendants of velle in English include volition ("the act or power of making one's choices or decisions"), voluntary, and the rare word velleity (meaning either "the lowest degree of volition" or "a slight wish or tendency"). 

There is also one more familiar velle descendant: malevolent is the antonym of benevolent, and describes one who is disposed to doing ill instead of good.

Transmogrify

WORD OF THE DAY

transmogrify / verb / transs-MAH-gruh-fye 
 
Definition
: to change or alter greatly and often with grotesque or humorous effect

Examples
"It hadn't been cleaned in more than two years and the captured leaves had transmogrified into a wonderfully fecund compost."
— Frank Mulligan, The Leader (Corning, New York), 8 Aug. 2014

"He was present in 1917 when communists shot their way to power and Imperial Russia transmogrified into the Soviet Union."
— Colin Nickerson, The Boston Globe, 30 Apr. 2017

Did You Know?
We know that the prefix trans- means "across" or "beyond" and appears in many words that evoke change, such as transform and transpire, but we don't know the exact origins of transmogrify.
The 17th-century dramatist, novelist, and poet Aphra Behn, who is regarded as England's first female professional writer, was an early adopter of the word.
In her 1671 comic play The Amorous Prince, Behn wrote, "I wou'd Love would transmogriphy me to a maid now." A century later, Scottish poet Robert Burns plied the word again in verse, aptly capturing the grotesque and sometimes humorous effect of transmogrification: "See Social life and Glee sit down, All joyous and unthinking, Till, quite transmugrify'd, they're grown Debauchery and Drinking…."

Sophistry

WORD OF THE DAY

sophistry / noun / SAH-fuh-stree 
 
Definition
1: subtly deceptive reasoning or argumentation
2a: an argument apparently correct in form but actually invalid; especially
2b: such an argument used to deceive

Examples
The newspaper editorial warned readers to beware politicians who use sophistry to convince voters to support policies not in their own best interests.

"Drama, the art in which perspectives are brought into collision, is a powerful antidote to the sophistry and sensationalism nullifying our capacity for intelligent debate."
— Charles McNulty, The Los Angeles Times, 31 Dec. 2017

Did You Know?
The original Sophists were ancient Greek teachers of rhetoric and philosophy prominent in the 5th century B.C.E. 

In their heyday, these philosophers were considered adroit in their reasoning, but later philosophers (particularly Plato) described them as sham philosophers, out for money and willing to say anything to win an argument. 

Thus, sophist—which can be traced back, via the Greek sophistēs ("wise man" or "expert") and sophizesthai ("to become wise"), to sophos, meaning "clever" or wise"—earned a negative connotation as "a captious or fallacious reasoner."

Asseverate

WORD OF THE DAY

asseverate / verb / uh-SEV-uh-rayt 
 
Definition
: to affirm or declare positively or earnestly

Examples
"One can asseverate that a thesaurus is a treasury of words," Felix said ruefully, "but I presume that my own utilization of such costs me some intelligibility."

"A survey conducted by Pacific Community Resources (2003) asseverates drug use among teens is higher than ever today."
— Sheila Cordry & Janell D. Wilson, Education, Fall 2004

Did You Know?
In a 2001 essay in The New York Times, novelist Elmore Leonard warned writers against using any verb other than "said" to carry dialogue, describing how an encounter with asseverated once compelled him to stop reading in order to consult a dictionary. 

Interruption for dictionary consultation is a not a bad thing, but it is acknowledged that asseverate is little more than a fancy word meaning "to assert or declare." 

It was formed in Latin from the prefix ad- ("to, toward") and the verb severare, a relative of the adjective severus, meaning "serious or severe," and has been used in English since the 17th century. 

Nowadays, asseverate is found mostly in the works of authors long dead. It's also occasionally employed by those who like to show off their vocabularies.

Pyrotechnics

WORD OF THE DAY

pyrotechnics / noun / pye-ruh-TEK-niks 
 
Definition
1 (singular or plural in construction ): the art of making or the manufacture and use of fireworks
2a: a display of fireworks
2b: a spectacular display (as of extreme virtuosity)

Examples
The town's much-anticipated Independence Day pyrotechnics will be launched from the usual place: a tower on a mountain ridge along its eastern border.

"His talent as a writer and caricaturist was evident from the start in his verbal pyrotechnics and perfect mimicry of speech patterns, his meticulous reporting, and his creative use of pop language and explosive punctuation."
— Deirdre Carmody and William Grimes, The New York Times, 15 May 2018

Did You Know?
The use of military fireworks in elaborate celebrations of war and peace is an ancient Chinese custom, but our term for the making and launching of fireworks is a product of the 17th and 18th centuries. 

Pyrotechnics and the earlier adjective pyrotechnic derive via French from the Greek nouns pyr ("fire") and techne ("art"). In pyr one can see such fiery relatives as pyromania, the term for an irresistible impulse to start fires, as well as pyrite, the mineral also known as fool's gold. (That word also has an obsolete meaning, in the form pyrites, referring to a stone used for striking fire.) 

Like fireworks, pyrotechnics also has an extended figurative usage, referring to any kind of dazzling display or performance.

Regardless

WORD OF THE DAY

regardless / adverb / rih-GAHRD-lus

Definition

: despite everything

Examples

Heavy rain is expected this weekend, but the county fair will go on regardless.

"'Don't drown, turn around' is a clever phrase created to warn motorists about traversing flooded roadways. It should be heeded by all motorists, regardless of the height of your vehicle and whether it has all-wheel drive." 

— Daily Press (Newport News, Virginia), 4 June 2018

Did You Know?

Regardless is rather simply derived from the noun regard  (meaning "attention" or "concern") plus -less —nothing too shocking about that. 

But poor regardless became embroiled in a usage scandal through no fault of its own when people began using irregardless as its synonym (probably blending irrespective and regardless). 

Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century, and usage commentators have been decrying it since the 1920s, often declaring "there is no such word." Irregardless does exist, of course, but it tends to be used primarily in speech and it is still considered nonstandard. 

Regardless is preferred.

Canicular

WORD OF THE DAY

canicular / adjective / kuh-NIK-yuh-ler 
 
Definition
: of or relating to the period between early July and early September when hot weather occurs in the northern hemisphere

Examples
On weekend days in the canicular season, the wait at the town's only ice cream shop was often 20 people deep.

"Maggie had from her window, seen her stepmother leave the house—at so unlikely an hour, three o'clock of a canicular August…. It was the hottest day of the season…."
— Henry James, The Golden Bowl, 1904

Did You Know?
The Latin word canicula, meaning "small dog," is the diminutive form of canis, source of the English word canine. 

Canicula was also the name for Sirius, the star that represents the hound of the hunter Orion in the constellation named for that Roman mythological figure. 

Because the first visible rising of Sirius occurs during the summer, the hot sultry days that occur from early July to early September came to be called dies caniculares, or as we know them in English, "the dog days."