| effigy \EF-eh-jee\ (noun) - A likeness of a person, usually crudely formed as a dummy, but also a carved image, as Washington's effigy on the US 25-cents piece
"When Murdock fell in the wet concrete, he left a reverse effigy of his face in the sidewalk that many of his employees still enjoy stepping on as they come and go."
Today's is another word borrowed from the French, this time "effigie"not much changed from the original Latin effigies "likeness," the noun from effingere "to portray," comprising ex- "out (of)" + fingere "to shape." The root of "fingere" comes from Proto-Indo-European dheigh- "to shape or form" with nasalization (the [n]). It shows up in Old English dage "(bread) kneader, shaper" without that [n]. Now, when "dage" was combined with the word for bread, "hlaf" (the origin of the modern word "loaf"), the result in Old English was hlafdige "bread-kneader." Later on, the meaning drifted to "mistress of the household" and, with the loss of the [h] and [f], it came down to us as "lady"a person least likely to knead (or need) bread. |
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-- From the ArcaMax editors |
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