Saint Ignatius High School

Etymology Word of the Week

Director of Admissions Pat O'Rourke '90, a self-proclaimed "word nerd," brings you his Etymology Word of the Week. Every other week he presents an online Etymology lesson just for fun!

Etymology Word of the Week – As some of you know, in addition to working in the Admissions Office, I also teach Latin at Saint Ignatius and am something of a "word nerd."  Thus, each week, I’ll sneak a vocabulary word (sometimes derived from Latin, sometimes not) into the e-blast.  Here then is this week’s edition of the Etymology Word of the Week.  

Seduce - “to lead astray; to corrupt; to lead or draw away, as from principles, faith, or allegiance.”   From the Latin seducere meaning “to lead away or lead astray,” which combines the Latin reflexive pronoun se meaning “oneself, apart, away, on one’s own” and the Latin verb ducere meaning “to lead.” (All information is from www.wikipedia.org, www.etymonline.com and/or www.dictionary.com.)

RELATED WORDS/PHRASES – duct tape, duct work, abduct, aqueduct, conduct, conducive, deduce, educate, induce/induct, introduce, produce/product, reduce, per se

SAMPLE SENTENCE:  With May the 4th coming up soon, let’s go with a quote from Star Wars this week - “Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force.” - Obi-Wan Kenobi explaining Luke Skywalker’s family history to him in a very ambiguous way.