If you wonder where this blog has been, it’s been stuck in my head while I lay in bed with COVID-19.
Folks, you don’t want to get it. Really. My recovery to full strength is going to take weeks.
Thus, the hiatus.
And what is this odd-sounding word? And why don’t we have other words in the language that sound like it?
The etymology proves straightforward enough. As The OED has it charted out, we have a Latin loan-word. Scholars of the language, please send me other homonyms that came across intact.
As for meaning, it’s a gap. The order of definitions surprises me, as I’ve thought of the gap in chronological terms, as in “between her two terms as mayor, she enjoyed a ten-year hiatus from local politics while leading a local law firm.”
The first definition given, however, involves a break in a material object, as with a hole in a wall. Sounds very odd to say “we crept through the hiatus in the old wall.”
But there it is. If you have other loan-words from Latin that rhyme with this one, send them, as with other words and metaphors of note, to me by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.
See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.
Hole in wall courtesy of Wikipedia. It looks like how I feel.
Consider hiatal hernia: herniation through the diaphragmatic hiatus
Hernia: protrusion or rupture
YOW. I’d rather not consider one. But I might consider it as a Word of The Week! Thank you!