{"id":1890,"date":"2023-01-17T14:52:28","date_gmt":"2023-01-17T19:52:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/?p=1890"},"modified":"2023-01-17T15:04:33","modified_gmt":"2023-01-17T20:04:33","slug":"word-of-the-week-solvent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2023\/01\/17\/word-of-the-week-solvent\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Week! Solvent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2023\/01\/solvents-scaled.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1891\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2023\/01\/solvents-300x235.jpeg\" alt=\"Collection of solvents\" width=\"300\" height=\"235\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2023\/01\/solvents-300x235.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2023\/01\/solvents-1024x801.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2023\/01\/solvents-768x601.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2023\/01\/solvents-1536x1201.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2023\/01\/solvents-2048x1601.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>I build plastic models as a hobby, and for much of the work, among the adhesives I employ a glue that works as a solvent. It dissolves things, making parts stick by making polystyrene soft.<\/p>\n<p>Our word has, in business, nearly a contrary meaning. One who is not bankrupt and can pay debts is also called &#8220;solvent.&#8221; Instead of taking away something, solvency here adds solidity. Or perhaps solvents that work as adhesives add strength by temporarily weakening?<\/p>\n<p>Yet that cannot be the case: if you have worked with strong enough solvents, you know that they dissolve completely the substance called a solute, resulting in a solution. Yes, I got a C in college chemistry.<\/p>\n<p>It amazes me that both senses of our word, the two most commonly heard nowadays, date to about the same time, if one studies <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oed.com\/view\/Entry\/184396?redirectedFrom=solvent&amp;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the OED entry<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Incidentally, we often speak of the bankrupt as &#8220;insolvent,&#8221; a sense not used with chemicals (as far as I know).<\/p>\n<p>This post will remain a mystery to me. Why did such different meanings emerge from the same Latin roots?\u00a0 That&#8217;s one of the things I most enjoy about looking at familiar-seeming words. &#8220;Solvent&#8221; has a frequency band of 6 (of 8) at the OED. it&#8217;s a daily word.<\/p>\n<p>Nominate a word students need to learn by e-mailing me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.<\/p>\n<p>See all of our Metaphors of the Month\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/tag\/metaphor-of-the-month\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>\u00a0and Words of the Week\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/tag\/word-of-the-week\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Image of solvents courtesy of Wikipedia.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I build plastic models as a hobby, and for much of the work, among the adhesives I employ a glue that works as a solvent. It dissolves things, making parts stick by making polystyrene soft. Our word has, in business, nearly a contrary meaning. One who is not bankrupt and can pay debts is also &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2023\/01\/17\/word-of-the-week-solvent\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Word of the Week! Solvent<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":589,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2516,214,40197],"tags":[2522],"class_list":["post-1890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-writing","category-business","category-vocabulary","tag-word-of-the-week"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcsCNV-uu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/589"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1890"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1896,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1890\/revisions\/1896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}