[Loch-Ruadh] word of the day

[Jane Sitton]

Your daily vocabulary lesson:

The Word of the Day for September 5 is: revenant •
\REH-vuh-nunt\ • (noun): one that returns after death
or a long absence

Example sentence:  The play is about a family of
revenants who come back to their ancestral home after
years of political exile.

Did you know?
Frightening or friendly, the classic revenant is a
ghost, a spectre returning from the dead.  Sir Walter
Scott, in his novel the Fair Maid of Perth used it
that way in 1828, in one of the earliest uses of the
word in English.  Somewhat chillingly he wrote, "Nor
of
taking the fatal leap, had my revenant the slightest
recollection."  We borrowed "revenant" from the
French, who created it from their verb "revenir,"
which means simply "to return" (as does its Latin
ancestor, "revenire").  Later we appended a more
earthly meaning; a revenant can be any flesh-and-blood
returnee when we use it simply to mean a person who
shows up after a long absence.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

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