BCDEEINT

Word of the Week

A feature wherein TileHead highlights a word that is is especially interesting or unusual (and, incidentally, useful in Scrabble play):

BCDEEINT

(unscramble the letters to form this week's word...)

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(answer below, after a little more spoiler space....)

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This week's word is...

BENEDICT n. pl. -S

• Definition: A newly married man, especially an apparently confirmed bachelor who marries

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: -S
• Anagrams: (none)
• Longer extensions: -ION(S), -ORY
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: BENEDICK (n. pl. -S)
• Related Forms: (none)

TileHead says:

The only definition of this word currently in use comes directly from the character of that name in William Shakespeare's comedy Much Ado About Nothing (c. 1600).  Benedick proclaims he will never marry and denies his love for Beatrice until the very end of the play, when the two characters finally admit their love for each other and make plans to tie the knot.  Thus the word came to refer to a newly married man who was previously set against marriage, or as Ebenezer Cobham Brewer memorably stated in his famous Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, "a sworn bachelor caught in the wiles of matrimony."

In Shakespeare's time the word BENEDICT / BENEDICK could also mean "blessed, benign" or in medicine "something mildly laxative," as in "Rhubarb and other Medicines that are benedict" (Francis Bacon, 1626).

Until recently, BENEDICT was most properly used to mean "a perennial bachelor sworn to celibacy" (after St. Benedict, famous for celibacy), while BENEDICK was used to mean "a sworn bachelor who eventually marries" (after the Shakespearean character).  Nowadays the two words are used more-or-less interchangeably to refer to a newly married man who has long been a bachelor.

All of these names and words, by the way, derive from the Latin benedictus ("blessed").  Other words from the same root include BENISON, BENEDICTION, and BENEDICTORY.