ACELNORV

Word of the Week

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

ACELNORV

(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...

NOVERCAL (adj.)

• Definition(s): of or pertaining to a stepmother

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks:  (none)
• Anagrams: (none)
• Longer extensions:  (none)
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: (none)
• Related Forms: (none)

TileHead says:

It sometimes seems as though English has a word for everything, and a word like NOVERCAL certainly reinforces that notion.  The Latin noverca ("stepmother," perhaps from an extended sense of novus, "new") gave birth to this one, which has been used in English since at least the 1600s.  Since stepmothers have not always had the best reputation, the OED notes that it is frequently "in extended use: cruel, malicious, hostile."

But Fortune... soone cald for the Principall and Interest from this Prince, to whom she was meerly Novercall.
– George Buck, History of the Life and Reigne of Richard the Third (1646)

Guido's old lady-mother Beatrice,
Who since her husband, Count Tommaso's death,
Has held sole sway i' the house...
Was recognized of true novercal type,
Dragon and devil.
– Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book (1868)

Bianca... became subject to the novercal tyranny and the ill-will of the new mistress of the house.
– Thomas Okey, The Old Venetian Palaces and Old Venetian Folk (1907)

On the other hand, there is no standard English word meaning "pertaining to a stepfather" (or to other step-relationships) at all, so NOVERCAL remains a noteworthy lexical gem and one perhaps overdue for a more positive revival.

Incidentally, George Buck's account of Richard the Third (see the first quote above) also makes use of STEPDAME, which was once a perfectly harmless synonym for "stepmother," though it probably would not sound very polite to modern ears.  DAME was occasionally used for "mother" prior to 1600 and was used in this sense by both Chaucer and Shakespeare, before falling out of use in modern English.  GRANDAME was similarly used to mean "grandmother," with an alternate spelling of GRANDAM – which also happens to be the anagram of the more modern GRANDMA.