The Esoteric Wordsmyth
Vespertine
Vespertine pronounced \VESS-per-tyne\1495–1505; < Latin vespertīnus, equivalent to vesper vesper + -tīnus. Of, relating to, or occurring in the evening; active, flowering, or flourishing in the evening
‘A vespertine fog crept over the farm, concealing the outbuildings and the orchard and stranding the house in an inky ocean of darkness as the evening turned to night.’
‘In research involving American black bears Ursus americanus, Bridges et al. … recorded activity patterns at bait sites in Virginia and found bear activity was generally vespertine but exhibited seasonal differences with bears becoming more nocturnal in the fall….’
From a chapter by A.S. Bridges and A.J. Noss in Camera Traps in Animal Ecology (2011)
Imagine this vespertine scenario: Hesperus, the Evening Star, shines in a clear sky; little brown bats flutter near the treetops; somewhere in the distance a church bell calls worshipers to the evening service. Can you find three words (other than ‘vespertine’) associated with the Latin root ‘vesper,’ which means 'evening,' hidden in that scene? The evening star was once known as ‘Vesper’ (‘Hesperus’ is from the Greek for ‘evening’); ‘vespertilian’ means ‘batlike’(the Latin word for bat is ‘vespertilio’); and we still call an evening worship service ‘vespers.’
NR
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