We also recognize the root of cupere in concupiscence “lust.” One can wish, and wish strongly, for many things.
![what does rapt mean what does rapt mean](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TdRwhPTIReM/maxresdefault.jpg)
Cupidity narrowed its meaning and came to designate “inordinate desire for gain.” Such changes regularly occur in the history of words. Latin cupidus meant “eagerly desirous” and cupiditas, an abstract noun, meant “desire,” all from the verb cupere. Likewise, Cupido “Cupid” is personified desire. In Antiquity and the Middle Ages, this rule did not exist, but, regardless of spelling, we understand that Hnoss is the personification of hnoss. In our editions, proper names are spelled with capital letters. The great 13th-century Icelandic scholar Snorri Strurluson says: “She is so lovely that whatever is beautiful and valuable is called ‘treasure’ from her name.” Surprisingly, a man of Snorri’s intellect believed that the divine name had been coined first and the common name derived from it, though it is obvious that the order of events was reverse.
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For instance, Old Icelandic hnoss meant “treasure, woman’s ornament,” and there was a goddess called Hnoss.
![what does rapt mean what does rapt mean](https://www.namespedia.com/image/Rapt_surname.jpg)
To us, and, similarly, to the Romans, Cupido was a proper name alongside of cupido, a common noun, but when we deal with deities, the line between proper and common names is conventional.
What does rapt mean full#
Cupid (Latin Cupido) is the Roman counterpart of Eros, a mischievous god of love, a willful boy with a quiver full of arrows. It yielded Italian rapire and Old French ravir from France it came to England in the 13th century. The ultimate source (etymon) of ravish is the same verb rapere, which in Latin seems to have had the cognate rapire. When we are in raptures, we are “carried away.” ( Rapscallion “rascal” and rapier have nothing to do with rapere.) A similar case is ravish, a genteel synonym of rape, and the adjective ravishing (as in ravishing beauty). Even closer to rapere are rapacious and the bookish noun rapine “pillage.” At one remove, we find rapt (as in rapt admiration) rapture is rapt with a suffix – ure (compare depict and picture). Latin rapere meant “seize, snatch away.” It is related to the adjective rapidus “rapid,” and the connection makes sense. But, if I am allowed to coin a word, English is full of etymological “embarrassables”: words that are certainly related, but how? How dare they belong together? Are they related? (The last two may be.) Is there any connection between concrete, the noun, and concrete, the adjective? (No, only the prefix con– is the same in both.) Such questions are the stuff etymologists’ dreams are made “on” (so Shakespeare, as far as the preposition is concerned).
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This happens when we have a cluster of homonyms, for example, flag (a plant name, remembered, if at all, from the marginalia in the Book of Job, VIII: 11), flag “banner,” flag, as in flagstone, and flag, as in conversation flagged. For example, when a student writes that he has read “many tails about Santa Clause,” no one will doubt that he is a native speaker whose performance is legitimate but perhaps needs some polishing (otherwise, this person, with whom I had a heart to heart talk in my office, turned out to be a bright prospective engineer). They also know that, according to the most advanced linguistic theory, aliens make mistakes (which are frowned upon and have to be corrected), whereas native speakers have something called competence and at most make performance errors, a misdemeanor in comparison to felony. Only foreigners sail merrily in these tempestuous waters, because they know that they are dealing with a maddeningly difficult language and have to learn it. English, it appears, is a veritable pandemonium: all words mean the same, and everything sounds like something else, thereby creating insurmountable difficulties for the unwary. Not only such classic near twins as affect ~ effect, principle ~ principal, lie ~ lay, and biannual ~ biennial get confused. Many people have seen a dictionary of confusables before.