Word of the Week: Inaugurate

There were two inaugurations yesterday: President Barack Obama, and with much less fanfare, Beanpot Polyglot. The word inaugurate has the kind of strange history that makes English fun to study, so it's a good way to begin BPPG.

Can you believe that "inaugurate" probably comes from the Latin word for bird? In ancient Rome, an augur was someone who predicted the future by reading the entrails or (less messily) the flight patterns of birds [avis = bird; gerere = do, perform]. The augurs would predict the future before someone was took office. Over time, the action of office-taking became the verb inaugurare.

Today the word has lost all of its meanings of birds and predictions, keeping only the idea of a formal celebration of a new beginning, especially the beginning of a new office.