September 19, 2003

My Kingdom for a Word!

By SIMON WINCHESTER

There are far too many words newly introduced in the Renaissance to be listed here, but sometimes the loveliness of the assemblages are just too beguiling to pass up. So it is pleasing to note that during the 200 years after William Caxton set up a printing press, English welcomed from abroad such words as anonymous, atmosphere, catastrophe, criterion, delirium, enthusiasm, fact, idiosyncrasy, inclemency, lunar, malignant, necessitate, parasite, pneumonia, sculptor, skeleton, soda, vicinity,

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