CRYPT comes from the Greek word for “hidden.

” To encrypt a message is to encode it—that is, to hide its

meaning in code language. When a scientific term begins with crypto-, it always means that there's
something hidden about it .

crypt (n) (1) A room completely or partly underground, especially under the main floor of a church. (2) A
room or area in a large above ground tomb. Example: His old nightmare was of being locked in a crypt
with corpses as his only companions. Etymological Explanation: Hidden under the main floor of a great
church is often a large room, often with a tomb as its centerpiece. Many major European churches were
built over the remains of a saint—the Vatican's great St. Peter's Basilica is an example—and instead of
having the coffin buried, it was often given its spacious room below ground level. In a large above ground
tomb, or mausoleum , there may be several small chambers for individual coffins, also called crypts;
when the comic book Tales from the Crypt made its first appearance in 1950, it was this meaning that
the authors were referring to.

encrypt (v) (1) To convert into cipher. (2) To convert a message into code. Example: Messages on the
group's Web site are encrypted in code words to keep law-enforcement agents from understanding
them. Etymological Explanation: Codes aren't always in another language; people have always been able
to communicate in ways that conceal their real meaning. In countries ruled by dictators, novelists and
playwrights have sometimes managed to encrypt their messages, conveying political ideas to their
audiences so that the authorities never notice. But encryption today usually refers to a complex
procedure performed on electronic text to make sure the wrong people—whether a nation's enemies or
a business competitor (most businesses use encryption today)—can't read it. And sensitive data that
merely resides on a company's own computers is often encrypted as well.

cryptic (adj) (1) Mysterious; puzzlingly short. (2) Acting to hide or conceal. Example: From across the
room, Louisa threw Philip a cryptic look, and he puzzled over what she was trying to tell him.
Etymological Explanation: Until the writing on the famous Rosetta Stone was finally translated in the
early 19th century, Egyptian hieroglyphic writing was entirely cryptic, its meaning hidden from the
modern world. In the same way, a cryptic comment is one whose meaning is unclear, and a cryptic note
may leave you wondering. Cryptic coloring among plants and animals acts like camouflage; so, for
example, some moths that are tasty to blue jays are cryptically colored to look like bugs that jays won't
touch.

cryptography (n) (1) Secret writing. (2) The encoding and decoding of messages. Example: As a graduate
student in mathematics Example: As a graduate student in mathematics, she never dreamed she would
end up working in cryptography for the Defense Department. Etymological Explanation: During World
War II, cryptography became an extremely complex science for both the Allied and Axis powers. The
Allies managed to secretly crack the code produced by the Nazis' Enigma machine, and thereby may
have shortened the war by two years. The Axis cryptographers, on the other hand, never managed to
crack the Americans' ultimate code—the spoken languages of the Navajo and other American Indians. In
the age of computers, cryptography has become almost unbelievably complex; it's widely used in
peacetime in such areas as banking telecommunications.
AB/ABS comes to us from Latin, and means “from,” “away,” or “off.” Abuse is the use of something in the
wrong way. To abduct is to “lead away from” or kidnap. Aberrant behavior is behavior that “wanders
away from” what is acceptable. But there are so many words that include these roots that it would be
absurd to try to list them all here.

abscond (v) To depart in secret and hide. Example: They discovered the next morning that their guest
had absconded with most of the silverware during the night. Etymological Explanation: Wagner's
massive four-part opera The Ring of the Nibelung begins with a dwarf absconding with gold which he
turns into a magic ring. And in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins absconds from Gollum's caves
with the ring he has found, the ring Gollum calls “my precious”; what follows is detailed in the three-
volume Lord of the Rings. (Tolkien knew Wagner's opera well.) A young couple might abscond from their
parents to get married, but sooner or later they must face those parents again.

abstemious (adj) Restrained, especially in the consumption of food or alcohol. Example: Her parents had
left her two million dollars when they died, having been so abstemious for years that their neighbors all
assumed they were poor. Etymological Explanation: Many 14th-century monks lived by the Rule of St.
Benedict, which demands an abstemious life of obedience and poverty. But not all monks could maintain
such abstemious habits. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales contains a portrait of a fat monk who is supposed to
follow a vegetarian diet but instead is an enthusiastic hunter who loves a juicy swan best. He justifies
breaking the Rule by saying that it's old-fashioned and that he's just keeping up with modern times.
Abstemious itself has a slightly old-fashioned sound today, especially in a country where everyone is
constantly encouraged to consume.

abstraction (n) The consideration of a thing or idea without associating it with a particular example.
Example: All the ideas she came up with in class were abstractions, since she had no experience of actual
nursing at all. Etymological Explanation: From its roots, abstraction should mean basically “something
pulled or drawn away.” So abstract art is art that has moved away from painting objects of the ordinary
physical world in order to show something beyond it. Theories are often abstractions; so a theory about
economics, for instance, may “pull back” to take a broad view that somehow explains all of economics
(but maybe doesn't end up explaining any of it very successfully). An abstract of a medical or scientific
article is a one-paragraph summary of its contents—that is, the basic findings “pulled out” of the article.

abstruse (adj) Hard to understand; deep or complex. Example: In every class he fills the blackboard with
abstruse calculations, and we usually leave more confused than ever. Etymological Explanation: The
original meaning of abstruse, coming almost straight from the Latin, was “concealed, hidden.” It's easy to
see how the word soon came to describe the kind of language used by those who possess certain kinds
of expert knowledge (and don't necessarily want to share it with other people). Scientific writing is often
filled with the kind of abstruse special vocabulary that's necessary for exact and precise descriptions.
Unfortunately, the language of a science like quantum physics can make an already difficult subject even
more abstruse to the average person.

PED- comes from the Greek word for “child.” The same root also has the meaning “foot,” but in English
words it usually isn't hard to tell the two apart.
Pedagogy (n) The art, science, or profession of teaching. Example: His own pedagogy is extremely
original; it sometimes alarms school officials but his students love it. Etymological Explanation: Since in
Greek agogos means “leader,” a paidagogos was a slave who led boys to school and back, but also taught
them manners and tutored them after school. In time, pedagogue came to mean simply “teacher”; today
the word has an old-fashioned ring to it, so it often means a stuffy, boring teacher. The word pedagogy,
though, is still widely used, and often means simply “teaching.” And pedagogic training is what everyone
majoring in education receives.

pedant (n) (1) A formal, unimaginative teacher. (2) A person who shows off his or her learning. Example:
At one time or another, every student encounters a pedant who can make even the most interesting
subject tedious. Etymological Explanation: It isn't always easy to tell a pedantic teacher from one who is
simply thorough. Some professors get an undeserved reputation for pedantry from students who just
don't like the subject much. Regardless of that, a pedant need not be a teacher; anyone who goes
around displaying his or her knowledge in a boring way can qualify.

pediatrician (n) A doctor who specializes in the diseases, development, and care of children. Example:
Children in the U.S. usually see a pediatrician until they turn at least 15 or 16. Etymological Explanation:
Since iatros means “physician” in Greek, words such as pediatric naturally refer to “children's medicine.”
Pediatrics is a fairly new medical specialty; until about 1900, children were considered small adults and
given the same medical treatment, only milder. Benjamin Spock was the most famous pediatrician of the
20th century, and his book Baby and Child Care changed the way millions of Americans raised their
children.

encyclopedic (adj) (1) Of or relating to an encyclopedia. (2) Covering a wide range of subjects. Example:
Someone with the kind of encyclopedic knowledge she has should be competing on Jeopardy.
Etymological Explanation: In Greek, paidaea meant not simply “child-rearing” but also “education,” and
kyklios meant “general”; thus, an encyclopedia is a work broad enough to provide a kind of general
education. The world's most eminent general encyclopedia, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, is a huge work
that covers every field of human knowledge. But encyclopedic doesn't have to refer to books; it's often
used to describe the wide-ranging knowledge that certain types of minds just can't stop acquiring.