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prettygoodworddistrait (dih-STRAY; French dees-TRE) - adj., inattentive, absent-minded, or preoccupied, especially because of anxiety.
Originally (in the 15th century), distraught, and in fact is a doublet of that word through reborrowing (in the 18th century) from French (both derived from Latin distractus, which means exactly what it looks like). Like not a few adjectives borrowed from French in more recent centuries, such as blond/blonde, it sometimes has a feminine form, distraite -- which is something TIL, as honestly I thought that spelling was an affected archaism carried over from Middle English. I also thought this was a largely archaic leftover from Middle English, thus my running it right after forglopned, but nope, it's more modern than that. Possibly used more in British than North American English?
And it's these TIL moments that are why I do this in the first place.
---L.
Originally (in the 15th century), distraught, and in fact is a doublet of that word through reborrowing (in the 18th century) from French (both derived from Latin distractus, which means exactly what it looks like). Like not a few adjectives borrowed from French in more recent centuries, such as blond/blonde, it sometimes has a feminine form, distraite -- which is something TIL, as honestly I thought that spelling was an affected archaism carried over from Middle English. I also thought this was a largely archaic leftover from Middle English, thus my running it right after forglopned, but nope, it's more modern than that. Possibly used more in British than North American English?
And it's these TIL moments that are why I do this in the first place.
---L.
