Vocabulary Blog

In a previous post, I showed some word roots that although sound the same, are completely unrelated.

I found another example today with the word venery.  Venery has two definitions, both of different origins.

1. venery - hunting for wild animal
2. venery - the pursuit of sexual pleasure or indulgence

I can imagine an award conversation based around the misinterpretation of this word.

Bob:  Hey John, how was your weekend?
John:  It was great, the wife was out of town, so I had an entire weekend of venery.
Bob:  I didn’t realize anything was in season.  What’d you get?
John:  A blond and a brunette

Sorry if that was lame.

The first definition comes from the Latin word venor, meaning to hunt (think venison).  The second definition comes from the Latin venus or vener-, meaning desire or love (think venereal).

Don’t confuse this with the similar-sounding Latin root venera, from which we get venerable.

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