Things That Are Noxious in the Night
Stella wrote to ask if
the word noxious is indebted to the Latin word for night, nox. “Since primitive times,” she reasoned, “night and darkness
have been seen as dangerous.”
Noxious means harmful,
poisonous, and unwholesome. It comes from the Latin noxa, harm or injury. Related is the word obnoxious. Originally,
obnoxious meant subject to harm. Now it refers to someone or something
offensive and disagreeable. Now considered rare are two other words meaning
harmful: nocible and nocive.
The Latin word for night
is nox, but it has no connection to
noxious other than the letter sequence. English words derived from the Latin
word for night usually take their spelling from the genitive singular form, noctis, leading to words such as
nocturn, nocturne, and nocturnal.
Other word parts
carrying the meaning harmful include deleter-
(deleterious), pericul- (periculous),
and pesti- (pestiferous).
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