Candidity
I know there’s no such
word as candidity, but I like the sound of it. A listener asked about the word candor. It
now means openness, frankness, and outspokenness. Originally (14th c.),
it meant brilliant whiteness. That’s no surprise, since it came from a Latin
word that meant whiteness. It then (17th c.) expanded into
innocence, integrity, and purity of character.
Other words share the
same Latin root. One of them is candid. It, too, started out meaning whiteness,
then morphed into innocent and pure, then into free from malice, then into open
and straightforward. In photographic terms, it came to mean an informal or
unposed photo.
The word candidate also
stemmed from the Latin word for whiteness. This is because Romans running for
office wore white togas. If their campaign caught on fire, it was positively
candescent.
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