Word of the Day
épaulette
Épaulette
French
French/e.po.ˈlɛt/English/ˈɛp.ə.lɛt/
“The ornamental shoulder pad of military dress uniforms began as functional armor and ended as pure theater — the history of the epaulette is the history of how military necessity becomes military ceremony.”
Épaulette comes from French épaulette, a diminutive of épaule ('shoulder'), from Old French espalle, from Latin spatula ('shoulder blade, flat object'), itself a diminutive of spatha ('broad sword, broad flat instrument'), borrowed from Greek σπάθη (spathē, 'blade, broad flat tool'). The Latin spatula gives English both 'spatula' (the kitchen tool shaped like a broad flat blade) and, through the military route, 'epaulette.' The shoulder that bears the epaulette and the kitchen implement that spreads the batter share an ancestor in the Greek word for any broad flat thing. The shoulder blade and the spreading blade are etymologically identical — a coincidence that rewards knowing.
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