Word
Of
The
Day
modicum
modicum \MAH-dih-kum\
noun
: a small portion
: a limited quantity
Examples:
"While his narrative on the politics of the place is interesting and edifying it's the passages about his adventures by land, air and sea that really capture the wild beauty and remoteness of a region he grew to love. And he exhibits more than a
modicum of derring-do. 'I have always flown pretty close to the sun,' [Aaron] Smith says." — Phil Brown,
The Courier Mail (Australia), 5 Dec. 2020
"When the Guardian ran my article on the Visual Perception and Attention Lab at Brunel University London and how it planned to investigate why some gamers invert their controls, I expected a
modicum of interest among seasoned readers of the Games section." —
Keith Stuart, The Guardian (London), 8 Dec. 2020
Did you know?
What does
modicum have to do with a toilet? It just so happens that
modicum shares the same Latin parent as
commode, which is a synonym of
toilet.
Modicum and
commode ultimately derive from the Latin noun
modus, which means "measure." (We borrowed the noun
commode from the French, who also used the word as an adjective meaning "suitable, convenient.")
Modicum, which, logically enough, refers to a small "measure" of something, has been a part of the English language since the 15th century. It descends from the Latin
modicus ("moderate"), which is itself a descendant of
modus.
Modus really measures up as a Latin root—it also gave us
mode (originally a kind of musical "measure"),
modal,
model,
modern,
modify, and
modulate. More distant relatives include
mete,
moderate, and
modest.