September 15, 2012
- chowder (noun)
- What does it mean?
- : a soup or stew made of seafood or corn with potatoes and onions and milk or tomatoes
- How do you use it?
- Grandpa cooked his special clam chowder in a huge cauldron and served us each a steaming hot bowl of it.
- Are you a word wiz?
Today's example sentence gives a clue about a word that is related to "chowder." Which other word in the sentence above do you think comes from the same root word as "chowder"?A cauldron full of steamy chowder shows word relationships and history in action. That's because English speakers borrowed "chowder" from the French word "chaudiere," which means "a kettle or its contents." "Chaudiere" developed from the Latin "caldaria" (which has the same meaning as the French word). "Caldaria" traces back to "calere," a Latin word meaning "to be warm." The word "cauldron," meaning "large kettle," also developed from "caldaria," so it is a relative of "chowder."