Adventures in Etymology – Nonchalant
In this Adventure we’re calmly looking into the origins of the word nonchalant. Nonchalant [ˈnɒn.ʃəl.ənt / ˌnɑn.ʃəˈlɑnt] means: * casually calm and relaxed * indifferent, unconcerned, behaving as if detached It comes from the French nonchalant (indolent, cool, relaxed) from the Old French nonchaloir (to have no importance, indifference), from non- (not) and chaloir (to heat, bother, concern), from the Latin calēre (to matter or care) from caleō (I am warm or hot, I glow) [source]. Words from the same Latin roots include calorie, cauldron, chowder, caldera, coddle and scald in English, calor (heat) in Spanish, and chaleur (heat, warmth, fervour) in French [source]. If you can be nonchalant, can you be chalant? Well, the word chalent does exist, at least in informal use, and means careful, attentive or concerned [source], or concerning, frustrating and possibly hostile [source]. Here’s a video I made of this information: Video made with Doodly [afflilate link]. I also write about words, etymology and other language-related topics on the Omniglot Blog, and I explore etymological connections between Celtic languages on the Celtiadur. You can also listen to this podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher, TuneIn, Podchaser, PlayerFM or podtail. If you would like to support this podcast, you can make a donation via PayPal or Patreon, or contribute to Omniglot in other ways.