raillery (n. RAY-luh-ree)

1 : good-natured ridicule : banter

2 : jest

Raillery is the anglicized form of the French word raillerie, which stems from the Middle French verb railler (to mock). Railler also gave us our verb rail. But rail and raillery are quite different in tone. Rail means to revile or scold in harsh, insolent, or abusive language, whereas raillery usually suggests cutting wit that pokes fun good-naturedly. In fact, the playful quality of raillery is reminiscent of an earlier ancestor: Old Provencal ralhar, which means to babble or to joke. Ralhar might itself descend from Vulgar and Late Latin words meaning to bray and to neigh.

maunder (v. MAWN-der or MAHN-der)

1 : to wander slowly and idly

2 : to speak indistinctly or disconnectedly

Maunder looks a lot like meander, and that's not all the two words have in common -- both mean to wander aimlessly, either physically or in speech. Some critics have suggested that while meander can describe both verbal and physical rambling, maunder should be limited to wandering words. The problem with that reasoning is that maunder staked out the physical wandering territory in 1746, whereas meander didn't arrive until 1831. These days, meander tends to be the more common choice, although maunder does continue to turn up in both applications.

grisly (adj. GRIZ-lee)

1 : inspiring horror or intense fear

2 : inspiring disgust or distaste

An angry grizzly bear could certainly inspire fear, so grizzly must be a variant of grisly, right? Yes and no. The adjective grisly is indeed sometimes spelled grizzly, but the grizzly in grizzly bear is a different animal altogether. Grisly derives from an Old English predecessor, grislic, which is itself related to an Old English verb meaning to fear. Grizzly comes from the Middle English adjective grisel, meaning gray. Like its variant grizzled, this grizzly means sprinkled or streaked with gray. In other words, the grizzly got its name because it has fur that is somewhat grayish, not because it causes terror. That misperception -- that the bear's name reflects its reputed fierceness -- probably contributed to the development of the grizzly variant of grisly.

heterodox (adj. HEH-tuh-ruh-dahks or HEH-truh-dahks)

1 : contrary to or different from an acknowledged standard, a traditional form, or an established religion : unorthodox, unconventional

2 : holding unorthodox opinions or doctrines

"Orthodoxy . . . is my doxy -- heterodoxy is another man's doxy," quipped 18th-century bishop William Warburton. He was only punning, but it is true that individuals often see other people's ideas as unconventional while regarding their own as beyond reproach. Contemporaries of Nicolaus Copernicus certainly considered him not orthodox (which in his day meant not correct), but they wouldn't have called him heterodox because that word didn't gain widespread use in English until about 100 years after he died. Although orthodox and heterodox are considered antonyms, they developed from the same root, the Greek doxa, which means opinion. Heterodox derives from a combination of doxa plus heter-, a prefix meaning other or different; orthodoxy pairs doxa with orth-, meaning correct or straight.

deasil (adv. DEE-zul)

: clockwise