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re-barba-tif...barbarian? Barbarus in ancient Rome was a person who didn �t speak Latin, so a "different person". Nowadays, in Italy, we call barbarian someone who is rude and impolite...
Is the word something related to keep people at distance, not to mingle with?
It�s a word of
no great age: it only began to appear at the end of the nineteenth century.
It�s still uncommon, though you may spot it in the more erudite newspapers or
in the work of writers with more power to their pens than most of us: Frank!!
The touch of
weirdness in this word comes not from its unusualness but from its history. If
the middle bit of rebarbative makes you think of barbers (Greek- Professor, Poohbear), you�re on the right
track � the ultimate source is Latin barba, beard. Rebarbative came into English
from the French r�barbatif with the same sense. This has been in French since
the fourteenth century � it derives from the verb se rebarber, which referred
to two men squaring up face to face, beard to beard, in close-quartered and
hairy aggressiveness.
Rebarbative = Repellent (Spanish)
It �s so boiling hot and humid today that my place is full of mosquitoes so I �m rushing to get some"insect rebarbative"
