A.Word.A.Day--rocket science

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Aug 14, 2019

This week’s theme
Words from space travel

This week’s words
moon shot
light-year
rocket science

Rocket scientist Wernher von Braun with the F-1 engines of the Saturn V rocket

Photo: NASA/Wikimedia

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

rocket science

PRONUNCIATION:

(ROK-it sy-uhns)

MEANING:

noun
1. The science of rocket design, construction, and flight.
2. Something requiring advanced knowledge and intelligence.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Italian rocchetta, diminutive of rocca (spindle, distaff) + science, from Latin scientia, present participle of scire (to know). Ultimately from the Indo-European root skei- (to cut or split), which also gave us schism, ski, shin, adscititious, conscientious, exscind, nescient, scienter, and sciolism. Earliest documented use: 1931.

USAGE:

“California requires barbers to study full-time for nearly a year, a curriculum that costs $12,000 at Arthur Borner’s Barber College in Los Angeles. Mr. Borner says his graduates earn more than enough to recoup their tuition, though he questions the need for such a lengthy program. ‘Barbering is not rocket science,’ he said.”
No Right to Work; The Economist (London, UK); Feb 7, 2011.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things. -Russell Baker, columnist and author (14 Aug 1925-2019)

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