Everyday LifeGreek → English
Crapulence
/ˈkræpjʊləns/noun
Sickness or discomfort brought on by too much food and drink.
The Greek roots
κραιπάλη
kraipálē
drunken headache, hangover
Literally: “the sickness after drinking”
Follow a root:κραιπάλη1 word
The story of the word
Greek κραιπάλη named the morning after specifically, the headache and nausea rather than the drinking itself, and Luke's gospel warns against letting the heart grow heavy with it. Latin took it as crapula, and English built crapulous in the sixteenth century and crapulence later. The resemblance to a much ruder English word is pure coincidence; that one comes from a Germanic root for chaff and residue.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
Same family
crapulouscrapulent
In a sentence
He came down at noon in a state of obvious crapulence and asked for coffee, black.