Minor Roots: TED-

Relentlessly boring

Saturdays are perfect days for tiresome surprises. Surprise—we’re talking about the minor base TED- today!

Some word roots are so expressive and flexible that you expect them to contribute to sprawling lists of popular words. The root TED- meaning weary is derived from the Latin word taedere, meaning to weary of. Considering how annoyed and bored so many people profess to be, why do we see so few TED- words? English really only has two to speak of:

tedium (noun) - the state of being boring, tiresome, or monotonous
BREAKDOWN: TED- (weary) + -IUM (state)

tedious (adj) - tiresome, irksome, or dull, usually due to excessive length or repetitiveness
BREAKDOWN: TED- (weary) + -IOUS (full of)
—tediousness is the quality of being tiring and boring; tedium

Technically, tediosity (the quality of being tedious) still counts as a word, but one that has fallen out of usage. So, weary wordsmiths of the world, rise up… propose new words based on the root TED-. We simply deserve more ways to map the dimensions of boredom and monotony.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk ;)

“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.” –Oscar Wilde

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