Grimmer Girl here. This week I have a meaty middle about five English words that come from

Latin, and a tidbit about the phrase batten down the hatches. I had a good laugh this morning

when I realized the file name for this show was Latin Batten. It rhymes. I also have some

thank yous for listeners. And now on to words from Latin. Today's topic is English words that

have not so obvious origins in Latin. These words have perhaps been traveling in cognito. Their

identities concealed. And in case you aren't familiar with that word, it means unknown, and it

comes from the negative prefix in, in a form of the Latin verb to get to know, in cognito.

Stick around to get to know some interesting word history. Most of you probably know that gladiators

fought to the death in venues like the Colosseum, the largest amphitheater in the Roman world,

according to history.com. The official name of this stadium where men and beasts clashed was

amphitheatrum flavium. And this amphitheater was so named because emperors of the flavian dynasty

built it. The landmark in Rome is usually spelled capital C-O-L-O-S-S-E-U-M with two S's.

But the spelling Colosseum with one S is used as well. Colosseum with one S generally refers to a

large venue that hosts entertainers, but it can also be spelled the other way. Take your pick.

Two related words are Colosseum, an adjective meaning big, and Colosseus, a noun that refers to a

large statue or anything enormous. Interestingly, according to the National Geographic website,

the flavian amphitheater became known as the Colosseum because of the more than 100-foot tall bronze

statue of Nero depicted as the Sun God, the Colosseus Nironus that once loomed over the valley.

Our next word is arena. It wasn't so obvious that the word Colosseum originated from big statue.

Even more incognito are the origins of arena, which we all know means a central stage or ring

used for sports or other entertainment. If you're familiar with Spanish, you may have figured it out,

since arena means sand, and that's exactly where the English word arena comes from.

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