Root of the Week (ROW) LAT

LAT, Latin

Latin contains many words derived from the root LAT. Lateralus means “related to the side.” Latitudo means “breadth, width, extent,” from latus, meaning “wide, broad, extensive.” And latus (the past participle of the Latin verb ferre) also means “carried.” All these LAT words became the bases for words in the English language.

MONDAY Lateral (Adjective, Noun) Laterally (Adverb)

Lateral means “relating to the side, coming from the side, directed sideways, from side to side.”

A lateral view of a building would be a view of its side, rather than its front or back. Crabs move laterally, scuttling sideways along the sand.  Employees might make a lateral job change, leaving one position for another at about the same level of seniority and pay (as opposed to a “vertical” move up the occupational ladder). In football, a lateral or lateral pass occurs when the ball is thrown or handed off sideways or backward to a teammate, as opposed to a forward pass, which is aimed at the opponent’s end zone. In anatomy, lateral refers to the side of the body.  For example, the arms are lateral to the chest, meaning “to the sides of” the chest.

TUESDAY  Equilateral (Adjective), Collateral (Adjective, Noun)

The prefix equi means “equal,” so equilateral means “having equal sides.” An equilateral triangle is one whose three sides are equal in length. A polyhedron, such as a cube or a pyramid, is equilateral in that its faces are all equal.

The prefix col , like co  and com, means “with.”  Collateral, when used as an adjective, means “along with, accompanying in a secondary position.” When engaging in a legal argument, one person might describe an issue that is relevant but less central to the main one as a collateral issue. A genealogist might describe a person as a collateral relative, meaning a family member who is not a direct descendent: for example, a daughter is a direct descendent but a niece is a collateral relative.  Sadly, wars often involve what is called collateral damage, referring to casualties that are incidental, rather than intended. When bombs fall, noncomatants become casualties.

Collateral is also used as a noun to refer to property given to a lender as an assurance of repayment. If you borrow money, you might pledge your car as collateral and if you fail to repay the loan, you give up your car instead.

WEDNESDAY Unilateral (Adjective), Multilateral (Adjective), Bilateral (Adjective),  Trilateral (Adjective, Quadralateral (Adjective) 

The prefix uni means “one,” so unilateral means “one sided. Unilateral has a physical application, as when a medical professional refers to a unilateral injury—an injury to one side of the body.  But unilateral is often used to describe a decision made or an action taken by one side, one person, or one country.  If a nation enacts a unilateral policy to reduce greenhouse emissions, it is making that change without requiring other nations to cooperate or follow suit. Since greenhouse gasses produced by one country affect the whole planet, however, such policies are more effective when they are multilateral, with many countries signing agreements to reduce their emissions. Given the difficulty of getting a large number of different countries to agree to anything, however, such an agreement might have to be bilateral, involving only two countries. Other number-identifying prefixes can be attached to lateral, so we also get trilateral and quadrilateral, referring to three-sided or four-sided phenomena.

THURSDAY Latitude (Noun), Latitudinarian (Noun)

In geographic contexts, latitude refers to lines running parallel to the equator, specifying a north-south position on Earth’s surface (as opposed to longitude, whose lines run perpendicular to the equator).  In the context of human affairs, however, latitude has a different meaning. Recall that the Latin word latitudo means “breadth, width, extent.” When people have latitude in some context, they have a wide range of options. A school might give its students latitude to use laptops in class, rather than restricting laptop use. A court might grant a president latitude to enact a particular policy.

A latitudinarian is someone who gives others wide latitude, not requiring strict conformity to a belief system or doctrine.  The word is mostly used in religious contexts to denote a person or group that allows for differing views, but political parties—or any organizations—can also be latitudinarian if they are tolerant rather than doctrinaire.

FRIDAY  Translate (Verb), Translation (Noun), Translator (Noun), Collate (Verb). Ablation (Noun)

In Latin, latus is the past participle of the verb ferre (even though they don’t look related!). Ferre means “to carry, to bear,” so latus means “carried, borne.”  The root LAT, in the sense of “carried,” appears in words like translate, collate, and ablation. 

To translate a written work or a spoken dialogue is to “carry” the meaning from one language to another.  The prefix trans means “across” so meaning is “carried across” languages. You can read Tolstoy’s War and Peace in the original if you read Russian, but if you don’t, many translations in many languages are available. In international meetings, translators have the challenging job of translating spoken dialogue simultaneously as speakers from different countries exchange views.

The prefix col means “with.” When combined with lat in the sense of “carried,” it means something like “carried together with or integrated with.”  To collate is to put (“carry”) written pages into a desired sequence. One aspect of book publication is collating the pages, perhaps integrating them with photographs, illustrations, or graphs, so that the final volume presents everything in the right order.

The prefix ab means “from, away from.” The word ablation means the “carrying away,” or removal, of something from something else.  In medical contexts, ablation refers to the surgical removal of something harmful from the body.  In geological contexts, ablation refers to the removal, by melting or evaporation, of ice or snow from a glacier or iceberg. Multilateral agreements to curb greenhouse gas emissions would be one way to limit that kind of ablation.