scion

English

WOTD – 30 April 2009

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle English sion, sioun, syon, scion, cion, from Old French cion, ciun, cyon, sion; all from Frankish *kīþō, *kīþ, from Proto-Germanic *kīþô, *kīþą, *kīþaz (“sprout”), from Proto-Indo-European *geye (“to split open, sprout”), same source as Old English ċīþ ("a young shoot; sprout; germ; sprig"; > Modern English chit), Old Saxon kīth (“sprout; germ”), Old High German kīdi (“offshoot; sprout; germ”), English chink. See also French scion and Picard chion.[1]. More at chit.

Pronunciation

Noun

scion (plural scions)

  1. A descendant, especially a first-generation descendant.
  2. A detached shoot or twig containing buds from a woody plant, used in grafting; a shoot or twig in a general sense.
  3. The heir to a throne.
  4. A guardian.

Quotations

  • 1956, Delano Ames, chapter 9, in Crime out of Mind‎:
    Rudolf was the bold, bad Baron of traditional melodrama. Irene was young, as pretty as a picture, fresh from a music academy in England. He was the scion of an ancient noble family; she an orphan without money or friends.
  • 1966, Sholem Aleichem, An Early Passover, Clifton Pub. Co., paperback edition, page 24
    It was said to him that those people were the scions of Zion.
  • 1986, David Leavitt, The Lost Language of Cranes, Penguin, paperback edition, page 72
    He could show his parents Eliot, scion of Derek Moulthorp, and then how could they say he was throwing his life away?
  • 1826, Mary Shelley, The Last Man, volume 3, chapter 1
    No senate seats in council for the dead; no scion of a time-honoured dynasty pants to rule over the inhabitants of a charnel house; the general's hand is cold, and the soldier has his untimely grave dug in his native fields, unhonoured, though in youth.

Translations

Trivia

One of three common words ending in -cion, the rest of which are coercion and suspicion.[2][3]

References

  1. 1 2 3 “scion” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2nd Ed.; 1989]
  2. ↑ Notes and Queries, Vol. VI, No. 10, 1889, October, p. 365
  3. ↑ Editor and Publisher, Volume 9, 1909, p. 89

Anagrams

French

Etymology

From Old French cion, ciun, from Frankish *kid-, from Proto-Germanic *kidon, from Proto-Indo-European *geye- (“to split open, to sprout”). Spelling influenced by scie (“saw”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /sjɔ̃/

Noun

scion m (plural scions)

  1. scion (detached twig)
  2. tip of a fishing rod

Synonyms

See also

  • (tip of fishing rod): canne

Further reading

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.