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1. Where Words About Human Beings Come From ACHIEVE：to come to a head This seems like a simple word,but its history is extremely complicated.The word achieve derives,if you can believe it,from the Latin phrase ad caputvenire,which literally meantto come to a head.Sometimes the Romans used it in the gloomy meaningto die.Later on Old French took over the phrase adcaput,to a head and built on it the verb achever,to finish,and this passed into English as achieve.In Chaucers day,and even up to the time of Queen Elizabeth,achieve could still meanto dieorto killShakespeare used it in this sense in one of his plays,asBid them achieveme and then sell my bones.Along with achieve the Old French developed the word meschever,in English mischief,which in the beginning meant to overwhelm with destruction,and both of these words still have in them the original sense of the Latin caput,orhead.For when you have achieved something,you havebrought it to a head,havent you?But should you get into mischief,things have beenbrought to a bad head,and those who perpetrated the mischief are apt to come to grief. Thus,when Merlin,the wise man of Arthurian legend,said:Synne draweth bothe man and woman to myschebouse ends,he was using the word in its early and stronger sense. ADEPT:originally an alchemist Are you adept,that is,highly skilled at some particular thing?Then you should know the secret of the philosophers stone that transformed base metals into gold.In the Middle Ages the alchemists who claimed to have this secret called themselves adeptus,a Latin word that meansattained,from the verb adipiscor,from ad,to,and apiscor,attain.That is,the alchemists hadattainedtheir goal.Later,in the 17th century,adeptus became a title of honor that was applied only to alchemists of recognized reputation.But when alchemy finally fell into disrepute,the word became a general term of skill.Now you can be adept at cooking or tennis or such. But if you are inept,you havenotattained your goal.You are inexpert and awkward and you are apt to say things that are unbecoming and inappropriate to the occasion. | 
