Make Your Point > Archived Issues > NOMINIS UMBRA
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If, like me, you don't speak Latin but you've spent a good deal of time poking English and peering at it with a magnifying glass, you can probably translate the Latin nominis umbra easily enough: it means "the shadow of a name."
See if you can explain its resemblance to words like name, nominal, and ignominious; as well as words like umbrella, umbrage, and penumbra.
make your point with...
"NOMINIS UMBRA"
This is Latin for "the shadow of a name."
It started out as a lofty phrase, then turned into a cool nickname, then a mild insult.
(To skip this backstory, scoot on down to the definition below in bold.)
In 1640, in a historical allegory, James Howell wrote:
"Never was there Monarch, that Lorded more over his Subjects hearts: ... hee was eternizd to future Ages with the Title of GREAT, and... his Statues should be erected in all the Mart Townes of Ampelona.—stat Magni nominis Vmbra."
That last sentence means, "He stands the shadow of a mighty name." If we're standing under the statue of this amazing monarch, then by comparison, we're little shadowy, no-named people. And the statue itself stands as the shadow of the real monarch.
That lofty phrase took on a playful twist in 1772, when a writer who called himself Junius published a series of politically feisty letters in a book called Junius: Stat nominis umbra. Since this "Junius" kept his real name secret, he "stood in the shadow of a name." Cool.
There's one more part to this story. "Junius" and his cool shadowy name got mocked by the poet Lord Byron, who, in the process, changed the meaning of the phrase and popularized it.
Byron's 1822 satirical poem, "The Vision of Judgement," is one of those long, rambling, epic ones. It includes a character named "Junius." The speaker calls him "Old Nominis Umbra," or "Old Shadow of a Name." Check it out:
"'What I have written, I have written: let
The rest be on his head or mine!' So spoke
Old 'Nominis Umbra'; and while speaking yet,
Away he melted in celestial smoke."
Ha ha, burn! You're so historically insignificant, Byron seems to say, that you and your shadowy name just disappeared in a puff of smoke.
From then, people picked up on the phrase nominis umbra, and used it to mean exactly what it does mean in Latin: "the shadow of a name," "a name that the public is just barely aware of," "someone or something that just barely has a name in the world."
In other words, a nominis umbra is a minor, unimportant thing or person (or the name of that minor, unimportant thing or person).
Pronunciation:
NOM in us UM bruh
Part of speech:
Noun, usually the countable kind ("he was a nominis umbra before his third album")
but sometimes the uncountable kind ("he was nominis umbra before his third album").
Other forms:
none
How to use it:
This term is rare, fancy, formal, literary, and mildly insulting. So use it wisely.
And keep it in italics to show that it's foreign.
You might say that someone or something is a nominis umbra, that it becomes a nominis umbra, or that it seems like a nominis umbra, especially within a certain time period or within a certain group of people.
examples:
"Until the middle of the eighteenth century Shakespeare was but a nominis umbra on the Continent."
— Harper's Magazine, Volume 109, 1904
"Danger of a money unit not representing a reality: In the new system advocated the money unit becomes, if not a mere nominis umbra, at least a unit dissociated from the reality of value."
— The American Economic Review, Volume 9, Issue 1, 1919
has this page helped you understand "nominis umbra"?
study it:
Explain the meaning of "nominis umbra" without saying "no-name" or "nonentity."
try it out:
The journalist Walter Bagehot wrote, "What does posterity know of the deceased Taylor? Nominis umbra is rather a compliment; for it is not substantial enough to have a shadow."
In other words, we have no idea who Taylor was or what he was like: so he's barely even the shadow of a name. Which Taylor are we even talking about? Exactly.
In your opinion, who's someone famous today who seems destined, like the hazy Taylor above, to be a nominis umbra? In other words, who's making waves or dominating headlines today, but is sure to melt away into obscurity a hundred years from now?
before you review, play:
Spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—let your working memory empty out first.
This month, we're playing "What's the Word?"
On Reddit, r/whatstheword is a community of about 55,000 members: folks who gather to help each other out when they can't think of a particular word. "It's on the tip of my tongue," they say. Or, "This word might not even exist. Help!"
In each issue this month, check out a post from the community, and see if you can come up with the word or phrase in question. We'll work our way from relatively easy to extremely hard questions as the month goes on.
From the previous issue: A community member asked, "Is there a word for 'visualize,' but for sounds?"
Answer: To my happy surprise, there are, in fact, two words for this: "audiate" and "auralize."
Try this today: A community member asked, "What's the word for a blindness the creator of something can have regarding how well others understand their creation? This one's a bit nebulous. Do you remember in English class in grade school when your teacher would tell you to have someone else read your essay, not to check for spelling or grammar but simply to see all the information you thought you put in there was actually in there? When we write we know exactly what we are trying to get across, but did we actually get it across? Sometimes we understand something so well that we leave out important details because they are obvious to us. But they won't necessarily be to other people. Often this happens with technology, as well. A person can make a very complicated product and think it is easy because THEY understand it. Is there a word for this?"
I'll share the answer in the upcoming issue, but if you can't wait, you can view the whole original thread here.
review this word:
1. A near opposite of NOMINIS UMBRA is
A. CAPTAIN OBVIOUS.
B. HOUSEHOLD NAME.
C. EVERY TOM, DICK, AND HARRY.
2. She became a nominis umbra, a _____ in the history books.
A. hero
B. footnote
C. caricature
a final word:
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I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.
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Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.
If, like me, you don't speak Latin but you've spent a good deal of time poking English and peering at it with a magnifying glass, you can probably translate the Latin nominis umbra easily enough: it means "the shadow of a name."
"NOMINIS UMBRA" This is Latin for "the shadow of a name."
"Until the middle of the eighteenth century Shakespeare was but a nominis umbra on the Continent."
Explain the meaning of "nominis umbra" without saying "no-name" or "nonentity."
The journalist Walter Bagehot wrote, "What does posterity know of the deceased Taylor? Nominis umbra is rather a compliment; for it is not substantial enough to have a shadow."
Spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—let your working memory empty out first.
1. A near opposite of NOMINIS UMBRA is
|