From Latin honorem, “honor, dignity, reputation”. No one knows where honorem comes from. The adjectival form was honestus, which became honeste in Old French, and honest in English around 1300.

Honest is one of the few words in the standard North American English dialect group that is spelled with an initial silent “h” (others are honor, herb and heir). Dropping initial “h” is common in most modern dialects of English, but there are a few dialects — like American English — that hold on to it for most words. (However, standard American English does pronounce the final “r” in honor, while most other English dialects do not — leaving honor to be pronounced “ON-ah”.)

Energetically, honest begins with Source energy that is directed, narrowed toward a target of communication, with an aspect of directed, purposeful energy. This seems like a marvelous fit: the Source energy is the Truth, which, in the honest person, is the goal of communication.

Thanks to Nio for suggesting this word of the day!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2007 at 11:39 am and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.