Did You Know?

In Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821), the essayist Thomas de Quincey describes a manservant who, after accidentally letting a loaded trunk fall down a flight of stairs, "sang out a long, loud, and canorous peal of laughter." "Canorous" typically describes things, such as church choirs or birds in the spring, that are a pleasure to listen to. It derives from the Latin verb canere ("to sing"), a root it shares with a number of words that evoke what is sweet to the ear, such as "chant," "canticle," "cantor" (a leader of a choir), "carmen" (a song, poem, or incantation) and even "accent."