The BFD Word of the Day

The word for today is…

pertain (verb) –

1a (1) : to belong as a part, member, accessory, or product
    (2) : to belong as an attribute, feature, or function
    (3) : to belong as a duty or right  
 b : to be appropriate to something  
2 : to have reference – e.g. books pertaining to birds

Source : Merriam -Webster

Etymology : Pertain comes to us via Anglo-French from the Latin verb pertinare, meaning “to reach” to or “to belong.” Pertinare, in turn, was formed by combining the prefix per- (meaning “through”) and tenare (“to hold”). Tenare is a popular root in English words and often manifests with the “-tain” spelling that can be seen in pertain. Other descendants include abstain, contain, detain, obtain, maintain, retain, and sustain, to name a few of the more common ones. Not every “-tain” word has tenare in its ancestry, though. Ascertain, attain, and certain are among the exceptions. And a few tenare words don’t follow the usual pattern: tenacious and tenure are two.

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