I get a word a day from Wordsmith in my inbox each morning (ahhhh, blogging – where all our quirks are exposed for the world to see!) My favorite part is usually the etymology of the word, I find that fascinating. In late May, the theme was words borrowed from Spanish, and this was the first one:

peccadillo (pek-uh-DIL-o) noun A minor offense. [From Spanish pecadillo, diminutive of pecado (sin), from Latin peccare(to sin). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ped- (foot) which gaveus not only peccadillo (alluding to a stumble or fall) but also pedal,impeccable, podium, octopus, and impeach.]

After I got over the fact that I probably used that word incorrectly (I thought of it more as a fetish), I was fascinated to read that the Spanish word for sin comes from the root for foot. It makes complete sense when one considers that a sin is a misstep (or as the etymology says a stumble or fall). For me, this mental picture of misstepping along the path of life is very powerful. One of my favorite quotes in Orthodoxy is that it isn’t the falling down that is bad, it is the forgetting to pick oneself up afterwards. Oh, how true that is.