I Say Mendacity, You Say Mendicity


Mendacity—the condition of being untruthful—comes from the Latin adjective mendax, meaning “lying.”

Mendicity—the condition of being poor—comes from the Latin verb mendico, meaning “to beg.”

My first instinct, on hearing the two words, was to assume that they must have a common origin and have suffered from linguistic and semantic drift. But no! It’s the linguistic drift that’s brought them together.