This one comes courtesy of my husband, who thought festoon was a fun-sounding word probably related to festive, so declared “Word of the Week!” (A common declaration in our house, LOL.)
And indeed, not surprisingly, festoon and festive both share that same root of “feast.” Festoon joined the English language around 1620 as a noun meaning “a string or chain of flowers or ribbons suspended between two points.” Our word comes from the French feston, which comes in turn from the Italian festone, which could mean any festive ornament. All of those, not surprisingly, are from the Latin festa, meaning “feast.”
I found it interesting that the noun came first with that very particular definition of what kind of ornament it was for. The verb form, which is what I’m primarily familiar with the word as, came about in 1789.
Word Nerds Unite!
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Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. Having successfully launched two homeschool grads, she now spends her time writing fiction, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years, as well as a fantasy series and contemporary mysteries and romances. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary. 
