President Donald Trump slammed the word "impeachment" as a "very ugly word" in his letter condemning the two articles against him to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but linguists defend the word and note that its history dates back to 14th century Europe.
"There's nothing ugly about 'impeach,'" Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist who teaches at the University of California at Berkeley, told The Washington Post. "In fact, it's a rather delicate way to say 'to castigate' or 'to slur.'
"If we're going to start naming ugly words, 'impeachment' would not be on the top of my list," he said.
The word came into English as "empechen" via the Old French word "empechier," meaning to prevent or to hinder, ultimately evolving into its current usage by the turn of the 19th century, the Post reports.
"So it goes from 'to hinder' to 'challenging one's credibility' — to impeach their morals, to censure, to discredit, to throw shade," Nunberg said.
"And from that, this legal sense emerges: to accuse of a specific crime."
Merriam-Webster cites this example of how the word was used in 1643: "He tels us of Maistet Pims death, as remarkable newes, and how he was impeached of Treason, and that he died of the Herodian visitation, and that hee was a most loathsome and foule Carcasse."
Merriam-Webster named "impeach" as a finalist for 2019 word of the year, the Post reports.
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