Today’s word of the day, thanks to the Words Coach, is gallivant. Gallivant, which can also be spelled galavant, is an intransitive verb (which means that it does not take a direct object) that means, according to Merriam-Webster, “to travel, roam, or move about for pleasure” or “dated, informal: to go about usually ostentatiously or indiscreetly with members of the opposite sex” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gallivant). M-W goes on to explain, “Back in the 14th century, gallant, a noun borrowed from the French word galant, referred to a fashionable young man. By the middle of the next century, it was being used more specifically to refer to such a man who was attentive to, and had a fondness for, the company of women. In the late 17th century, this “ladies’ man” sense gave rise to the verb gallant to describe the process a suitor used to win a lady’s heart, and “gallanting” became synonymous with “courting.” It’s this verb gallant that is the likely source of gallivant, which originally meant “to act as a gallant” or “to go about usually ostentatiously or indiscreetly with members of the opposite sex.” Today, however, gallivant is more likely to describe pleasurable wandering than romancing” (ibid.).

Etymonline.com concurs: “’gad about, spend time in frivolous pleasure-seeking, especially with the opposite sex,’ 1809, of uncertain origin, perhaps a playful elaboration of gallant in an obsolete verbal sense of ‘play the gallant, flirt, gad about’” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=gallivant). The site then goes on to say about gallant that it entered the language in the “mid-15c., ‘showy, finely dressed; gay, merry,’ from Old French galant ‘courteous,’ earlier ‘amusing, entertaining; lively, bold’ (14c.), present participle of galer ‘rejoice, make merry,’ which is of uncertain origin. Perhaps from a Latinized verb formed from Frankish *wala- ‘good, well,’ from Proto-Germanic *wal- (source also of Old High German wallon ‘to wander, go on a pilgrimage’), from PIE root *wel- (2) ‘to wish, will’ (see will (v.)), ‘but the transition of sense offers difficulties that are not fully cleared up’ [OED]. Sense of ‘politely attentive to women’ was adopted early 17c. from French. Attempts to distinguish this sense by accent are an 18c. artifice” (https://www.etymonline.com/word/gallivant). A couple of things of interest here: 1. The word is of uncertain origin, and 2. The differentiation in the pronunciation of the verb and noun forms of gallant are an artifice. It is true that pronunciation frequently distinguishes between noun and verb forms of certain words, like produce and conduct, but those are naturally occurring rather than an artifice. The pronunciation of gallivant is / ˈgæl əˌvænt, ˌgæl əˈvænt /, according to Dictionary.com (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/gallivant). I actually think the emphasis is on the first syllable with a secondary emphasis on the third syllable, which is why the vowel in both syllables is æ rather than ə (remembering that vowels in unstressed syllables tend toward ə).

On this date in 1539, according to On This Day, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto’s expedition of 10 ships and 700 men lands in Florida (https://www.onthisday.com/events/may/30).

De Soto was born in 1496, four years after Columbus’s historic voyage, to a family in the minor nobility of Spain, a family that was not wealthy. At 14, he left home to seek his fortune in the New World, joining an expedition under Pedro Arias Dávila in 1514 to modern-day Panama and Nicaragua. He made money in these conquests, became a slave trader, and then in 1531 joined the expedition of Francisco Pizarro in what is now Colombia (https://www.history.com/articles/hernando-de-soto). These “conquistadors” dethroned and murdered the last of the Incan emperors and came away with massive wealth.

In 1536, De Soto returned, a very wealthy man, to Spain. He got married, but he didn’t really settle down for long because in 1539, he received a royal commission to conquer the Southeastern United States, an area known to the Spanish as “la Florida” (“probably from Spanish Pascua florida, literally ‘flowering Easter,’ a Spanish name for Palm Sunday, and so named because the peninsula was discovered on that day [March 20, 1513] by the expedition of Spanish explorer Ponce de León. From Latin floridus ‘flowery, in bloom’”) (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=florida).

The history.com article describes the Florida expedition this way: “De Soto set out from Spain in April 1538, set with 10 ships and 700 men. After a stop in Cuba, the expedition landed at Tampa Bay in May 1539. They moved inland and eventually set up camp for the winter at a small Indian village near present-day Tallahassee.
“In the spring, De Soto led his men north, through Georgia, and west, through the Carolinas and Tennessee, guided by Indigenous Americans whom they took captive along the way. With no success finding the gold they sought, the Spaniards headed back south into Alabama towards Mobile Bay, seeking to rendezvous with their ships, when they were attacked by an Indian contingent near present-day Mobile in October 1540.
“In the bloody battle that followed, the Spaniards killed hundreds of Indigenous Americans and suffered severe casualties themselves” (https://www.history.com/articles/hernando-de-soto).

Further, “After a month’s rest, the ever-ambitious De Soto made the fateful decision to turn northward again and head inland in search of more treasure. In mid-1541, the Spaniards sighted the Mississippi River. They crossed it and headed into Arkansas and Louisiana, but early in 1542 turned back to the Mississippi.
“Soon after, De Soto took ill with a fever. Following his death on May 21, 1542, his comrades buried his body in the great river” (ibid.).

De Soto thought he would discover gold in the Florida, but ultimately he didn’t. He was one of the first Europeans to see the Mississippi River (which the Spanish initially called Rio Grande), but ultimately he did not discover what he was looking for. He ended up spending the last years of his life gallivanting around the Southeast until, like the characters in The Pardoner’s Tale, he finds death.

Today’s image is of Hernando de Soto, a portrait that can be found in The Mariners’ Museum E125.S7 W7 Rare (https://exploration.marinersmuseum.org/subject/hernando-de-soto/).