This is pretty cool (and by “cool” I mean fun for word nerds and, for everyone else, a painful reminder that word nerds exist): “How we got the terms postlude, prelude, and interlude.”
As you may have guessed, they’re all related to lude, an obsolete English word that traces all the way back to 1694 – which, in turn, has its origins in Latin. Curious, I looked up allude, collude, delude, and elude, and, sure enough, it’s the same root.
As for Quaalude, well…the jury’s still out.
by Diana Painter