now

A tiny word, but an astonishingly ancient one: English now can be traced through Old English nū and Proto-Germanic *nu to a Proto-Indo-European adverb reconstructed as *nu or *nū. The same verbal time-stamp traveled widely, appearing as Latin nunc, Greek νῦν, Sanskrit nu, and German nun. In Old English, nū could mean not only “at this moment” but also “immediately” and “now that,” which helps explain why now still works as a dramatic conversational pivot: “Now, listen.” By the late fourteenth century, English speakers were also using now as a noun for the present moment, while the adjective meaning “up-to-date” was revived in 1967. One modern slang use treats now as “the beginning of the rest of your life”—a surprisingly grand destiny for a syllable that began as a prehistoric pointing gesture toward the present.