This is Origins in Five. Five minutes, one word, a small story to start the day. Today's word is sincere. Sincere means honest, genuine, without pretense. If someone is sincere, you trust what they say truly reflects what they feel. Simple enough. And on a normal episode we would jump right into the origin of the word. But today we're going to do something a bit different. We're going to talk about the common etymology story for sincere, but it may not be a hundred percent true. And then we'll give you a second story, one that is maybe not as fun, but is most likely correct. So let's start with the popular explanation, the fun story. In ancient Rome it was hard to make good sculptures that did not have cracks or flaws. But not everyone was an honest sculptor. So the dishonest ones would use wax to cover those flaws and cracks. From a distance everything looked perfect, but up close the illusion wouldn't melt away. So a statue without wax was authentic. No hidden flaws, no cover-ups. It leads naturally to the question, how do you say without wax in Latin? Well there you have two words. First scene, S-I-N-E, means without, and the second word is sera, C-E-R-A, which means wax. So when you put the two together you get sincera, and from there the word supposedly evolved into sincere, meaning honest and genuine. As I said, it's a great story. Unfortunately, it's probably not true. Linguists have looked closely at the history of the word, and there's little evidence that sincere actually comes from sincera. Instead, there is a single Latin word that meant clean, pure, or sound. That word is sinceris. This word was generally used to describe physical purity. It was used to describe things that were not mixed with other substances, think pure honey, or wine without any water in it. And figuratively, it meant genuine, true, or candid. It often implies being of one growth or entirely intact. So the one growth comes from crops, for example. Unmixed crops would be another example of something that had physical purity. So over time, this word which focused on the physical purity of something shifted to mean moral purity, someone who is honest, straightforward, and genuine. So while the wax story is memorable, and you'll still hear it repeated to this day, it's likely a case of what's called folk etymology. And that's a neat explanation that sounds right but isn't backed by historical evidence. Still, the myth sticks around for a reason. It captures something true about the meaning of sincere, the idea of nothing hidden underneath, no cracks covered up, no deception beneath the surface. What you see is what you get. And even if the Romans weren't labeling statutes without wax, the image still works. Now sometimes stories about the origins of words are unbelievable. Sometimes they're a bit more plain. In today's episode you got both. It just turns out that the plain version most likely describes the actual word's origin story. And that's origins in five. One word, one story to start your day.