Without Wax: A Thought

The word sincere certainly looks like it could have come from the expression "without wax," or sine cero in Latin.

My understanding is that this was a folk etymology which serious scholars dispute, but it had a venerable history to it even before Lionel Trilling cited it in a 1971 book on the development of the ideas of sincerity and authenticity. Trilling said that this fanciful etymology serves a purpose to remind us that the adjective described materials before it came to describe people -- materials that were in fact what they were sold as.

There's an episode of the television show THE JEFFERSONS, made not long after the publication of Trilling's book, in which the word "sincere" is expounded by one of the characters in this way.

As I remember the sitcom episode, the word began with medieval apple merchants who would hide the flaws in their product by the astute application of patches of wax -- red wax, presumably.

Skeptical buyers would say that they wanted to see apples without wax. Thus, presenting your wares as they really are is being sincere.

IIRC, one of the 'supporting' characters of the show had a new girlfriend, and he was enthusiastic about her and her evident "sincerity," which would he explains, to George Jefferson, while effusing about her. The plot later has that character disillusioned about her, discovering that there was an important patch of wax at work after all.

I've encountered the "without wax" etymology since. It is often brought up, only to be rebutted. It seems the true etymology is less helpful either for Trillings purposes as a cultural historian or for sitcom writers in setting up plot twists.

"When the legend becomes a fact, print the legend."

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