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saxifrage: saxifrage: [15] The saxifrage is etymologically the ‘stone-breaker’. The word comes via Old French saxifrage from late Latin saxifraga, a compound formed from Latin saxum ‘rock’ and frag-, the stem of frangere ‘break’ (source of English fraction, fracture, etc). The name is an allusion to the fact that the plant grows in crevices in rock, and so gives the impression of splitting the rock.
=> fraction, fracture, fragment
caulk (v.): late 14c., "to stop up crevices or cracks," from Old North French cauquer, from Late Latin calicare "to stop up chinks with lime," from Latin calx (2) "lime, limestone" (see chalk). Original sense is nautical, of making ships watertight. Related: Caulked; caulking. As a noun, "caulking material," by 1980 (caulking in this sense was used from 1743). Related: Caulker.
saxifrage (n.): type of plant typically found in cold regions, late 14c., from Old French saxifrage (13c.), from Late Latin saxifraga, name of a kind of herb, from Latin saxifraga herba, literally "a rock-breaking herb," from saxifragus "stonebreaking," from saxum "stone, rock" + frag-, root of frangere "to break" (see fraction). Pliny says the plant was so called because it was given to dissolve gallstones, but a more likely explanation is that it was so called because it grows in crevices in rocks. (Latin used different words for "stone" and "gallstone" -- saxum and calculus). Related: Saxifragaceous.
rhagades: "With plural concord. Linear fissures, crevices, or scars of the skin, especially around the anus or mouth", Old English; earliest use found in Pseudo-Apuleius' Herbarium. Partly from classical Latin rhagades fissures, cracks from ancient Greek ῥαγάδες, plural of ῥαγάς fissure (of soil), in Hellenistic Greek also crack or chap (of the skin) from ῥαγ-, aorist stem of ῥηγνύναι to break, burst + -άς; and partly from classical Latin rhagadia (also ragadia) (neuter plural; compare also post-classical Latin rhagadiae, ragadiae, feminine plural (636 in Isidore; 1250 in a British source)), in same sense from the plural of an unattested Greek form *ῥαγάδιον from ancient Greek ῥαγαδ-, ῥαγάς + -ιον, diminutive suffix.
propolis: "A red or brown resinous substance collected by honeybees from tree buds, used by them to fill crevices and to fix and varnish honeycombs", Early 17th century: via Latin from Greek propolis 'suburb', also 'bee glue', from pro 'before' + polis 'city'.