recumbent

SteinbeckのOF MICE AND MENを読み始めました。Steinbeckは「怒りの葡萄」を書いたノーベル賞作家だと言う事は私でも知っていて、その話を高校生の頃読んだ事がある様な気がしますが定かではありません。そんな程度なのでOF MICE AND MENはもちろん読んだ事はなく、題名も知りませんでした。最初のページに早速知らない単語 "recumbent" が次ぎの様に出て来ました。
On one side of the river the golden foothill slopes curve up to the strong and rocky Gabilan mountains, but on the valley side the water is lined with trees - willows fresh and green with every spring, carrying in their lower leaf juncture the debris of the winter's flooding; and sycamores with mottled, white recumbent limbs and branches that arch over the pool.
"incumbent" は知っていますが、全く関係はなさそうなので辞書を見ます。
・Collins English Dictionary: (of a part or organ) leaning or resting against another organ or the ground ⇒ a recumbent stem
・Cambridge English Dictionary: lying down: She looked at Timothy's recumbent form beside her.
・Vocabulary.com: Bikes on which you recline rather than sit upright are recumbent. Recumbent means to leaning back in a reclining position.
Recumbent starts like recline, which is an easy way to remember it. Your dad's position in his favorite La-Z-Boy reclining chair; Recumbent. Your position when you lay back on lounge chair at the pool. Also recumbent and in both cases, these are both positions of comfort.
語源を見ると "recumbent" と　"incumbent" の　"cumbent" は両方共 "lie" を意味するラテン語からきており、"incumbent" は "lie down" が Extended to holders of any office from 1670s.となり、 "recumbent" は "lie back" を意味しているので、 "recumbent" と "incumbent" は大いに関係がありました。