Amicable comes from Latin
amīcābilis, meaning "friendly," and amāre, "to feel affection
for" or "to love." Amāre has a number of English descendants,
including amiable ("friendly, sociable, and congenial"), amorous
("strongly moved by love and especially sexual love"), and amateur,
which, though it might seem surprising, is related to amāre by way of the Latin
amātor, which means "lover" as well as "enthusiastic
admirer" and "devotee."
A cabal is a group secretly
united in a plot. Cabal has been associated with a group of five ministers in
the government of England's King Charles II. The initial letters of the names
or titles of those men (Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale)
spelled cabal, and they have been collectively dubbed as the "Cabal
Cabinet" or "Cabal Ministry." But these five names are not the
source of the word cabal, which was in use decades before Charles II ascended
the throne. The term traces back to cabbala, the Medieval Latin name for the
Kabbalah, a traditional system of esoteric Jewish mysticism. Latin borrowed
Cabbala from the Hebrew qabbālāh, meaning "received or traditional
lore."