In an opportunistic move in early 2020, the City purchased a 1.99-acre parcel near its downtown core.
Hm. Opportunistic?
There’s nothing wrong with it, to be fair. Merriam-Webster has it as “taking advantage of opportunities as they arise.” And that’s just what the City of Lafayette, in a recently reviewed RFP, was doing.
But it didn’t feel quite right, because—and I’m not sure why—opportunistic is usually negative.
Indeed, Merriam-Webster calls out a sense of opportunistic as “exploiting opportunities with little regard to principle.”
Little regard to principle, huh? I can’t help but sense an oddity here that a noun with a generally positive aspect—opportunity—could have such a negative adjectival form.
Also, opportunity has an incredible etymology:
late 14c., opportunitie, “fit, convenient, or seasonable time,” from Old French opportunite(13c.) and directly from Latin opportunitatem(nominative opportunitas) “fitness, convenience, suitableness, favorable time,” from opportunus “fit, convenient, suitable, favorable,” from the phrase ob portum veniens “coming toward a port,” in reference to the wind, from ob “in front of; toward” (see ob-) + portus “harbor” (see port (n.1)).
Etymonline
Taylor Coe 