793: adler (and German etymologies) Feb 8, 2017

Often in the etymologies found in English dictionaries or anywhere else, the roots may end with Latin, or "of Germanic origins" which often accompanies words from Old English. In other languages whose vocabularies are composed more uniformly from one linguistic predecessor, with some relatively few loan-words compared to English, this is tends not to be especially specific. In German, which has a far more Germanic vocabulary than English does, for words like 'Adler' meaning 'eagle' people need to delve a little deeper to learn anything. The word itself, which is also a fairly common last-name, is from Middle High German. 'Aar' which is a more poetic word for 'eagle' was used before this but soon it took on a meaning of "bird of prey" especially used in falconry. The word 'Adler' comes from 'edel' meaning, 'noble' combined with 'Aar'. This phrase was used to distinguish eagles from other hawks. Not all German etymologies are as story-like; the one for 'edel' is just that it comes from Low German.

For more on English's composition, click here.