820: passage and the Roman Mile Mar 7, 2017

There are many derivatives of a word that would probably seem pretty obvious, like 'passage' and 'passed' from 'pass', though rarely is that the whole story. The word 'past' too is a variation of 'passed'—the two of them still being often confused for each other—much in the same way as 'built' and 'spelt were formed. More to the point, the word, 'passage', comes is an alteration of the Italian 'passeggiare' which was not a noun as it is in English but a verb meaning ‘to walk’ based on Latin noun, 'passus' meaning ‘pace’. This word was often also used to mean 'mile' all by itself, or would be used in combination, such as the line in Bellum Gallicum by Caesar, "vicies centum milium passuum" meaning "twenty-hundred (2,000) thousands-steps (the Roman mile)". The word 'pace' also come from this root, ultimately from the verb, 'pandere' meaning ‘to stretch’ (though not 'to pander') referring to the stretch of a leg. This is has a shared Indoeuropean root with many other words, including the German, 'Fuss' ('foot') which gave the game 'fussball' its name.

There are many other words that come from the Indoeuropean root for 'foot', including this example here: the root of pejorative.

And for more on 'passage', see this: messenger not messager