952: Derivatives of Facere Jul 18, 2017

There are a number of reasons why a pair of etymologically related words might not look similar. One common reason is that at one point a word entered English from another language like Old French, and then perhaps even centuries later another related word was borrowed into English, but by that point some word in either language changed, given that languages do not evolve in the same ways or at the same times. Another common reason might be that the two words are from similar languages, such as Latin or French, but sound and appear different from the same cause as before. Both of these can be used to describe certain derivatives of the Latin verb 'facere' meaning 'to make' or 'to do'. Many of the words we have now as derivatives, like 'effect' or 'counterfeit', came via Old French whereas 'efficient', a word closely related to 'effect', was taken straight from Latin, but was modified somewhat for use in English. 'Factotum', on the other hand, was taken directly from Latin but was left unchanged, though 'fact' and 'factory', while still visually and phonetically similar, entered English slightly earlier and were changed more.