2212: cushy and cushion Jan 4, 2021

'Cushy' and 'cushion', while they look similar, sound similar, and have an obvious overlap in the meaning related to comfort, aren’t related. 'Cushy' comes from Persian 'ḵuš' meaning 'pleasure', and only entered English through the period of British control of India. 'Cushion', meanwhile, comes from the Latin word for 'hip', 'coxa', as a reference to specifically a seat-cushion. Other types of cushions, such as a 'cubital' likewise comes from the name for another part of the body, the elbow', from 'cubitus', also the origin of the measurement 'cubit', i.e. the length of a forearm.