2793: Internet Troll Aug 13, 2024

Internet trolls may be frustrating to deal with to the point that they come across like the beasts of Scandinavian fantasy or elsewhere around European folklore, but the terms are actually unrelated. 

There are several older, Germanic roots that have all converged on the modern spelling and pronunciation, including the folklore beast, and troll as in ‘wander’ (pretty rare), related to ‘trull’, and also ‘troll’ as in a fishing lure. It is the latter sense where the Internet trolls’ name comes from insofar as they set bait for people to react angrily. It was almost certainly influenced from the monster—large, brutish being that lives in isolated areas such as caves or mountains—but this was not the origin per se.