2746: Brave and Barbarous Jun 27, 2024

English has lots of pairs of words that are doublets (i.e. have the same etymology) but are also antonyms. One example would be host-guest, but another comes from the words ‘brave’ and ‘barbarian’. While these words aren’t opposites per se, the former denotes righteousness and courage while the latter connotes incivility. ‘Barbarian’ originates from a Greek onomatopoeia, but this eventually morphed, along with influence from the Latin ‘prāvus’ (crooked), the source of the English ‘depraved’ to form ‘bravus’, thence ‘bravo’ meaning ‘bold’ or ‘showing off’, and also ‘skilled’ which did not carry over into English. This can help to understand the sense of ‘bravo’ at a time of applause, or even its historic meaning of ‘swordsman’. 

It was only later into the 15th century that the sense in Italian ‘bravo’ was changed in French ‘brave’ to go from ‘wild’ to ‘courageous’ and eventually ‘valiant’ which English adopted thereafter.