2701: Gardens, Orchards, and Paradise May 13, 2024
It’s lovely to sit in an orchard, though far less lovely sounding to sit in a wort-yard, yet this is what it would have been called in Old English ortgeard. 'Wort' in this case simply means ‘plant’, still seen at the end of many plant names, like butterwort, woundwort, and spearwort. However, etymologically speaking, there is an even better sounding orchard-word: paradise.
Paradise comes to English ultimately from the Avestan (Persian) word pairidaēza, meaning “enclosed garden” but in Ancient Greek παράδεισος (parádeisos) meant “palace gardens”. Because of this lofty definition, this word became associated with the Garden of Eden and by extension heaven (e.g. Dante’s Paradiso), displacing the enigmatic Old English word ‘neorxnawang’. These biblical connotations to ‘paradise’ do not exist in the doublet ‘parvis’ (i.e. “cathedral gardens”) but coincidentally came in the Hebrew פרדס (pardes) took on extra, spiritualism, while in Modern Hebrew still denotes an orchard.
2688: Semantic Narrowing of Venom and Poison Apr 30, 2024
English has a lot of words. By many metrics, it has more words than any other language. That means that many terms that would have had lots of meanings have picked up highly niche connotations. For instance, there is a habit some people have of correcting the notion that snakes aren’t poisonous, but rather venomous, with the former denoting something that is toxic when ingested, and the latter referring to poison that is injected via bite or sting.
First of all, even in that definition, some snakes are poisonous, like the rhabdophis keelback snakes, though the snake’s poisonous quality is developed from its diet. More to the point, this distinction is really very new, and doesn’t really exist in other languages. ‘Venom’ comes from the Latin ‘venenum’ meaning ‘poison’. The original meaning of this word was also something like ‘charm’ and possibly ‘potion’, which would make sense especially given that ‘poison’, ‘potion’, and ‘potable’ all come from the same root meaning ‘to drink’. There will be more about the wide range of meanings related to ‘venenum’ tomorrow.
2646: nuptial Mar 16, 2022
The word nuptial meaning 'of wedding' has a fairly simple etymology, from the Latin 'nuptialis', literally 'of a wedding'. Beyond that, things are more complicated, since it is unclear the exact root, and what it would be related to, though it is probably from the Proto-Indo-European root *sneubh- meaning "to wed". An early theory put this as a cognate with the Latin 'obnubere' (to veil) from 'nubes' (cloud) but this has been rejected. It may also be related to the word 'nymph' (in Greek νύμφη) which means 'bride' or indeed the mythical nymph, but this is also not certain. It is definitely related to 'nubile; nubility', which denotes a marriageable woman.
2643: maverick Mar 13, 2022
A maverick now probably refers to someone who is unconventional and individualistic, but the more traditional definition is an unbranded calf. That said, the word is fairly new, coming from a Texan cattle rancher Samuel Maverick who was known for not branding his calves. The term was used since the mid 19th century but popularized by his grandson in the 1930's, representative Maury Maverick, who served in the US congress.
2641: Derivatives of Latin Plumbum (Lead) Mar 11, 2022
The Latin name for the metal lead is plumbum, hence the symbol on the periodic table of Pb. This word is borrowed from another pre-Indo-European language in the Italian peninsula like Etruscan. It is also where numerous other words and expressions come from in English. For instance, the word 'plummet' as in 'fall straight down', and pipes, even in Ancient Rome were often lead hence 'plummer'. More obviously like 'plumb' meaning 'straight' (e.g. "it hit him plumb in the jab"), or the stance of the batsman's legs in front of the wicket in cricket, since lead at the end of a plumb-line was used to keep a rope taut when held straight up. As a result of the meaning of 'straight', it also means 'truly; plainly' as in "the fish plumb swam away".
2633: engage & wed Mar 3, 2022
Thematically an engagement is related to a wedding, one following the other, but the words are linked as well. The word 'wed' from Old English 'weddian' meant 'to pledge', and in many other Germanic languages it denotes betting. It's from the same root as 'wage' which can mean 'pledge' in the sense of commiting to an obligation (to wage war; worker's wages) or committing to a bet (a.k.a. 'wager'). Often a W and G will morphe one to the other, and in Romance languages where 'gage' or more popularly 'engage' were adopted into English from that same root too.
2632: free & friend Mar 2, 2022
Though it's doubtful anyone in the free-love movement would have been aware of it, the word 'free' used to convey a meaning of love. The Old English for 'free' (frēo) is from the Proto-Germanic *frijaz which meant both 'beloved' but also 'unbound', as in literally not enslaved. This is related to 'friend' as well, & in many languages like German, the word for 'friend' and 'lover' are the same one, here 'Freund'.
2630: Obscure Root of Litera Feb 27, 2022
As mentioned, the root of the Latin 'littera', and from it a plethora of words like 'literature', 'literal', 'letter', 'obliterate' even the Finnish word 'littera' meaning 'internationalism' and '[banknote] denomination', all come from this root. The trouble is, past this, the etymology is disputed. Some suggest it is from an earlier word 'lītera', though this form did not even clearly exist. If so, it would have come from a normal vowel lengthening process of 'litus' or a reconstructed Old Latin *leitos, and would have been related to 'linō' meaning 'smear'.
The other prominent idea is that this is from an Etruscan root, which itself is then related to the Ancient Greek διφθέρᾱ (diphthérā) meaning 'writing material', but given as Greek and Etruscan are not related to each other, and would not have such a common source, this link seems tenuous. It could be both, with each word having a certain amount of influence on the final result.
2628: Jack Feb 25, 2022
There are a number of card standard decks around the world and while they tend to base the cards in some real thing, those things are also old fashioned in many ways, partly as a result of it all being translated from the French tradition. People know what kings and queens are, but the use of ‘jack’ is somewhat odd in that group. It used be ‘knave’ which was the equivalent to the French ‘valet’ (which is also a loanword in English) meaning ‘servant’ and as with most words with that meaning, also ‘boy’. ‘Jack’ on the other hand came as a nickname from ‘John’ and was used as a term to denote a normal man. Compare this with the French ‘Jacquerie’. Indeed, this word began to denote male animals (jackass; jackrabbit; jacksnipe) and also laborers (lumberjack) and tools therefor (jackhammer; jackknife). It is from this sense as a workman that it replaced ‘knave’ in a deck of cards, and also of course when the cards are abbreviated, having a K for ‘king’ and also Kn for ‘knave’ would be confusing. Despite this gain in clarity, the use of ‘jack’ in place of ‘knave’ was seen as being low-class and did not catch on immediately but one should keep in mind not all decks used indices anyway. ‘Jack’ also began to denote small things, such as ‘naval jack’—a national flag flown on the bow—along with the many uses in tools and games it has.
2612: iris Feb 8, 2022
The word 'iris' is the name for a flower as well as part of the eye. Both of these senses comes from the Ancient Greek ἶρις (îris) meaning 'rainbow', because this part of the eye deals with color, and the flower is named because it resembled the shape of the iris of the eye. More directly though, there is a Greek messenger deity who is both represented by the rainbow and gives certain significance to it, with some references using 'iris' to mean both messenger and rainbow. The root of this word means 'to twist' and is related to the English word 'wire', and the element iridium, which gives off many colors when dissolved.
2611: prune & plum Feb 7, 2022
There are a few cases where dried fruits have completely different names to the normal version, but this is pretty rare. Prunes for instance are dried plums, but this is just because the the Ancient Greek προῦνον (proûnon) means 'plum', likely borrowed from a native Anatolian language. The word 'plum' does not have a separate origin though, and merely stems from the Latin form 'prunum' which morphed over time into the English form. The Modern Greek word for a plum now is δαμάσκηνο (damaskino) meaning Damascus.
2610: polecats Feb 6, 2022
Polecats and more related to dogs than cats, despite the name. The 'pole-' element at the beginning is not because of their pole-like weasel bodies, nor certainly ethnic poles. Rather, this is from the Middle French 'pole' meaning 'chicken', though it is not entirely clear why. The best theory is that this is what they eat. In Old English, they were known as 'folmart' literally 'foul marten' because of their bad smell. They also used to be known as a 'fitch'.
2607: Golden Horde Feb 3, 2022
There was a reason for the naming of Black-, Red- and White Russia, only one of which survives now, but this is not the same reason for the Golden Horde. That name is disputed, but the English name for the self-titled Ulug Ulus ("Great State") either comes from a calque of the Russian Золотая Орда (Zolotája Orda) which was a reference to the color of the war-time tents of some of their troops, or alternatively was a reference to the tribute that the Slavs needed to pay. That said, the color-inspired names of the White- or Blue Horde as the name for the troops' left wing has been found in many languages and from different sources, with some evidence to believe the Mongols referred to them as well as the Blue Horde.
2595: crabapple Jan 22, 2022
Though crabapples are indeed a type of apple, they certainly don't have anything to do with crabs. This term never did in fact, and rather is from the Middle English 'crabbe' from an older Germanic root, which simply denoted any wild apple. This term, as mentioned, does now relate to a species in particular, but can still denote any wild or sour apple. Now, crab is applied to certain other names in order to indicate wild varieties of fruits.
2594: cancer & crabs Jan 21, 2022
Cancer is known to be related to crabs because of the zodiac symbol, but the relation is much deeper in fact. The word 'cancer', which now particularly associated with the disease, is because the enlarged veins around cancerous tumors were thought to look like the the legs of crabs. In Latin 'cancer' means 'crab', which itself is from Ancient Greek καρκίνος (karkínos) via metathesis. This is also where the word 'canker' is from, as well as 'chancre', both types of ulcers.
2591: mathematics & wiskunde Jan 17, 2022
Most language's words for mathematics around Europe borrow directly from Ancient Greek μαθηματικός (mathēmatikós), except for Dutch which uses 'wiskunde'. This is not so exceptional as it might look at first glance however, since it is not a totally unique word per se but a calque, insofar as it is just translated literally. Before this 'mathematica' was used in Dutch but this purism was introduced in the 16th century. 'Wiskunde' would mean 'known art' or more to the point "art of what is known", & likewise in Ancient Greek μαθηματικός (mathēmatikós) breaks down to mean 'of knowledge'.
2587: felt, filter, anvil, and felon Jan 13, 2022
Filters can be made out of a plethora of materials and are used in all sorts of situations, but historically this would have been felt. This is why the Latin 'filtrium' and the English 'felt' came to be distantly related, but the material of felt has used to have a more generic meaning. The root *pel- meaning 'to beat' references this process of creating felts by crushing and rolling materials, and it is this same root that is found in 'anvil' and 'to fell' fairly sensibly, and 'felon' perhaps more surprisingly. This last word is from the same root but over time took on meanings of wickedness in certain languages like Latin before coming to English.
2586: tycoon Jan 12, 2022
The word 'tycoon' will for many conjure up images of business magnates or other sort of industrial baron, especially of the 19th century. This is not only a Gilded Age term because that's when it was popular, but reflects a highly specific point in history. The word is from the Japanese 大君 (taikun) meaning 'great lord', which was actually a title for the shogun, a particular type of military dictator. This term was applied by outsiders from 1857 when Japan was opened up and outsiders were allowed to trade merchandise, until 1868 when the shogunate ended.
2582: tectonic, text, and architecture Jan 8, 2022
The word 'tectonic', relating to the structure of the Earth's crust, is probably from the German 'tektonisch' of broadly similar meaning, but that is from Latin tectonicus meaning 'of an architect'. This root, from the Greek τέκτων (téktōn) for 'carpenter' doesn't seem to have much to do with geology nor related English words like 'text' or 'technician', but but its association with buildings and structures, still seen clearly in the German 'architektonisch' and indeed English 'architecture'.
2580: compost Jan 6, 2022
Compost really should be called decompost. After all, the root 'compose' means 'to assemble; build up' and here it means exactly the opposite, insofar as it's decomposition. What might clarify things is the word 'compote', derived from a complicated arrangement of words and their associated meanings being borrowed back and forth between English and French meaning 'condiment'. In this sense, both related words describe a mixture of things into one, often amorphous creation.