2572: milk Dec 28, 2021

The English words 'milk' and 'lactose' obviously have related meanings, but moreover they share a common root. There is a clear set of relationships across Germanic languages for milky words like Milch (German), melk (Dutch/Afrikaans), as well as in Slavic languages молоко (moloko) in Russian, or mleko/mlijeko (Serbo-Croatian/Slovenian). Conversely, across Romance languages this is less clearly related with French 'lait', Spanish 'leche', and Italian 'latte' to the Ancient Greek γάλακτος (gálaktos) from γάλα (gála), but each of these comes from the same Proto-Indo-European root.

2571: galaxy & milky way Dec 27, 2021

This galaxy is referred to as the Milky Way, but really it should not be so generic. The Ancient Greek γάλακτος gálaktos, from γάλα (gála), means 'milk'. This was used in Medieval times to refer to our galaxy only, due to the hazy, white band of light as seen in the night sky without other star-gazing devices. This was then applied to all galaxies, but that name wouldn't make much sense to describe other places.