2184: proud Dec 7, 2020

Pride is a good thing in moderation, but the notion that that word related to emotion at all is a later development in its history. It comes from the Old English 'prud' from the Latin 'prode' meaning 'excellent', 'advantageous' but also 'arrogant', which makes it related to 'improve' but also to 'prude'. In any case, while 'proud' has had the sense of "being excited by something" since the 13th century at least, the more moralistic sense of having a high opinion of oneself is only found in English and not in French or Latin, which might actually reflect what the Anglo-Saxons thought of the Norman invaders, and even in other Germanic languages it retained a meaning of 'brave; valiant'.

2183: Unrelated: improve vs. disprove Dec 6, 2020

Although broadly it could be said that 'improve' means to strengthen something while 'disprove' means to weak it, but the two words are not related, despite the apparent similar root. 'Improve' comes from the Latin 'prode' (advantageous) and is closer related to 'proud'—more on that tomorrow— and meant 'cause to profit', whereas 'disprove' is from the Old French 'prover' as in 'to test'. The spellings and pronunciation of 'improve' was however influenced by 'disprove' since before the 17th century it was uncommon to see it spelled with a -v-: rather it might be 'improu'. Indeed, its more general meaning did not come about until recently either, initially referring only to making something profitable as in "improving land" i.e. by clearing it for farming.