2403: date (palm) Jul 18, 2021

Palm trees are named for palms because of their resemblance to fingers. Less abstractly then, the date fruit may have been named fingers too. The English name is from the Greek δάκτυλος (dáktylos) meaning 'finger' as in 'polydactyl' or 'pterodactyl'. Some say this is from the fruit itself while others say it is also for the palm leaves, like the whole tree itself. Another theory gives this a Semitic root linking it to the same root as the Hebrew דקל (dekel) and that δάκτυλος (dáktylos) was only later associated by folk-etymology.

2402: palm Jul 17, 2021

The word for the palm of one's hand and palm of palm trees are from the same root, but while these trees do not grow in Northern Europe, this pattern is common pattern across Germanic languages. The trees are named for the way the fronds fan out like fingers—though notably then these are not finger-trees—but the concept was imported due to Christian biblical imagery. Phrases like 'palm-sunnandæg' in Old English here or also Old Norse existed, but technically this was via Latin 'palma' (palm tree).