2283: Folk Etymology: sovereign, foreign & reign Mar 17, 2021
Though the spelling in English can often paint a picture for the history of the language and etymology of words, this is not the case with the word 'sovereign'. This comes from the Latin 'superānus'—also the root of 'soprano'—from the root 'super' (above) which led to the Old French 'soverain'. The connection to the word 'reign' is entirely from folk etymology. It is believed that the -g- in 'foreign' was also added with association to 'reign'.
2280: wrong, wrangle, worry and wring Mar 14, 2021
The suffix -le can signal diminutives but also it is retained as a historic suffix to mark the frequentative form which once expressed repeated action over multiple instances. This is the case in 'wrangle' for instance which comes from Low German 'wrangeln' (to wrangle) but from the root 'wrangen' (to strangle). This led to the split in the English 'wrangle' and 'wring' which likewise lost the W in the German 'rangeln' (wrestle), and related to the Dutch 'vringle' (twist). The sense of twisting of truth also elucidates the connection there with 'wrong'—this being a common Germanic root each time eventually gaining the same moral connotations—and 'worry', which originally meant 'choke'.
2279: wrongness vs. wrength Mar 13, 2021
The traditional nominal form of 'wrong' is 'wrength' as opposed to today's 'wrongness'. It is not, however, entirely clear where that would have come from. Obviously it would not be irregular considering long-length, strong-strength, etc. but the probable Old English *wrengþu is unattested. It could therefore be that the Middle English 'wrength' is backformed from words like 'strength' with that pattern being applied later onto 'wrong' (historically, 'wrang'). Either way, it's all but lost these days.
2276: nonce Mar 10, 2021
A number of modern words are the result of wrong division, i.e. splitting or affixing sounds across multiple words such as in 'napkin' or 'adder' which respectively gained and lost an [n] due to the indefinite article 'an'. This is not the only word for which it has happened though, as can be seen with 'nonce' meaning 'a single occasion' as in "it worked for the nonce". This is connected, unsurprisingly to 'once' but with wrong division from a Middle English word 'þan' (than) as in 'þan anes'. In fact, 'anes' in 'once' and 'nonce' is actually from the genitive form of 'one' (ān) as in "of one". Separately, 'nonce' is also British slang but it has nothing in relation to the other meaning. It couldn’t possibly have been from ‘an’ as with the other words mentioned above as is commonly expected in cases of wrong division, since that has the same root as the ‘one/once’ in ‘nonce’ itself.
2275: jovial & Jove Mar 9, 2021
Around the world, many cultures have associated certain times of year with heightened happiness. While likely few would still have any association between the two, the word 'jovial' meant born under the influence of the planet Jupiter, also called 'Jove' in English. Indeed, the Latin '-ālis' ending was used to express relationship, in this case with the head of their pantheon, Iovis. This astrological relation and an idea that those people born in that zodiac period were cheerier people led to the modern definition.
2274: gem Mar 8, 2021
In the past many thought that crystals really grew from being alive, and considering the etymology of 'gem', this might not have really seemed such a crazy idea. 'Gem', in its original sense meant 'bud', from the Latin 'gemma', which comes from a root *gen- meaning 'produce'. The root itself is somewhat mysterious, and so cognates are not exactly clear with it, but the root may also have had to do with the growth of other things including nails, with the current sense of 'gem' coming later in relation to the shape of seeds and buds, or their other qualities.
2273: jewel Mar 7, 2021
The word 'jewel' being associated exclusively with precious stones and other gems only began in the 14th century. The word's origins are not certain, but it is generally associated either with the same root as 'joy', or as 'joke'; either way originally having the meaning of something to cause happiness. Along the first line, the Latin gaudium (joy) is the root of the French 'joie' which these days has a rather carefree and innocent sense, but historically related to physical pleasures and sometimes materialism. Alternatively, this word might be related to the word 'joke', from the Latin 'iocus' which also had a more general sense historically. Either way, the word has surely diverged in its meaning over time.
2269: Elves in Given Names Mar 3, 2021
Although elves these days are not so culturally important these days as these used to be in ancient Germanic cultures, there still are remnants, especially in names. Alfred, Alvin Aubrey, Eldridge, and Oliver to name a few all come from the word 'ælf' (elf) with some other compound. In those names before, they are respectively Ælfræd (Elf-counsel), Ælfwine (Elf-friend) Alb(e)rada (elf-counsel), Ælfric (Elf-ruler) and Alfihar, (elf-army). Notably this makes Oliver unrelated to the French Olivier (olive-tree), though the French name did influence the spelling. Elves in Germanic mythology were small and malicious, hence why so many of those names have somewhat tough or even militaristic connotations. Share your friends named after elves.
More on elf-influence in English tomorrow.
2268: doubt and 2 Mar 2, 2021
Though it may not be too surprising that the word for ‘doubt’ is also related to words for ‘two’ including ‘duo’ and indeed ‘two, but keep in mind this replaced an earlier word with the same quality: Old English ‘twēo’ (doubt) from the same root as ‘two’. Likewise, the German word for doubt is ‘Zweifel’ which clearly has the root ‘zwei’ (two) in it. Moreover, the Latin root ‘dubitāre’, which led to the current English word is thought to come from habeō (I have), combined with the Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ “two” as in ‘holding two’ making the word seemingly even more literal, but actually the sense in Latin would be closer to ‘hesitate’.
Notably, the word ‘doubt’ in Middle English was not spelt with a B, but this was added later to correspond with the Latin root even though the Old French root, and the modern French derivative ‘douter’ (to doubt) aren’t spelt that way.
2267: How לחם (Lechem) is Related to नान (Naan)
There is a Proto-Semitic reconstructed root *laḥm- which broadly would have meant food, but in many of its descendents like the Hebrew לחם (lechem) and Aramaic לחמא (lachma) it came to mean bread. That said, the Arabic لَحْم (laḥm) also comes from this root, but here it means 'meat'. It is clear it hasn't always though, because a derivative of this Arabic word is the somewhat distant sounding Middle Persian LHMA which becomes نان (nân) in Persian. This did have closer form in other languages like the Old Armenian loanword նկան (nkan); in turn this root lead to the Hindi नान (nān) and Urdu نان (nān): bread which came to English as 'naan'.
2266: cutler(y) Feb 28, 2021
The word 'cutler' and by extension 'cutlery' may come from the same root as 'cut', but only very distantly at best. These two terms originate with the Latin 'cultus'—not '*cutlus'—but eventually metathesized into the 'coutel'. The '-erie' suffix is is used in French to mean 'belonging to' such as 'bakery', or 'jewellery'.
2264: (Old) Blighty Feb 26, 2021
The nickname for England or Britain as 'Blighty' came as military slang, especially as used by the soldiers of the World Wars. In particular, it was used by those in the Indian army as an alteration of the Urdu bilāyatī meaning 'foreign' or often broadly just 'European', though the original Arabic meaning was not so specific and could be used to refer to any region or district. Today it is often used in England affectionately, but obviously stripped of its original meaning.
2263: alchemy & chemistry Feb 25, 2021
Alchemy is to chemistry as astrology is to astronomy.
For much of history each pair was basically considered the same, as both had mystical and occult elements associated with them, and indeed even the more so-to-speak scientific aspects of these disciplines were in service of the spiritual ones until fairly recently. This is actually where the sense of chemistry relating to romantic attraction comes in. The connection between 'astrology' and 'astronomy' is fairly obvious, but the etymological connection between 'alchemy' and 'chemistry' is obscured somewhat by Arabic, with the al- just being the Arabic definite article i.e. 'the'. Otherwise the words have the same roots—even though the exact root is the cause of some disagreement—and really just means 'science'. Indeed, in the 17th century both words had a reduction in meaning, having both related to the occult, natural philosophical, as well as what might be thought as chemistry today or even metallurgy. Now, 'alchemy' only kept the sense of the pursuit of transforming base metals into gold and similar processes.
2262: alchemy Feb 24, 2021
No one knows the precise origin of the word 'alchemy', but that doesn't mean we can't learn a lot from it. For one thing, although there is a principle in more modern words for Arabic loan words, this is a case wherein the Arabic (al-) meaning 'the' does not turn into 'au-' in French, even though it was borrowed into English from Old French from an earlier Arabic اَلْكِيمِيَاء (al-kīmiyā). Beyond that, it is not quite certain. An even earlier in Greek χημεία (khēmeía) refers to a liquid mixture extracted from gold, not creating it, from a root meaning 'to pour', but many think it it originally Egyptian. At that, people aren't sure which word it would be, but the leading candidate seems to be Χημία (Khēmía), a name for Egypt itself literally meaning, 'black earth'. Indeed, as happens in many cases, the answer is likely influence from both sources, especially considering that there was a lot of cross-cultural contact in the Ancient world.
2260: stocks Feb 22, 2021
Stock markets these days might use some of the fastest computers out there, but the initial sense of the word 'stock' is directly related to trees with the Old English 'stoc' meaning 'trunk' or 'block'. Unsurprisingly too, it is related to the word 'stick'. Beyond that however, the connection between foliage and finance is unclear. It could be related to the idea of futures being an outgrowth or a stable foundation, being likened to branches though no one really knows. It could possibly be influenced by tally sticks used throughout the Ancient and Medieval world to keep records for taxes and other deals.
2259: mush Feb 21, 2021
Mush as an exclamation to motivate sled-dogs is obviously associated with the Far North, but is not from any Inuit Yupik language, probably. Generally the word is understood to come from French in the mid-19th century likely from an alteration of either 'marchez' or 'marchons', both being imperative forms of 'marcher' (advance; march). That said, it has also been influenced by Michif, which is a dominantly French language but with great influence from a number of various languages native to North America.
2256: Pro-, Far, Portable, and Porous Feb 18, 2021
'Fare', 'far', and 'ferry' are all related to each other and are obviously connected semantically (the sense of 'fare' also as money initially in reference to paying for travel) but the connection spans across many Indo-European languages. For instance, all the words related to 'pro-' and 'fore-' as a prefix, as well as other words like the Latin 'per' (through). Moreover, words like the Latin 'portare' (to carry) and Greek (peran) meaning 'pass through. Indeed, that root would as well connect this to the English 'pour' and by extension 'porous'. There are many more words in this family, but even here it goes to show that there is the possibility for far-reaching roots to develop into nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and even prefixes at once.
2252: nova Feb 13, 2021
Along with 'novel' and 'novice', the Latin 'novus' (feminine 'nova) meaning 'new' also led to a couple literally stellar words like 'nova' and by extension 'supernova'. This is from the phrase 'stella nova' (new star) because at least in the 16th century, the sudden expanding brightness of a nova was thought to be a new star. These were only distinguished from supernovae in the 1930's which was actually the phenomenon that occurred in the 1572 description that led to the coining of the term.
2251: boor & boer Feb 12, 2021
In the same way as 'villain' has only negative connotations today but once denoted peasant farmers, the same process occurred with the word 'boor' or also 'boorish'. Though perhaps not quite as evil, it is still is by no means positive, referring to an ill-mannered person. This word is also originally borrowed, here from the Dutch 'boer' meaning 'farmer', as in the South African Boers (e.g. "Boer Wars"). This root is actually fairly far reaching and led to other words like 'bower' (i.e. birdcage) or the Dutch 'buur' ('neighbor'), the -by suffix denoting habitation (e.g. Selby, Whitby).
2249: villain & villa Feb 10, 2021
The word 'villain' has been made popular especially in fiction, but as often happens with fiction, the truth—or in this case etymology—is made more exciting. The word in entered Middle English through the French 'vilein' from the same root as 'villa', the initial sense meaning 'rustic'. More specifically, the noun referred to a farmhand or peasant, but with that came negative connotations of being boorish, clownish, or even scoundrelly. Indeed, not only did this quite pejorative sense develop in English, but also in the Modern French 'vilain'.