2545: glass, chlorine, & arsenic Dec 1, 2021

The word 'glass' in other languages shares a root with many color-words, but that is far from where the root *ghel- ends. Meaning 'shine', this word also led to many light-associated words like 'glaze', 'glow', 'gold', 'glimmer' 'glare' and more, but also many related to bile like 'chlorine', cholera, and 'gall'. Even 'arsenic' comes through this root, though it was adopted into English through many other languages, ultimately from Old Iranian *zarna- (golden).

2544: glass Nov 30, 2021

Although 'glass' refers to a material in English, throughout Indo-European languages the root of this word often led to other meanings for a variety of colors. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root *ghel- meant 'shine' and as a result eventually came to mean 'glass' in Germanic languages, but also led to words for the colors yellow such as Old English 'glær' or Latin 'glaesum' (amber) or indeed Modern English 'yellow'. In Old Irish 'glass' meant 'green' and in Welsh 'glas' means 'blue'.

2542: Roll Tide Nov 28, 2021

Lots of chants don't mean anything, such as the University of Minnesota's "ski u mah" which many believe to be from Lakota but is total gibberish. University of Alabama's 'roll tide' though probably is meaningful, though no one is quite sure what for. The nickname 'Crimson Tide' was used towards the start of the 20th century for the team, though this again is not entirely clear as to why. Whatever the case, the phrase is not trademarked.

2541: 'Sesquipedalian' and a Phobia of Syllables Nov 27, 2021

The word 'hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia' refers to the irrational fear of many syllables, but it is also somewhat nonsensical. Its creation being so absurdly long was purposeful, and can be broken down into elements 'monstrum' (monster) which is an English understanding of the Latin meaning 'portent', but even more ridiculous is that the first element is from 'hippopotamus'. The whole thing really is an extension of 'sesquipedalian' which means 'polysyllabic' or more colloquially 'long-winded' from the Latin 'sesquipedalis' meaning 'a foot and a half'. In Latin, this term also related to excessive speech.

2534: aquarium, terrarium, vivarium Nov 20, 2021

In Latin, the word 'aquārius' as either a noun or an adjective referred to anything water-related, including an aquarium (hence the English) but also aqueducts and workers thereon. Still, in its association with artificial animal-enclosures this led to 'terrarium' on the same pattern. Latin also had the word 'vīvārium' which does exist in English but is significantly less common, denoting any sort of enclosure for raising animals.

2532: spew & puke Nov 18, 2021

Many unpleasant bodily functions will take on multiple euphemisms, and with vomit, two are indeed related etymologically. While the word 'puke' is understood to be imitative to some extent, the exact reference is vague, and has been associated with the German 'pfauchen' (spit) and Dutch 'spugen' (spit), though other cognates here would mean 'blow' or 'puff'. Likewise, the Old English spīwan (vomit; spit) is a cognate, and the origin of 'spew', with also has other associations with spitting. Across languages the two ideas are commonly connected. In the case of 'puke' and 'spew' though, the latter is certainly older.

2529: sinai Nov 15, 2021

Sinai is certainly a famous place due to its significance in the Bible, but the etymology of it is unclear. The area was known in Ancient Egypt as a place for mining turquoise as was called 'Biau' (mining). It is therefore thought that the Hebrew סיני (sinei) is from the name of the moon-deity of the Mesopotamian pantheon (and its ancient Egyptian equivalent Thoth), who was ‎associated with the area by locals, given that the desert on the peninsula around the mountain in Hebrew is known as מדבר סין (midbar sin) and nearby is the desert מדבר סיני (midbar sinei).

2526: mediterranean Nov 12, 2021

The name for the Mediterranean is from Latin, but it isn't what the Romans called it. They called it Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) or occasionally Mare Internum (Interior Sea) but never Mediterraneum Mare, which is from Late Latin, after the collapse of the empire. 'Mediterraneus' anyway doesn't specifically refer to water and literally means 'middle of the earth', so if the term was used by the Romans, it could have had a broader understanding. This was adopted into English via French, and beforehand the Old English 'Wendelsæ' was used, named for the Germanic Vandals who occupied the area of the former Western Roman Empire.

2524: gum Nov 10, 2021

Although the term for the product of the resin is 'rubber' in English, the resin itself is known as 'gum'. This is from Ancient Egyptian qmyt (resin; gum), also related to qmy (oil). This was the source of many related European words thanks to its adoption into Ancient Greek and Latin which begot many terms, but also Semitic terms like Hebrew גומי (gumi) and Aramaic גמי (gami), and via Greek קומא‎ (quma), with the later being specific to acacia. On the other hand, 'rubber' is just from the material's association to erasers, and another term, 'caoutchouc' is from Nahuatl, but only refers to unvulcanized rubber.

2522: mesmerism Nov 8, 2021

The word 'mesmerize' now just generally refers to something that's dazzling and captivating, but 'mesmerism' was once a description of a medical procedure and (erroneous) scientific theory. Franz Anton Mesmer believed in something called 'animal magnetism'—an invisible force with physical effects—using magnets along with psychological tricks to supposedly cure people of ailments. This did actually work, but rather than being from magnetism, it was hypnosis. The salvageable procedures influenced many fields including modern talk-therapy, but the colloquial term 'mesmerize' is named from someone who may not have really known what he was doing.

2521: abacus Nov 7, 2021

The word 'abacus' came to English from Latin hence the plural 'abaci', but this word might really have a semitic origin. While now the term is used exclusively to refer to the mathematical instrument, it used to be more generic, denoting many types of boards including board-game boards and sand tables, as with the Ancient Greek ἄβαξ (ábax). This has been likened to the Hebrew אבק‎ (āvāq) meaning 'dust' which would explain the senses of the Catalan 'àbac' meaning both 'mathematical table' and 'board covered in sand'.

2517: mentor Nov 3, 2021

Although the word 'mentor' is from Ancient Greek, it only started to be used as a word in the 18th century. Instead, this word comes from the name of a character Μέντωρ (Mentor) in Homer's Odyssey, namely the adviser of Telemachus. That said, the root of this word is connected to the idea itself, and related to the English 'mind', Latin 'monitor', and Sanskrit मन्तृ (mantṛ). So, while it is technically from a name, the name was given presumably due to who the character was.

2516: Rhotacism & Dissimilation Nov 2, 2021

The word 'meridian' in English, or more directly even 'ante/post meridiem' (a.m./p.m.) is from the Latin word 'merīdiēs' meaning 'midday; noon'. This is from a corrupted phrase 'medīdiēs' which is just an contraction of 'medius' (middle) and 'diēs' (day). The R in the middle of 'merīdiēs' therefore is a bit odd at first glance. In fact, this is a fairly normal occurrence of rhotacism in the transition into Classical Latin. This normally happens to the sounds [s] or [z]—not [d]—that they should turn into [r] and really this is a process of dissimilation because it is followed by another [d].

2514: calcium & calculus Oct 31, 2021

The words 'calcium' and 'calculus' are related by the common root of 'calx', or translated from Latin, 'limestone'. This makes a certain amount of sense for calcium, since this is an element and is found physically in limestone and even now is another term for kidney-stones, but the association to mathematics is not as clear. This is because the diminutive form of 'calx' took the suffix '-ulus', resulting in 'calculus' meaning 'pebble', which again doesn't seem to relate to math, but is a reference to the stones used as counters on an abacus. Before differential calculus took the more specific definition used today, 'calculus' could just mean 'to calculate', hence the relation there as well.

2512: serology and truth serums Oct 28, 2021

Serology is the study of blood, and especially pathogens in blood, but its etymology has nothing to do with that really. In Latin, 'serum'—which also led to the the English word 'serum'—which meant 'whey'. Blood has little to do with milky water, and what's more, this is related to other milky terms like Sanskrit सारण (sāraṇa) for 'buttermilk' and Ancient Greek ὁρός (horós) 'whey; curd'. This makes sense for the English 'serum', as this is a yellowish-liquid that's a component of blood. That said, 'serum' as in 'truth serum', while informal, is still a divergence from the original, presumably by association with injections generally. The association with blood in general is also an extension of the specificity of 'serum'.

2511: Common Words with Etruscan Origins Oct 27, 2021

Just because words are basic and have cognates in other, related languages, does not make the word indigenous, though it would suggest that the term is very old. For instance, 'person', 'populous' and 'military' all came to English, and many other European languages, via Latin, but these are not native Latin words. Instead, these are generally seen as having an Etruscan root, making them pre-Indo-European. 'Persona' in Latin was an actors mask, and likewise that would be in Etruscan 𐌘𐌄𐌓𐌔𐌖 (φersu), eventually replacing the native English 'wight'. 'Populus' in Latin, was thought to relate to 'plēbs' (commoner; plebeian) but the root here means 'to fill' and an Etruscan root might make more sense. 'Milēs' has a normal construction for Latin grammar, but the perceived connection to 'mīlia' (thousand) is not a given.

2510: etruscan and tuscany Oct 26, 2021

Often, etymologies for English words list that they are from Latin, and end there, but many Latin words had relatively ancient foreign origins of their own. A number of their words entered from the pre-Roman civilization of Etruscan who spoke a totally unrelated, non-Indo-European language, most obviously name of the region of Tuscany. This is from 'Tuscus', earlier 'Truscus', and even earlier 'Etruscus', but that doesn't exactly give the etymology. Rather, this is uncertain, but some surmise it is related to the Ancient Greek Τυρρηνός (Turrhēnós), from τύρρις (túrrhis) meaning 'tower', which itself is not of Indo-European origin. Alternatively, it has been noted among pre-Indo-European groups that they gave themselves names with -sk-, also seen in 'Basque' and 'Vascones', which is believed to mean 'water' and relate to seafaring peoples. Other explanations have traced to Celtic origins, or even to compare it to 'Troy', but these do not hold up as well. It has even been suggested that this was not the endonym, but rather 𐌓𐌀𐌔𐌍𐌀 (rasna) was what they called themselves, meaning 'the people'.

2508: Ōs & Os: Two Very Different Destinies Oct 24, 2021

Latin differentiates between long and short vowels for distinguishing words, such as 'os' (bone) and 'ōs' (mouth). The other forms of 'ōs', including the genitive 'oris' is where 'oral' or 'orifice' get the R. Conversely, English has many derivatives like 'ossify', 'ossific', 'ossiferous', none of which have R in the root, because there was none present in any Latin form. 'Ōs' has far fewer derivatives outside of these other forms—except the use of 'os' as a medical term in English—including in Romance languages, relatively speaking. Consider too than 'mouth' is 'boca' in Spanish and Portuguese, ​'bocca' in Italian, and 'bouche' in French, all of which come from Latin 'bucca' (cheek) itself likely from a Celtic origin, likely related to 'pouch' of Germanic origin, and possibly related to 'puke'.

2505: duel & bellum: √; duel and dual: X Oct 21, 2021

The word 'duel' may seem unassuming, but it's actually a preserved version from Archaic Latin, used before the 1st century BC. The word morphed into the Classical Latin 'bellum' (war), but the form was revived in Medieval Latin from its perceived association with 'dualis' (of two) and 'duo' but this is not accurate. The word is from the Proto-Italic *dwellom (to injure; destroy) related to other words like the Ancient Greek δαίω (daíō) meaning 'to burn' or δύη (dúē) for 'pain'. In fact, this 'du-' to 'b' transformation led to 'bis' from 'duis' meaning 'twice', further complicating that medieval folk etymology. This is also seem in Archaic Latin 'duonus' to 'bonus'.

2503: satin Oct 19, 2021

China was famous historically for being the starting point of the Silk Road, but along with carrying satin it was a major means of language transfer. Satin is named for the Chinese city of 泉州 (Quanzhou) which literally means “spring prefecture”, but in Arabic this is زَيْتُون‎ (zaytūn) meaning "olive tree", itself a translation of "Tung Tree City", for the many trees planted by its 10th century prince. The Arabic term was taken into French first before its adoption into English.