2578: freelance Jan 4, 2022
'Freelance' now refers to work done across several companies by a person, rather than a fixed position. That said, people nowadays would almost never have any connection to lances, but the original sense denoted mercenaries, who presumably would have. That said, this was not from a medieval word, but is from around the 19th century at least, with many ascribing it to author Sir Walter Scott. The more general sense was taken on soon after.
2577: charm & charisma Jan 3, 2022
The words 'charm' and 'charisma' are not related, though this fact is often confused in particular because of how they are used for certain Biblical translations as it pertains to the Holy Spirit. 'Charisma' is from the Ancient Greek χᾰ́ρῐσμᾰ (khárisma) for 'grace; gift', ultimately from χαίρω (khaírō) meaning 'I am happy'. 'Charm' on the other hand, both as it relates to magic and to personality types comes from the Latin 'carmen' which meant both 'song' and 'incantation', or as it were 'chant' and 'enchant'. Both terms have been used for translating ideas of speaking in tongues or other trance-like experiences.
2576: disk and tisch Jan 2, 2022
Though dishes can be concave and tables usually not, it is the idea of flatness which links the two together. Words like 'disk', but also 'desk', 'dish', and the German 'Tisch' (table) are all from the Greek δίσκος (dískos). In its original form this meant 'disk' as we use it now, and hence the Greek athletic 'discus'. This root was adopted into a Proto-Germanic language via Latin, eventually becoming German 'Tisch', Dutch 'dis' for 'table'—though this last word is far less common than tafel (table) or berd (board)—and the English 'dish'. English took a different root for 'table', but the story is similar.
2575: spanspek Jan 1, 2022
Among the various words for cantaloupe melons, there is 'rockmelon' in New Zealand, 'sweet melon', and in South African 'spanspek'. This word has been subject to some folk etymology, with the story being that it is from the Afrikaans 'spaanse spek' (Spanish bacon) since an early governor of the Cape Colony had bacon with his breakfast and his Spanish wife had melon. This word predated the governor Sir Harry Smith by some time and was originally from another colony: Suriname. There, it was named due to its thick skin and its connection to the Spanish is not from one governess.
2575: cantaloupe Dec 31, 2021
It is normal for things to be named from where they are from, but this is more complicated in the case of the cantaloupe. Cantaloupe melons, which are the same species as honeydew melons, are from the somewhere between South Asia and Africa, but are named for a place in Italy near Rome. Cantalupo is actually the name of a former Papal summer estate, and while it is not where they were first grown, this is where they were first grown when brought to Europe.
2574: honeydew Dec 30, 2021
Though the name 'honeydew' applies to a melon, the term in its generic form is more literal description of an insect-secretion deposited on plants, which is sweet and sticky. This term is due to the supposed dew being believed to have fallen from the sky, and even being likened the Biblical manna or otherwise ambrosia. This was then associated with the flesh of the melon.
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.
2570: Empathy: A False Friend Dec 26, 2021
English has two words, 'empathy' and 'sympathy', that clearly share a root and have similar meaning. The Greek '-πάθεια' ending means 'suffering'—in this case describing one's ability to understand another's pain—but in Greek εμπάθεια (empátheia) means 'malice'. A more literal translation of the Greek, though lacking the necessary negative connotation, could be 'passion', but would not be a desired quality. The reason behind this apparent division is that the English version was chosen as a deliberate if imperfect attempt to translate the German 'Einfühlung', rather than being trying to capture the Greek meaning.
2568: Much vs. Mucho Dec 24, 2021
Despite the obvious similarities in form and meaning, it would be wrong to assume that 'much' and the Spanish 'mucho' are unrelated. 'Mucho' is from the Latin 'multus' and while at first glance it might not seem so close, the Portuguese cognate 'muito' provides some context. The English 'much' on the other hand is from the Germanic *mikilaz (great; much), like the Old English 'michel'. The Middle English 'muchel' retained the [l] but this was eventually lost. It is related to the Spanish 'maño', no longer in use, meaning 'big'.
2567: fiance & betrothed Dec 23, 2021
Of descriptive titles for a person who is engaged, the most common include 'fiancé(e)' and 'betrothed'. Both of these, in fact have the same etymological basis even though they are from different languages. 'Fiancé(e)' is from French, though originally the root is with the Latin 'fidere' (related to 'fides') meaning 'to trust', or as a noun 'truth'. This is the same root as the English 'fidelity' as well as 'fealty' and 'fiat', which also connect the idea of 'trust' to agreements. 'Betroth' (or indeed 'troth') is from an old and now out-of-use form of 'truth', with 'troth' also having another sense of 'agreement' or 'pledge'. Unlike 'betroth/ed', English did not also take the verbal form of 'fiancé(e)' from French, which is 'fiancer', and so must use another word 'engaged'.
2562: cauliflower Dec 18, 2021
Many plants are related to cabbages biologically, but this is also reflected in the name of some foods. 'Cauliflower' for instance is from the dated French 'chou fleuri' meaning literally ‘flowered cabbage’. This on its own is pretty old, but the original English for this developed into 'colieflorie' with the first element influenced by 'cole' (related to 'kale') meaning 'cabbage'. This 'cole/kale' connection is also seen in borrowed from Dutch 'cole' for 'coleslaw'.
2557: Lunatics Dec 13, 2021
There is a misunderstanding that the word 'lunatic' relates to a medieval or otherwise Christian understanding of witches practicing paganism or sorcery around the moon and its cycles. The word is actually much older and the concept can be seen across the ancient world, even in pagan cultures, as reflected in the etymology. This word is from Latin 'lunaticus' (moon-struck), replacing the Old English 'monseoc' (literally 'moon-sick'). These sorts of concepts of staring at the moon to cause mental diminishment also exist in Jewish scriptural literature—though not with such specific terminology for the people—millenia before the accusations of medieval European opinions.
2555: flee, fly, float Dec 11, 2021
The participial form of 'fly' is 'flight' while for 'flee' this would be 'fled'. This pair is, perhaps unsurprisingly, related, but they've long been each slightly different to the other. In Old English, these were 'flēogan' and 'flēon' respectively, but they shared a common root from the Proto-Germanic *fleuhaną. Originally this root meant 'flow', and naturally enough this is also related. From this it elucidates how this root also led to words like 'fleet' and 'float', or Old English 'flēot' (ship).
2554: taut, tie, tough Dec 10, 2021
The word 'taut' (once 'taught') is now only an adjective, but originally it was a participle from Old English 'toen' meaning 'drag; pull'. This would connect it with the word 'tow' which has retained the earlier meaning more than 'taut' has. Furthermore, not only would this give another English connection to 'tie' but also 'tough'. This is from the Proto-Indo-European *dewk-, also the source of the Latin 'dux' meaning 'lead', and this Italian 'duce' (leader).
2553: Calzones and Underpants Dec 9, 2021
The pizza-dish known as 'calzone' in Italian means 'stocking; trouser' certainly does not mean the same thing as it does in Italian, but across other romance languages there is another level of semantic distinction. In Italian 'calzoni' these days means 'trousers', but in Spanish 'calzón' means 'underpants'. Even in languages developed later from these Romance languages don't always retain the meanings, with this distinction seen in the Papiamento word for trousers 'kalzon', taken from the Spanish 'calzón' (underpants).
2552: arsenic Dec 8, 2021
'Arsenic' shares the same root as 'glass' and 'glow', even though they don't sound similar. This is because of how the word for 'arsenic' was borrowed through Persian. There was a folk etymology for a while that it was from the Greek αρσέν (arsen) meaning 'masculine; virile', which some people associated because of the overall powerful nature of the material. This is not true.
2549: Timor-Leste Dec 5, 2021
Plenty of regions, and even countries, are named with cardinal directions in their name, like South Sudan or Republic of Northern Macedonia. This is also true in the name of the country, Timor-Leste, though in English this is sometimes 'East Timor'. 'Leste' is 'east' in Portuguese, owing to its Portuguese colonial history, but anglicizing to 'East Timor' only does half the job, because 'timor' means 'east' in the native language of Tetum. Literally therefore its name means 'East-East'. On the other half of the island, now shared with Indonesia, used to be Dutch Timor, now known as 'West Timor', or translated as 'West East'.
2548: melancholy Dec 4, 2021
Like 'gall' and its connection (supposedly) to the gallbladder 'melancholy' was also once a pseudo-medical term. The word Ancient Greek μελαγχολία (melankholía), from μέλας (mélas) meaning 'black; murky'—same root as 'melanin'—and χολή (kholḗ) meaning 'bile', which is the same root as 'cholera'. This black bile, known in Latin as atra bilis (dark bile) believed as a kidney secretion which in excess causes sadness.
2547: gall & gallbladder Dec 3, 2021
To have gall, as in spirited gumption, and to have a gallbladder where the liver's bile is stored might not seem related at first glance, but to doctors of less enlightened times, these would. Linguistically, these are from the same root, and the organ is so named because of Medieval idea of the humors, which is to say it was where one of the four humors (fluids) was stored, believed to be the source of physical and mental characteristics depending on their quantity. In this case, the yellow bile was associated with gumption.
2546: glass (material) Dec 2, 2021
Recent posts discussed how the root *ghel- led to words for many different colors [1] or that related to light and bile, but even just looking at how 'glass' has changed can reveal a great deal of variability alone. From the 13th century it was used with restricted meanings beyond that just the material, in this case meaning 'drinking glass'. In the 14th century it took on the meaning of 'mirror' as in 'looking glass', and by the 15th century it referred to the timekeeping 'hour glass'.