2629: obliterate Feb 26, 2022
The English words 'obliterate' and 'literature' come from the same root. Although 'obliterate' is thought of in a generic way meaning 'total destruction', in a more literal sense it means 'blotting out with ink'. It is for this reason that the French 'oblitération' can mean 'stamp; validate a ticket'. Beyond this the word becomes obscured because the history of the Latin 'littera' is not clear.
2628: Jack Feb 25, 2022
There are a number of card standard decks around the world and while they tend to base the cards in some real thing, those things are also old fashioned in many ways, partly as a result of it all being translated from the French tradition. People know what kings and queens are, but the use of ‘jack’ is somewhat odd in that group. It used be ‘knave’ which was the equivalent to the French ‘valet’ (which is also a loanword in English) meaning ‘servant’ and as with most words with that meaning, also ‘boy’. ‘Jack’ on the other hand came as a nickname from ‘John’ and was used as a term to denote a normal man. Compare this with the French ‘Jacquerie’. Indeed, this word began to denote male animals (jackass; jackrabbit; jacksnipe) and also laborers (lumberjack) and tools therefor (jackhammer; jackknife). It is from this sense as a workman that it replaced ‘knave’ in a deck of cards, and also of course when the cards are abbreviated, having a K for ‘king’ and also Kn for ‘knave’ would be confusing. Despite this gain in clarity, the use of ‘jack’ in place of ‘knave’ was seen as being low-class and did not catch on immediately but one should keep in mind not all decks used indices anyway. ‘Jack’ also began to denote small things, such as ‘naval jack’—a national flag flown on the bow—along with the many uses in tools and games it has.
2627: grenade & pomegranate Feb 24, 2022
Although the only thing explosive about a pomegranate would be if its seeds are saturated with juice, the word 'grenade' comes from the same root as 'pomegranate'. The word is instead a reference to its shape, with a round body and a protruding head. Although the word is French, the spelling with a D by the end instead of a T is influenced from the Spanish 'granada'. This has nothing to do with the Spanish city 'Granada', whose name comes from Arabic.
2626: stout (beer) Feb 23, 2022
The beer called 'stout' bears its name because it is a strong, dark beer. If the term had come out today instead of in the 17th century, it may well have just been called 'a strong'. The root in other Germanic languages means 'proud', like the German 'Stolz', but the definition is different in English due to the euphemistic meaning that replaced the sense of 'proud; haughty' with 'fat' in the Middle Ages, and again in the 14th century with 'strong-bodied'.
2625: 'Capital' in Asian Capital Cities Feb 22, 2022
As seen in ‘Tokyo‘, mentioned yesterday, It is actually a common tradition to include the word and character for 'capital' (京) in the name of Asian capital cities. This same character is pronounced 'jing' in Chinese and is found in other places around modern China. The former capital of Japan, Kyoto (京都) has this, as does Keijō (京城) in South Korea, both meaning 'capital city' in their respective languages. In China there is Beijing (北京) or 'Northern Capital', Nanjing (南京) or 'Southern Capital', and Xijing (西京) or 'Western Capital'. There are plenty more such examples, but this is just a few.
2624: Kyoto & Tokyo Feb 21, 2022
The fact that a former capital (Kyoto) and current capital of Japan (Tokyo) are anagrams is fun, but not so surprising. The original name for Tokyo was Edo, which means 'estuary', owing to the natural geography. During the Meiji Restoration it was changed to Tokyo (東京) from 東 (east) pronounced 'to' and 京 (capital) pronounced 'kyō'. Therefore, Kyoto means the same thing, but in a different order, and the reason that the characters look different (京都) is because this is older and comes from Middle Chinese.
2623: storm Feb 20, 2022
As a noun, 'storm' will usually refer to atmospheric disturbance or other moremetaphirical uses, while as a verb this word denotes a forceful, single-direction push like a military action. This same dichotomy also exists in German, leading to the English calque of 'stormtroops' in WWI from the German 'Sturmtruppen'. The Germanic root found in Old English as well saw both meanings of the atmospheric storm and a more generic 'to attack' without specifically referring to rushing something fortified. Moreover, it had another meaning of 'rage', which isn't as often seen today outside of more poetic uses.
2622: Alkaline & Basic: Why 2 Words Feb 19, 2022
Something that is an alkaline is described as being basic, but this is a totally different root. The reason that a substance's alkalinity is denoted as basic is because 'basic' is the more generic term; all alkalis are basic but not all bases are alkaline. A base will always neutralize an acid creating a salt and water but only alkalis, alkali metal hydroxide specifically, will dissolve in water. Though 'alkali' is only a specific term, originating from Arabic meaning 'the ashes' some of the meanings of 'base' have overlapped with it.
2622: Archipelago & the Aegean Sea Feb 18, 2022
The word 'archipelago' came to English from Greek originally as a proper noun, but even now in Greek it isn't used that way. The word ἀρχιπέλαγος (archepelagos) in Ancient Greek referred to the Aegean Sea, and later denoted the islands within it. The word means 'chief sea', and even though it is ancient, it is less mythical in its source than the current name for the sea. The name, also in Latin 'Archipelago', was still popularly in use around parts of Europe until the modern era.
2621: AD-CE Feb 17, 2022
The system of BCE-CE for dating years as opposed to BC-AD is in some ways older than most people would likely imagine. While the abbreviations themselves are fairly new, the terminology has been found since the 18th century. However, it is exactly the same in everything but name, including quirks like not having a year 0. Since in the religious context this is based off of a fixed event, or at least intends to be, the lack of 0 makes sense with AD.
2620 dungeon Feb 16, 2022
In the popular conception, dungeons are in the basement area, but in medieval times they would have been the top level of a tower. In fact, these were designed to be secure not because they were prisons per se, but as castle keeps, which is how the word meant in Middle English. This is still the case in the less well-known word 'donjon', likely based on the Latin 'dominus' meaning 'master' as it was the lord's tower most of the time; castles, ultimately, were homes.
2619: Greek Name for Mars Feb 15, 2022
English has lots of words with 'pyro-' like 'pyromaniac' from the Greek word for 'fire', but their word for the planet Mars, Pyroeis, which literally 'the fiery' we did not go with. Instead, we took took the Roman name 'Mars', a deity of war, because its red color was associated with blood. The Greek name was for the same reason, though it went in another direction.
2618: Gargoyles vs Grotesques Feb 14, 2022
People will often be confused between the differences of gargoyles and grotesques. A gargoyle is only a type of grotesque, and is a statue for the specific purpose of moving drain water away from walls. Without a statue, such a device would just be a spout. Without the function of moving water, the statues are known as 'grotesques'. These statues, which often depict monsters, take their name from the Latin 'grotto', which is a type of painting style notable for its obscene imagery, painted in caves or in private homes usually. 'Gargoyle' instead comes from the French 'gargouille' (throat) because it moved water as a pipe, and is related to 'gargle'.
2617: Æthelred the Unready Feb 13, 2022
The epithet of Æthelred the Unready, one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England, is a mistranslation. First of all, it is from the Old English 'unræd' which means 'poorly advised', from 'ræd' (council), that no longer has any cognates in English but is related to the German 'Rat' (council). Moreover, it is a pun, because Æthelred means 'noble council'. He happened to face lots of treason in his life, but it nevertheless ill-remembered for making lots of concessions to Viking pirates, despite having made lots of provisions in fact.
2616: Mars & marshal Feb 12, 2022
Most words that English adopted from Latin—which is quite a high number—are either native or originally borrowed from Greek. That said, one overlooked source for the Latin words initially was Etruscan, and many of the Roman's words are from them. In the case of Mars, a deity, this is slightly more complicated as the religious elements were largely Greek but the name was Etruscan, with their Mars being a child-god, not a war-god. It is true 'military' is ultimately Etruscan, but as a result of this, so are other war-inspired words like 'marshal' and 'martial'.
2615: Why No W- in 'Holistic'? Feb 11, 2022
Though there is a version 'wholism', far and away the more common and more standard spelling is 'holism', without the W-. Still, when referencing wholeness, as it were, so it might cause someone to wonder why this differentiation around W- was made. This is due to the fact that the term was coined in 1926 attempting to resemble Greek more closely, from ὅλος (holos) meaning 'whole'. That said, the W- is only from a dialect-form from the 15th century, and in Old English the word was hāl without the W-, so really the question could be asked the other way around.
2614: pepe Feb 10, 2022
Usually, we would expect nicknames or pet names to at least vaguely resemble the original version. There are a few exceptions, like 'Dick' from Richard, but at least this did come from the name. In the case of the Spanish nickname Pepe born from José, this may not be so. Perhaps the most popular theory is that this comes from the abbreviation 'P.P.' from 'pater putativus' (putative father) referencing the father of Jesus, but more likely it is just from a doubling of the final syllable of the earlier Josep. It is sometimes found as Cheché and Chepe throughout Latin America. Likewise, the Italian version Peppe is from Giuseppe, and from Portuguese it is Zezé, with many other related forms.
2613: Pagan Origins of Martin, Mark, and Mario Feb 9, 2022
There have been saints and popes named Martin, but it actually has its roots in pagan religion. The name Martinus in Roman culture was fairly popular, and derives from the Roman god of war Mars. Moreover, this is also the origin for the name Marcus, and its derivative like Mark. At the same time as the Roman Martinus, there was also Marius of the same source, which remains as it was in some cultures but also became the Spanish Mario, but not the feminine Maria which is ultimately Semitic.
2612: iris Feb 8, 2022
The word 'iris' is the name for a flower as well as part of the eye. Both of these senses comes from the Ancient Greek ἶρις (îris) meaning 'rainbow', because this part of the eye deals with color, and the flower is named because it resembled the shape of the iris of the eye. More directly though, there is a Greek messenger deity who is both represented by the rainbow and gives certain significance to it, with some references using 'iris' to mean both messenger and rainbow. The root of this word means 'to twist' and is related to the English word 'wire', and the element iridium, which gives off many colors when dissolved.
2611: prune & plum Feb 7, 2022
There are a few cases where dried fruits have completely different names to the normal version, but this is pretty rare. Prunes for instance are dried plums, but this is just because the the Ancient Greek προῦνον (proûnon) means 'plum', likely borrowed from a native Anatolian language. The word 'plum' does not have a separate origin though, and merely stems from the Latin form 'prunum' which morphed over time into the English form. The Modern Greek word for a plum now is δαμάσκηνο (damaskino) meaning Damascus.