I see on M-W that it comes from the Greek hybris. Huh--but only dated from 1884. Pretty new.

Well, it does come from a Classical Greek word. I thought everybody knew that. Sorry, my bad. It does not surprise me that it was adopted by English so "late" as the 19th century. Anybody mentioning it before then probably used the Greek spelling. People do all kinds of weird stuff to their language when they ought to know better.

I have always cringed when people say /kudəgra/ for coup de grace (which in French is /kudəgras/). To me and the French it sounds like they're saying a "blow of fat" rather than a "blow of grace". Go figure.

[Fixed gosh-darned typo.]

Last edited by zmjezhd; 07/21/10 12:39 PM.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.