As the topic this week is Latin words and phrases, I would like to share one of my favorite Latin etymologies. The word is "companion." See if you can deduce the etymology if you don't already know. The answer is in white, below. What's your favorite etymology?
The word comes from the Latin for "with" [com] and "bread" [pani], literally, someone with whom you share bread. I learned this from Carol Fields' book "The Italian Baker," which I read when I was working as a baker.
I don't have a favorite etymology, but enjoy learning the etymology of words because doing so often provides mnemonics not only for a given word, but frequently for several others as well. I wish we saw a lot more etymology here.
stand in the spray from the Pierian spring
Is that anything like pissinginto the wind?
Not an etymology as such, but I've never happened to have occasion to utter it, so it only occurred to me in the shower this morning that the Indonesian for "my nails" (finger or toe) is kuku-kukuku.
Bingley
here's another favorite word of mine: "pathognomonic "
ADJECTIVE: Characteristic or symptomatic of a particular disease or condition.
ETYMOLOGY: Greek pathognmonikos : patho-, patho- + gnmonikos, able to judge (from gnmn, interpreter; see gn- in Appendix I).
(from http://www.bartleby.com/61/17/P0111700.html )
"thy micturations are to me,
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on
a lurgid bee."
© Douglas Adams 1979
I love it, Max. It counterpoints the surrealism of the underlying metaphor. Or something like that.
http://www.wordorigins.orgLord
This word for master derives from the Old English hláford or literally bread (loaf)-ward.
Originally, it is a reference to the head of a household; servants in the house would be
entitled to be fed by the master. The general sense of master, as opposed to the specific
sense of a provider of bread, is well established by c. 950.
This site didn't give etymology of "lady" which comes from roots about kneading bread.
lady
This word originally denoted a "kneader of bread" from the OE
http://latin.about.com/library/wordstories/bllady.htm HLÆFDIGE, a compound of HLÆF (bread, and hence the word "loaf")
and the OE root DIG- (hence, the word "dough"). John Ayto tells us that
this word, as "LORD" (see below), is symbolic in medieval lifestyles of the
importance that bread played in people's lives. Thus, a "lady" was a
"provider of bread" and hence a symbol of authority within a household.
At the second site, I ran into a new word:
fossicker
In Australia or New Zealand especially, one who informally searches for
gold by "reworking" abandoned piles of earth which may have already
been depleted of the mineral. To ferret out; to rummage for something of
value with a goal of making a profit.
A fossicker is also a bothersome person, one who busies about and
creates trouble.
Fossicking is quite an enjoyable hobby in Australia and New Zealand,
parts of the world that are home to a wide range of fossils and minerals.
Origin is unknown.
So in hijacking words from tsuwm? wwftd, I have been fossicking. Sound a bit naughty.
In another thread, "salt cellars" were mentioned. I did not realize that this is a tautology.
Furthermore, those who were wealthy enough to have saltcellars [small
dishes used for holding and dispensing salt] just as recently as 300 years
ago were deemed to have "status," and they were looked highly upon and
esteemed by their "underlings"! Contrary to frequent belief, a saltcellar is
not a location for storing salt but rather it is merely a "compound
redundancy," that is, tautology, for the word "salt":
Cellar (as in saltcellar) comes from the Anglo-Norman saler [and later
seler], another word for saltcellar, a word derived from the Latin sal and
the corresponding verb, salere, to add salt to.
"thy micturations are to me,
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on
a lurgid bee."
As consuelo has already noted, the indicated word requies its own color.
work these days takes up more time.. i have much, much longer commute -- there is this distraction about town. and now i don't even have a simple dictionary about.. and connections are iffy, and i keep getting dumped..
i look up when i can.. my two favorite words..for etymology
kaliedoscope. which breaks out pretty easy into its roots..
and seat/chair/see (as in the Holy See).. very interesting.. a round robin collection.
Related to this is the etymology of "steward" from stig = [pig]sty and wearden = watch, keep. A steward therefore was originally the guardian of the pigs.
WORD HISTORY:
Hard-riding marshals of the Wild West in pursuit of criminals reemphasize the
relationship of the word marshal with horses. The Germanic ancestor of our
word marshal is a compound made up of *marhaz, “horse” (related to the
source of our word mare), and *skalkaz, “servant,” meaning as a whole
literally “horse servant,” hence “groom.” The Frankish descendant of this
Germanic word, *marahskalk, came to designate a high royal official and also
a high military commander—not surprising given the importance of the horse in
medieval warfare. Along with many other Frankish words, *marahskalk was
borrowed into Old French by about 800; some centuries later, when the
Normans established a French-speaking official class in England, the Old
French word came with them. In English, marshal is first recorded in 1218, as
a surname (still surviving in the spelling Marshall); its first appearance as a
common noun was in 1258, in the sense “high officer of the royal court.” The
word was also applied to this high royal official's deputies, who were officers
of courts of law, and it continued to designate various officials involved with
courts of law and law enforcement, including the horseback-riding marshals we
are familiar with in the United States.
I love it -- more bread etymology! Bakers unite! Dyslexics untie!
That's our roll in life, Alex. I sometimes think we have created a new social science on this board - I would like to christen it Eatermology
D'ough! now hunger has me in its pincers again, Bill
Man cannot live by bread alone, so et a mology.
no, Dr bill, not et a -- essa-- as in ess'a bagel.. (ny corruption of the yidish..eat a bagel..) but like colonnel, and coronel, (said kernal, no matter how its spelt) it should be essa' molgy!
PS. did you hear about the poor guy from (pick a county) who finally thought he had a grasp on english.. he finally figured out all the different words with gh, and could pronounce them all!
he was thrilled, untill he walked down Broadway, and saw Variety (movie/theater newspaper) headline -"Tempest pronounced Success!" at which point, he gave up, and never spoke english again!
I've mentioned this in the past, but one of my favorite etymologies is for a swahili word, kipalafuti. It means roundabout/rotary/traffic circle, depending where your English resides.
It comes from the time when much of East Africa was under British hegemony, and the road signs at rotaries said "Keep Left" (driving on the wrong side, ya know?). Swahili speakers are remarkable at their incorporation of English words, and Swahili words always end in a vowel, so with a little mucking about with the text of the sign, they arrived at kipalufuti.
While we're on the subject, another favorite is the swahili word for a common form of transit in East Africa - the pickup truck with metal poles and crossbars mounted on the back for passengers to hang on to as they stand in the bed of the truck. Such a truck is known as a "matatu," the Swahili for "three" - based on the idea that, whatever I might think in considering whether to board, there's always room for three more people.
And, since the prefix ki- indicates language, kipalafuti would be the language spoken by the wapalafuti. A single individual would be mpalafuti. So, eventually wapalafuti would be motor vehicle drivers and an individual driver would be mpalafuti.
wapalafuti would be motor vehicle drivers and an individual driver would be mpalafuti.Would the poor souls only drive in circles?
p.s. - looking up at my post on matatu - Swahili for "three" is tatu, so matatu is "three more" - kind of.
For them what's interested, there's a cool Swahili-English dictionary at
http://www.yale.edu/swahili/.
Vocabulary note: forum, "the marketplace" or "the center of public life in a city or town" has come to mean any
public meeting place or medium for open discussion. The root of forum is FOR- meaning "door"; other words
from this root are: forest, foreign, foreclose, forfeit, and hors d'oeuvre (outside the chef's work). From forum
comes forensic, "pertaining to the lawcourts." For- is cognate to English door.
Vocabulary note: focus means "hearth" in Latin, as in the expression pro aris et focis, "for altars and hearths."
The English words focus and focal take their meaning from the centrality of the fireplace in the home. In the
Romance languages (the languages derived from the language of the Romans), the fire itself is still burning: feu
(French), fuego (Spanish), fuoco (Italian). Thus the English words curfew, fuel, foyer come from Latin through
French.
floccinaucinihilipilification
"The act of making something worthless" as in "I admired him for nothing so much as his floccinaucinihilipilification of
money."
Floccus "a tuft of wool" > floccose ("full of or containing tufts of wool") and flocculus ("a small tuft of wool") >
flocculent ("resembling a tuft of wool") and flocculate ("to gather into tufts of wool").
Nauci is related to nugae "trifles, trivial things" > nugacious, nugatory, nugilogue (trivial talk, small talk),
nugigerulous ("carrying toys"), but not nougat which comes from nux, nuc- "nut".
Nihil "nothing" > nil, null, nihilism, nihilist, nihility, annihilate.
Pilus "hair" > piliferous ("hirsute"), depilatory, plush, caterpillar ("hairy cat"), pileus ("cap") and by a connection
that remains obscure, possibly pillage.
Pilus = "hair" [examples follow]
also "pile", in the sense of the raised pile of a carpet.
I love it -- more bread etymology!
Bethlehem:
In Hebrew, beit = house; lechem = bread
Arabic may well be similar.
Man cannot live by bread alone, so et a mology.You et 'em all? Oh gee!
I'm on a roll. Someone stop me!
Surprised no one has mentioned the etymology of "bikini".
http://www.greatauk.com/wqetymology.htmlAt the above URL you can find etymology of "bikini" from name of atoll where atomic bomb was tested
Your number 30 is open to some question, Dr. Bill.
http://www.wordorigins.org/wordorj.htm and scroll down to
jeep
Long before the bikini became the style, I saw a babe with a strapless rubber bathing suit dive off a 17 foot diving board. When she hit the water close to me, the bra scooped up enough water to greatly dilate the suit, which was then left on the surface, where I was able to retrieve it. Was she upset. Though tempted, I did not hold it for ransom.
etymology of "bikini" from name of atoll where atomic bomb was tested
And why that atoll, at all?
Now Dr. Bill, don't reveal too much; let others have their fun!
a strapless rubber bathing suit ... was then left on the surface ... Though tempted, I did not hold it for ransom.
There once was a maid on the Corso
Who displayed rather much of her torso.
But I have to confess
No one cried out for less,
And some were in favor of morso.
She lost her Jantzen, but did not lose her furbelow.
I was just browsing in Chaucer, and ran across this word:duszeyne . Reading it, it sounds like deuce- zehn - and it dawned on me it meant "dozen".
Not etymology, but word history here... In my college Chaucer class, the professor pointed out that in The Cantebury Tales "to spew" as a slang term for vomiting has its first recorded use. Pretty funny considering that it's still popular today.
More Chaucer: And Emelye, hir yonge suster sheene,
And Emelye, her bright (beautiful) young sister,
"sheene" obviouly cognate with German "schöne"
essa-- as in ess'a bagel.. (ny corruption of the yidish..eat a bagel..)
Interesting... essa also means "eat" in PA Dutch. Not to be confused with fressa, which refers to the way an animal eats. To use fressa about a person is insulting.
Tu vientre sabe más
que tu cabesa
Esa
Es la fuerza bella negra
De tu cuerpo desnudo
Signo de selva
El tuyo
Con tus collares rojos
Tus braceletes de oro curvo
Y ese caiman
Nadando en el Zambeze
De tus ojos
-Nicolás Guillen
I typed this from memory, so if I made any mistakes, lo siento. I can't remember the name of the poem[embarrassed-e] but I do remember the translation of the poem.
essa-- as in ess'a bagel.. (ny corruption of the yiddish..eat a bagel..)
Interesting... essa also means "eat" in PA Dutch. Not to be confused with fressa, which refers to the way an animal eats.
Recursively interesting ... in yiddish, a fresser is one who is eating. (Or a is big eater. I'm not sure which, my reference book having been devoured by our fresser dog.)
Does PA Dutch trace back to German, as does much of yiddish?
Does PA Dutch trace back to German?
Yes, it is a German dialect. It's similar to Platt Deutsch, which is spoken in some parts of Germany. It's called Pennsylvania "Dutch" because the original settler's reference to themselves and their language as PA Deutsch (PA German) was mis-heard by others as PA Dutch.