"Kinder" (Ger. for "children") comes from an Old German word meaning work.

Since "Kinder" is the plural of "Kind", that means that it would be "Kind" that derives from a word meaning "work". I would love to see the etymology for this one, particularly since it seems like a big leap from anything resembling "Kind" to "Arbeit". This sounds truly fascinating, and I would love to see the progression from one to the other. I shall beetle off now and try to find it. Thanks, inselpeter. Now if you had said that "Nike" was an ancient word meaning "child slavery" that I could accept readily!