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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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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.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
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.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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stand in the spray from the Pierian spring
Is that anything like pissinginto the wind?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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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
Bingley
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Pooh-Bah
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OP
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
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 )
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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"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.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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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.
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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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.
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