sidderaal

Thanks for that word, Bran. It took me through a couple or three dictionaries in fine fettle. Dutch sidderaal 'electric eel' related to sidderen 'to tremble, shake, quake'; cf. German zittern, Zitterfisch 'electric eel', English (dialectal) titter 'to shake, falter', teeter (as in teeter-totter, i.e., see-saw). English shudder is perhaps from a different Dutch verb schudden (cf. German schütteln). Something reduplicative and onomatopoeic is going on here: shiver, quiver, tremble, teeter, toddle, toodle-oo, etc.

[Added some more info from Bran.]

Last edited by zmjezhd; 04/13/09 07:42 PM.
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