825: operate, opera, and opus Mar 12, 2017

Most English speakers probably know the verb, 'operate', the synonym of 'to work'. This comes from a Latin word, 'operat-' unsurprisingly meaning ‘done by labor’. Perhaps more surprisingly, the word, 'opera' became an English word in the mid 17th century via Italian from Latin for, you guessed it, ‘work’. A little less than a century later, the word 'opus', referring to one work in a larger collection by that composer, came about from the same Latin origin. The counterpart of sorts to 'opus', 'oeuvre' referring to a complete collection of artistic pieces (from a single artist) comes from the French for, ‘work’ as well. Indeed, while the word 'work' is not etymologically related to the rest of these, it is the idea of the work of an artist of any sort, not just musical, that led to, among these and other phrases, 'work of art' which could simultaneously be a 'work of genius'.

If you are now curious about the origins of 'soap-opera', click here.

824: gordon bennett and gorblimey Mar 11, 2017

To anyone traveling to another country: while it's always more convenient if your native language is spoken, there are always going to be slang and other phrases that might be unrecognizable. In England, 'Gordon Bennett' is an expression of shock, but it isn't used in other English-speaking nations. The exclamation is an reference to James Gordon Bennett Jr. who was an American publisher and sports-sponsor, but was regarded infamously as a trouble-maker. The reason that this name—excluding his forename—caught on as slang as opposed to the many other lewd and obnoxious wealthy people of his time, is thought to be due to the relation to 'gorblimey'. This word comes from the phrase, 'God blind me'; it was normal to alter phrases that included the word, 'God' in this era as also occurred with 'gadzooks'. While 'gorblimey' was also later used as a term to denote odd or cheap clothing, 'blimey'—which originates from the same phrase—was only ever used as an exclamation. 

823: vagabond Mar 10, 2017

The Proto-Indoeuropean word giving English 'wander' also lend to a slew of other terms, which you can see more on here: 'weather' 'wander' and 'wind'. Among these words of mostly Germanic origin, the Latinate 'vagabond' managed to enter English through Old French. While in Latin, 'vagabundus' meant, 'man who wanders', in Middle English the term originally  denoted a criminal. The concept then extended to someone without a home, particularly a loner.

822: buxom Mar 9, 2017

The history of words—especially those that have changed greatly over time—can often be quite telling of culture. 'Buxom' today refers to a chesty woman but it didn't always. Falsely, this word is often associated with 'buck' referring to a wily man, often found in the phrase "buck naked". The term is actually formed on the base of the Old English 'būgan' meaning ‘to bend’, which also gave English the word, 'bow'. The original meaning of this word, which was essentially "bend-some" or "bow-some" was ‘compliant, obliging’. Later on the sense became that of ‘lively and good-tempered’ which led to the modern association good health but especially plump features, indicating what was seen as compliant or good-natured.

For more on 'bow', see this link

For more on 'buck', see this link

821: exchequer Mar 8, 2017

It might be surprising that the word, 'exchequer'—denoting a national treasury—comes from a medieval Latin word meaning, 'chessboard', although you may know more if you are aware of the origins of 'checkmate', which you can see down below. While in Latin, and even earlier, the initial sense did in fact reference the game, the patterning of the board became associated with, among other things, accounting. Those employed to look over England's royal revenues after the Norman invasion—called 'Exchequer'—were so named for the tablecloth over tables on which they kept records. While the Latin word, 'scaccarium', meaning 'chessboard, and even the Old French 'eschequier' which gave English the word in question today are both spelt with S's, the spelling was changed to resemble the common Latin prefix, 'ex-' meaning, ‘out’ even though it bears no meaning.

'checkmate' and 'check'

820: passage and the Roman Mile Mar 7, 2017

There are many derivatives of a word that would probably seem pretty obvious, like 'passage' and 'passed' from 'pass', though rarely is that the whole story. The word 'past' too is a variation of 'passed'—the two of them still being often confused for each other—much in the same way as 'built' and 'spelt were formed. More to the point, the word, 'passage', comes is an alteration of the Italian 'passeggiare' which was not a noun as it is in English but a verb meaning ‘to walk’ based on Latin noun, 'passus' meaning ‘pace’. This word was often also used to mean 'mile' all by itself, or would be used in combination, such as the line in Bellum Gallicum by Caesar, "vicies centum milium passuum" meaning "twenty-hundred (2,000) thousands-steps (the Roman mile)". The word 'pace' also come from this root, ultimately from the verb, 'pandere' meaning ‘to stretch’ (though not 'to pander') referring to the stretch of a leg. This is has a shared Indoeuropean root with many other words, including the German, 'Fuss' ('foot') which gave the game 'fussball' its name.

There are many other words that come from the Indoeuropean root for 'foot', including this example here: the root of pejorative.

And for more on 'passage', see this: messenger not messager

819: gnome Mar 6, 2017

The word 'gnome' does not have any agreed-upon origin, but that doesn't mean that the theories do not follow just as logical patterns as more certain etymologies. 'Gnomus' was a term that Paracelsus used to mean 'Pygmaeus' ('pygmy'), and denoted a race of very small people who supposedly lived in Ethiopia and India. One theory states that this word  comes from the Greek 'genomos' meaning "earth-dweller" which would follow the same pattern with 'thalassonomos' meaning "sea-dweller'; the E would have only been left out as an error in transliteration if this is true. Another theory states that the word comes from the homonym meaning 'intelligence'. That word comes from the Greek 'gnomikos', from 'gnome' meaning, 'mind', ultimately from the base for 'gignoskein' which means 'to learn; this is where English gets—among other words—'diagnosis'. Alternatively, this word could have just been fabricated by Paracelsus. If it is true that 'gnome' is simply made up, this would not be the only instance of an invented word for a small humanoid creature entering common vernacular; L. Frank Baum is credited with creating the word, 'munchkin', first used in 'The Wizard of Oz", which is now popularly used to refer to children or short people.

Yesterday's post

For more on 'pygmy' and 'dwarf': click here

818: Giving and Taking in PIE (nimble and metronome) Mar 5, 2017

There are no known writings of the people who spoke Proto-Indoeuropean; in fact, there are still a number of disputes as whether they came from modern-day Ukraine or Anatolia, but through some linguistic clues, people can start to gain some idea of the culture of this people. For example, words meaning 'to take' in one language, and 'to give' in other Indo-European languages often are cognates of each other, which perhaps means that they were related culturally. This is evidenced in a somewhat surprising pair of words: 'metronome' and 'nimble'. The latter comes from the Old English 'nǣmel' meaning, ‘quick to seize or comprehend,’ and is related to 'niman' which meant ‘take’; the -B- was added to 'nimble' as it is is easier to pronounce that way. While 'niman' is related to a number of other Germanic words, it is also related to the Greek, 'nemein' meaning, 'distribute' or 'manage', and along with that, it is related to the Greek word for 'law', 'nomos'. 'Metronome', on the other hand, is an early 19th century that comes from a compound of the the Greek 'metron' meaning ‘measure’ and the aforementioned 'nomos' in the sense of "giving out". The relationship between giving and taking through this Proto-Indoeuropean root could signify their acknowledgement of that connection inherent in bartering. For more on how people can speculate on this long-dead culture, see these links:
Religion in Proto-Indoeuropean

Family in Proto-Indoeuropean

817: budget, bulge, and belly Mar 4, 2017

Some words have rather cut-and-dry explanations for their origins, especially onomatopoetic ones like 'belch'; for others, there may be more of a story. The word 'budget', for instance, comes from the 'bouge' meaning ‘leather bag’ with the same diminutive suffix that 'ballet' has. This word was Gaulish originally and through until the mid 18th century meant 'bag' or 'wallet' and the contents thereof. This then changed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer (i.e. the royal treasury) in the UK whom is said “to open the budget” when presenting an annual statement. Since, the meaning of the word was extended to finances. The relation to money, however, does not exist within other related words like 'bulge' which comes from the same root-word; its meaning is supposed to derive from the similarity between a filled bag. Moreover, the word 'belly' is distantly related, coming from the Old English 'belig' translating to ‘bag’ which itself comes from a base meaning 'to swell'.

Also, there is in fact more on 'belch' than previously stated, and you can see that here: 'belch' and 'blink'

816: nan, nanny, and grand Mar 3, 2017

There is no shortage for words meaning "mother of a parent" in English, including 'granny', 'grandmother' and 'nana'. The word 'nanny' comes from a nickname common in the early 18th century for the name Ann, which started to be applied to the occupation of a caretaker. Meanwhile, it is not certain whether, 'nan' and 'nana' derive from 'nanny' or the way a young child might pronounce 'gran'. This second option is not terribly unlikely, as babies have a far easier time pronouncing dental sounds like that made by N and also, D, which is why more often 'dad' is an infant's first word rather than 'mom'; you can see more about this below.

It might also be interesting to know that the prefix, 'grand-' as in 'grandmother' derives from the Latin 'grandis' meaning ‘full-grown, big, great’. While now the word is used to mean, 'pleasant', 'big', relative rank, and a gap in generation between family-relations, the usage of the word in Middle English began as a reference to family, and titles first. 'Great' has almost all of the same functions as an adjective and prefix (except as a title) but this instead meant 'large' first.

First Words and Babies' Pronunciation

815: kennings, whale-roads, and window Mar 2, 2017

While English speakers are relatively straightforward—opting for single words over compound phrases with commonly understood meanings—there are still some remnants of what was often practiced in Old English. In Beowulf, there are a plethora of different ways to say, for example, 'sea', including 'hron-rād' ('whale-road'), 'seġl-rād' ('sail-road'), 'hwæl-weġ' ('whale-way'), and 'swan-rād' ('swan-road'). Germanic languages, especially North Germanic ones, were filled with these, and often drew on their common mythology because the kennings—as they're called—needed to use words that everyone knew; the name for the word comes from 'ken' meaning 'know' for this reason, which you can see more about below. Words ranging from simple things like body-parts and plants to more complex ideas would be kennings, and while these are less popular today in English, there are some remnants of this. The word, 'window' comes from the Old English 'vindauga' meaning, 'wind-eye'.
Click if you want 'To Ken' more.

814: mongrel, mutt, mingle and among Mar 1, 2017

'Mutt', commonly used when denoting dogs, comes from the humorous and much more innocent-sounding 'mutton-head' abbreviated in the late 19th century. If you're confused that this word is quite new, remember that such distinct dog breads less important until the idea of eugenics became quite popular, especially among aristocracy during the Victorian age. Another, earlier term for 'mutt' is a 'mongrel', which refers to anything of mixed descent—dog or person—offensively. Other terms like 'mingle' are etymologically related to 'mongrel' but are less derogatory. That word comes from 'meng' which is no longer used, but meant 'mix'. This word also led to 'among' which was from the Old English 'ongemang' meaning from 'on ('in') and 'gemang' meaning ‘assemblage'. For more on 'among' and 'amongst' see this link: 'again' and 'against' As for 'mix', itself, it was adopted from the Old French adjective, 'mixte', and in Middle English, 'mixt' was mistaken for to be participle, leading to the verb 'mix'.

813: cobra and Words for 'Snake-like' Feb 28, 2017

Plenty of taxonomical words end in '-ine'; the reason why was explored in yesterday's post which you can see here: Drug-names and Taxonomy. Some of these are quite well-known, such as 'canine' or 'feline', while some are less used such as 'colubrine', which meas 'snake-like'. You might also recognize this as being similar to 'cobra'. This observation would be correct, but while both of these come from the Latin, 'coluber', 'cobra' is not directly from Latin and was adopted from Portuguese. 'Colubrine' is not the only word for 'snakelike' either, and 'serpentine' from the Latin for 'slither', and 'ophidian' from Greek are also used, but not often.

812: -ine Drug-names and Taxonomy Feb 27, 2017

Similar to '-en' there are many subtly different ways in which the '-ine' suffix is used, almost all of which date back to Latin's '-inus'. Many of the purposes of this ending are scientific, such as for the names of alkaloids, amines, amino acids, halogens, among other things giving English such words as 'cocaine'. This suffix is also used for other purposes like forming rare feminine forms of words, such as 'heroine' and therefore 'heroin'. Aside from drugs (which is purely coincidental), this suffix is used for diminutive purposes, as in 'figurine' from 'figure'. In science again, the suffix is used to mean 'resembling' and is used in words such as 'alpine' and 'crystalline' but also many taxonomical terms like 'canine' or 'piscine' and for plenty of plants like with, 'hyacinthine'.

For more on 'heroin' click the link.

For more on '-en', see one of the 7 in the series here.

811: Participles Feb 26, 2017

Although it is quite common for participles to be mentioned in this blog, they have been little-explained. Quite simply, a participle is a form of a verb (such as 'running' from 'to run') that functions as an adjective (like "the running man"), or as a noun (like "I like running"), and in English is part of compound verb forms, as in "I have been running", with other verbs acting in different ways at the same time. A slew of English words can be identified as coming from Latin participles now because they retain the whole of the Latin participial ending—or the whole of the Latin participle as in the case of 'status'—or just various remnants thereof. Many words that now end with '-ate' come from the Latin ending '-atus' which was common for masculine singular participles, and can at times be quite visually confusing as participles including, 'associate', 'duplicate', and 'isolate' are all nouns, but pronounced differently as verbs.

For a deeper, and funnier evaluation of other participles see this link: French Participles

810: west, and vesper Feb 25, 2017

If you didn't see the post on words deriving and relating to 'east', you should see that here. The word, 'west' has far fewer related terms in English than 'east', but there are still a number of relations from other languages. It comes from an Old English word that is not only related to modern related to Dutch and German equivalents, but also it is related through a larger Indo-European root shared by the Greek 'hesperos', and the Latin 'vesper'. Both words for ‘evening’ were also the names of the gods associated with that. 'Evening' or even the goddess thereof might not seem conceptually related, but remember that the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west, something that was far more important to Latins and English tribes then that it would be now.

809: Derivations of 'Petra' Feb 24, 2017

What do being terrified, the smell after it rains, a chemical used in fertilizers, and the keeper of Heaven have in common? The answer is that they all relate etymologically to rocks. The word in Latin that meant, 'rock', 'petra' came from a Greek word first, and these together developed into a number of English words. If someone is unable to move and therefore acts in a rock-like manner out of fear or surprise, this is to be 'petrified', and also refers to when organic matter becomes stony after being gradually replaced by mineral deposits. 'Petrichor', meanwhile, is the smell after it rains, and it is thought that this is caused by water coming in contact with compounds in the ground. You can see more on that here. Likewise, 'saltpeter', and the names 'Peter' and 'Pierre' come from this same root. In fact, St. Peter was born, Simon, but was given his name by Jesus to signify the rock on top of which he would build a church; the name is still quite common today. Don't be fooled by other words like 'petri dish', because some relationships are coincidental, however.

808: doll Feb 23, 2017

There are lots of ways in which new terms are created, one of which is from nicknames. For instance, what does the word 'doll make you think of?
The word 'doll' actually came around in the mid 16th century as a term meaning, 'mistress' given from the nickname for the name 'Dorothy'. There are plenty more ways in which this word is used, even when it isn't referring to horse-racing (which has a different etymology). The meanings that this word took on, such as "kind or thoughtful person" or just a young woman are senses used almost exclusively in North America and are therefore less of an overarching, English-language standard. Nevertheless, even more popular ones like the verbal phrase "dolled up", which also diverged somewhat from this original meaning, retained some relation in terms of connotations of 'mistress'. Meanwhile, it took over a hundred years for the meaning of the doll as a toy or a small model to come about after the initial sense of 'mistress'; this keeps less of the initial sense of the word, but it is now the most common way it is used.

For the history of 'mistress, click here.

For more on dolls (the toy), click here.

807: English Counties (sussex, suffolk, and others) Feb 22, 2017

The names of the English counties, 'Sussex', 'Essex', 'Wessex' and former 'Middlesex' all denote the relative geography of their locations across southern England. It isn't too difficult to spot the 'west' in 'Wessex', the 'east' in 'Essex' nor especially the 'middle' in 'Middlesex'. There is, in addition to 'Sussex', the county, 'Suffolk' and with that 'Norfolk' (though no 'Norsex') that also have this 'south' and 'north' in the names. With 'Suffolk', this just means, "south folk", and similarly to the way many other peoples name their lands, it is just named after the word for 'people'. You can see more about other place-names here: origins of place-names. The counties ending in '-sex' are not an exception to this rule, and that ending comes from the word for 'Saxon', 'Seaxe'. For more on 'Saxon', see this link: Etymology of 'Saxon'.

806: Lent, Long, and Length (-en Day 7) Feb 21, 2017

'Lent'—when it isn't used as the perfect tense form of 'lend'—is a Christian holiday that happens every spring. This word was adopted by the Church and was used starting in Middle English as an abbreviation of the Old English word for 'spring', 'lencten'. The Old English verb, 'lǣnan'—which turned into 'lend' and therefore, 'lent'—gained the 'd' from association to other verbs like, 'send' and 'bend' (though the related word, 'loan' did not get this alteration). Meanwhile, the holiday, Lent's earlier form, 'lencten' is now considered to be formed from adding the verbal suffix, '-en'. In this way, 'Lent', which is related to the word 'long', gained an ending that signifies amplification and intensification, so like how 'lengthen' means to increase in length, 'lencten' would have referred to the increased length of days as Spring progresses. See more about this verbal suffix here: verbal suffix: '-en'.