1863: wapentake Jan 21, 2020
Along with other historical districts of England, these were often further subdivided into 'wapentake'. This doesn't obviously resemble other modern word exactly, but you may be able to see it's a compound, or at least, it was. It comes via Old English ('wǣpenġetæc') from the Old Norse 'vápnatak', which is built from vápn (weapon) and taka (take). It's exact meaning is unclear, but it is thought to come from a process of voting by raising weapons, or it could have just been a district from which men were selected to raise an army. More on districts tomorrow.
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1862: County Divisions: Hundred and Riding Jan 20, 2020
England has 48 counties, but some of the subdivisions are no longer used. For instance, 'ridings' in Yorkshire, 'wapentakes' in the North and Midlands, and 'hundreds' elsewhere. Two of these resemble other words, but a 'riding' has nothing to do with horses; it comes from 'thrithjungr' in Norse ('trithing' in Old English) meaning 'a third' referring to the division of North, East, and West Yorkshire, though the initial sound was assimilated due to the preceding '-th' or '-t' of the actual places. However, a 'hundred' is actually from 'hundred' as the number, but is thought to relate to the area of 100 hides, 1 hide being equal to between 60-120 acres. 'Wapentake' will be discussed in the post tomorrow.
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1861: rooster, roast, and roster Jan 19, 2020
'Rooster', 'roster' and 'roast' are all related etymologically even if it is not immediately apparent what the root might be. In this case, they all come from the idea of straight lines. For 'roster', a list, and 'roast', which is done on a gridiron with parallel lines, this may be more obvious. For 'rooster', this is became the name comes from a perch for chickens, i.e. a roost.
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1860: *Red- as a Root Jan 18, 2020
Many words words with meanings long the lines of 'scratch' or 'gnaw' can be traced back to an approximated common root. For instance, 'abrasion', 'corrode', 'erode' 'rodent' and even 'rostrum' all are thought to have derived from an element that would look like '*red-'. The list goes on and clearly includes words of many other languages, but it is also worth noting some others that have been included that would be less obvious nowadays, like 'rascal', 'rash' and 'razor'. It is clear to see that both semantically and morphologically, these derivatives have strayed far from what it understood to be the ancestor.
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1859: rostrum Jan 17, 2020
A rostrum can refer to either a stage for public speech, or in zoological terminology, a beak. This discrepancy, however, was not as odd in its original context. Not only are the two of the stiff protuberances, but actually referred to a part of the Forum of Rome, where it was decorated with the beaks of ships. This is why the word also originated as a plural. It is now used commonly in biology.
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1858: carpenter: no 'carpent' Jan 16, 2020
If a cleaner cleans, and a writer writes, does a carpenter carpent?—No. There are many words for which no parsing is possible anymore, but in these case there isn't really a historical form either. In the case of 'carpenter', it comes via Old French from the Latin 'carpentarius (artifex)' meaning 'carriage (maker)'. This makes 'carpenter' related to 'car' and even 'horse'.
1857: porridge and pottage Jan 15, 2020
'Pottage' can technically be used describe anything which is cooked in a pot, though usually it is used to refer to a stew, like 'peas pottage'. In some cases, these would be thickened with barley or oats, which eventually led not only to the creation of oatmeal as a dish, but of 'porridge' as a variant of 'pottage'. These are both doublets of 'potage' (soup) which was adopted from French in the 16th century.
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1856: union jack Jan 14, 2020
If you've ever heard the term 'Union Jack' for the flag of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, there's a reason for this. 'Union' just refers to the Act of Union (1707), but 'jack' comes from the navy—as many vexolocigal terms do—wherein a 'jack' is a banner that is placed at the front of a ship when it is at port. This is not to be confused with an ensign, which is a naval banner placed off the back of a back of a ship. In most cases, if one of those two is identical to the national flag, it is the jack which is a greater variant, visually, compared to the ensign, but in the case of the UK where the trend of the jack were set, this is not the case.
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1855: canary islands Jan 13, 2020
If you would think that the official animal of Canary Islands would be the canary, you would be wrong. The national animal is chosen for the name of the country, however, but this comes from Latin, where 'Canariae Insulae' means 'Islands of Dogs'. The dogs are seen as well on the coat of arms.
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1854: Rebracketing Jan 12, 2020
It would be easy to think that rebracketing—the process of forming words by breaking down others and reaffixing them in previously unproductive ways, e.g. 'workaholic' from 'alcoholic' which was never a combining form beforehand—would be a very lengthy historical process, but this is not true necessarily. Newer words like 'cyber' or 'blog' come from Internet abbreviations for 'cybernetics' and 'web-log', but now also affix to words like in 'cyberspace' or 'video-blog'. These were previously just words, but can now act as fairly productive combining forms.
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1853: capitulate and recap(itulate) Jan 11, 2020
The words 'capitulate' and 'recapitulate' are clearly from the same root word, despite the fact that they aren't semantically similar. 'Recapitulate' (sometimes just abbreviated as 'recap') just means 'to summarize', and 'capitulate' means 'to surrender', but both of them come in some way from 'capitulum', Latin for 'head'. 'Capitulate' comes from Medieval Latin while 'recap' is from New Latin, but this is not why they are so different; it is because they both used to have a meaning related to 'chapter', but 'capitulate' eventually took the meaning of "to draw up a chapter...of a surrender treaty".
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1852: High Crimes and Misdemeanor Jan 10, 2020
The phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" is a legal one, but unlike what people might expect from the precision of legalese, it doesn't have a real definition. In general, it relates to misconduct of government officials—this is what makes it 'high'—but it does not exclusively relate to criminal activity, and instead comes down to the higher standard for action placed on officials. Indeed, a 'high crime' is one exclusive to those with authority, but together "high crimes and misdemeanors" in the US and UK can come down to the mere allegation of misconduct. It isn't that there are precedents for it or anything, but that what makes something a misdemeanor isn't necessarily codified, this comes down a great deal to judgement.
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1851: poutine Jan 9, 2020
No one knows where 'poutine' comes from exactly, but there are some theories. A leading theory is that it comes from the word 'pudding', along the lines of other savory puddings. It also sounds quite similar, especially considering the differences between the French and Canadian English accents. It could also come from the Provençal 'poutingo' meaning "bad stew".
For more food related content: check out the new Word Facts Podcast from today.
1850: Math in Right-to-Left Scripts Jan 8, 2020
Just as languages written right-to-left present problems for sheet-music, math presents similar challenges. Indeed, while a great deal of math, including 'algebra' and 'Arabic numerals' were originally often right-to-left, Western dominance (and its own version of those numerals) has changed this. So, these days, many cultures will continue to write numbers and equations etc. left-to-right even if it appears in a right-to-left sentence like in Hebrew, whereas in other cultures, especially with Arabic, Persian etc. which have their own numerals and other symbols, they can do both. Generally however, they will use the Western numerals and work left-to-right.
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1849: wistful Jan 7, 2020
Although today the word 'wistful' relates to emotion, and specifically longing, this has not always been the case. Indeed, the word 'wist'—while generally uncommon today—was originally the past participle of 'wit', meaning knowledge, but another form, 'wistly', meant 'intently'. How it got to the point where it is now, no one knows, but many attribute its form to an association with 'wishful', and its prefered use in poetry.
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1848: dingo Jan 6, 2020
Dingos, in Australia, are known for looking like, and even breeding with, feral dogs, but they are native and not originally feral even. Indeed, while they may act so today, the word derives from 'dharuk din-gu', meaning ‘domesticated dingo/dog’. Moreover, early writings describe these as the only animals domesticated by the Aborigines.
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1847: gauche and wonky Jan 5, 2020
French's 'gauche' may not be a typical Romance derivative for 'left', but it is related to something that might surprise you. Both the English 'wonky' and to a far lesser extent 'wink' are related 'gauche', not because any of them had meant 'left', but because English words meant 'curved' or 'turn aside' and connotated 'awry'.
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1846: gauche and droit Jan 4, 2020
Left has long been associated with negative things. The word sinister comes from the Latin for 'left' (sinister) but the Romance language French has a totally different word for 'left'; they say 'gauche'. However, even that means 'awkward', so while the word is a different one, the meaning, ultimately, is not. Likewise, the French word 'droit' for 'right' is not from the Latin one 'dextrus', but is a doublet of the English 'direct'.
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1845: nefarious Jan 3, 2020
Many words have lost a certain amount of religious significance over time that still are used today. 'Adultery' is one, but also 'nefarious' is in another sense. Unlike 'adultery', 'nefarious' doesn't relate to any biblical law, but instead to all of them, coming from the Latin 'fas' meaning 'divine law; the 'ne-' is a negative suffix i.e. 'against divine law; wrong'. These days, 'nefarious' can denote any kind of wicked or otherwise criminal activity.
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1844: adultery Jan 2, 2020
Although there are plenty of words with both a legal or scientific and colloquial meanings, in the case of ‘adultery’, the legal meaning very much shaped the common one. Now, the word relates to an extramarital affair, and is illegal in many countries, hence the need for a specific definition. However, all marital notions are religious in origin, and therefore ‘adultery’ has had a far broader sense. Biblically speaking, what is thought of as adultery could relate—generally speaking—to anything forbidden sexually, including premarital intercourse, but also perversion and even lewdness.
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