Where did that word come from? Ever asked that question?

[MineralMan]

I ask it all the time, and word origins have been an interest of mine as long as I can remember. That interest has helped me immeasurably over the years, since I make my living as a writer, but words are interesting, no matter what you do. We all use words.

Studying the origins of words is called "etymology," and there are good resources for discovering the etymology of any word. One way is to enter the word and etymology as a Google search, e.g.: quintessence etymology. The results will give you several places to look, and even take you to discussions among etymologists arguing about those origins. Sometimes, those arguments sound like certain DU discussion threads, complete with trollery and insults. But, I digress.

You can also go to the Online Etymology Dictionary if you don't want to look at multiple websites. There, you'll find the most generally accepted etymology for most words you can imagine. Here's the link to that website:

http://www.etymonline.com/

Studying etymology also gives you an edge if you're a fan of word games. Just yesterday, my wife was doing some weird word puzzle in the newspaper, as is her habit (she's a writer, too, but not a fan of etymology). She often asks me questions about those games. Her question, yesterday, was about a synonym of "susurration." Now, I think I have probably encountered that word at some point in my 68 years on this planet, but I could not immediately come up with a synonym, so I used my experience with etymology to make an educated guess. I told her that it was probably an onomatopoeic word - a word that sounds like what it means - and I guessed that it meant "a whisper." Sure enough, "whisper" fit into her word puzzle, so my guess was correct. I love it when that happens, since she always gives me a strange look and asks, "How did you know that?"

Still, I visited the website above to see how accurate my educated guess was. Here's the result:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=susurration&searchmode=none

Anyhow, that's my OP for this Sunday. I hope it encourages people to learn more about words. They're fascinating, I think.

[pinto]

1. I'm a fan of word origins / history as well.

Have been since I was a kid, for some reason. Just catches my interest.

[MineralMan]

4. Yup. Me too. My mother tells me that

when I was just a year old, I used to repeat new words over and over again, just to hear how they sounded. She said I sometimes giggled over a word as I repeated it.

I guess it's a trait that is adopted early in life.

[LadyHawkAZ]

2. Word origins are fascinating

I've been to that site a few times.

[MineralMan]

6. I agree, and the more you learn about them,

the more they are fascinating.

[LadyHawkAZ]

9. A friend of mine who does woodwork

(beautiful stuff too!) posted an Alice Cooper video last week with the question: "What is a cooper?". He was a little surprised that I knew.

[MineralMan]

13. Nice. It's fun to know words, and useful, too.

I can't remember when I learned what "cooper" meant, but it was sometime in my childhood.

[Wounded Bear]

3. Not an etymologist, by any means, but I enjoy crosswords...

Nice catch!

[MineralMan]

5. I did a google search on susurration, and found

reference to it in books I have read, so I guess I did encounter it earlier. It's a cool word.

[malaise]

7. That's very good

Thanks for the link

[dipsydoodle]

8. King Canute / Cnut the Great gave rise to a golden oldie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut_the_Great

Saxons were offended to be regarded as Danes which gave rise to the expression "Don't call me a Cnut"

[Igel]

10. There are a lot of other sources.

http://en.wiktionary.org tends to include etymologies. Sometimes they're at odds with the online etymological dictionary. Often they're not.

Most good reference dictionaries include them. Even things like dictionary.com. Not usually esoteric words or phrases, but it happens.

Individual languages often have good ones. Somewhere I have Skok's for Serbian, Fasmer's and Chernykh's for Russian. Have some smaller ones for Polish and Czech. Have pieces of the big German etymological dictionary copied and in a box. Some of these dictionaries are over 100 years old, sometimes they get updated.

The OED is probably *the* source for English. Used to be free, last I checked there was a paywall. There are "word origins" dictionaries but usually they're a bit less serious. More like "amusing anecdotes involving words".

[MineralMan]

11. There are, indeed.

I just wanted to offer a fast link to one that generally gets things right.

[YoungDemCA]

12. Here's a word that is interesting (and relevant to this site)...

liberal (adj.)
mid-14c., "generous," also, late 14c., "selfless; noble, nobly born; abundant," and, early 15c., in a bad sense "extravagant, unrestrained," from Old French liberal "befitting free men, noble, generous, willing, zealous" (12c.), from Latin liberalis "noble, gracious, munificent, generous," literally "of freedom, pertaining to or befitting a free man," from liber "free, unrestricted, unimpeded; unbridled, unchecked, licentious," from PIE *leudh-ero- (source of Greek eleutheros "free&quot , probably originally "belonging to the people" (though the precise semantic development is obscure), and a suffixed form of the base *leudh- "people" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic ljudu, Lithuanian liaudis, Old English leod, German Leute "nation, people;" Old High German liut "person, people&quot but literally "to mount up, to grow."

With the meaning "free from restraint in speech or action," liberal was used 16c.-17c. as a term of reproach. It revived in a positive sense in the Enlightenment, with a meaning "free from prejudice, tolerant," which emerged 1776-88.

In reference to education, explained by Fowler as "the education designed for a gentleman (Latin liber a free man) & ... opposed on the one hand to technical or professional or any special training, & on the other to education that stops short before manhood is reached" (see liberal arts). Purely in reference to political opinion, "tending in favor of freedom and democracy" it dates from c.1801, from French libéral, originally applied in English by its opponents (often in French form and with suggestions of foreign lawlessness) to the party favorable to individual political freedoms. But also (especially in U.S. politics) tending to mean "favorable to government action to effect social change," which seems at times to draw more from the religious sense of "free from prejudice in favor of traditional opinions and established institutions" (and thus open to new ideas and plans of reform), which dates from 1823.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=liberal&allowed_in_frame=0

[Brother Buzz]

14. Have you ever wondered why so many words in our dictionaries originate from Ceylon?

Here's a very interesting book that sheds some light on how that came to be: The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester

[MineralMan]

15. Cool. I've heard of it, but haven't yet read it.

I'll have to dig up a copy, now that you've reminded me of it. Thanks!

[MineralMan]

17. Just ordered a used copy on Amazon.

Price $0.01 with $3.99 shipping. What a deal! I love used books on Amazon.

[Brother Buzz]

25. Cool beans. It's a good read, you won't be disappointed

My favorite source for used books is a brick and mortar joint run by a small nonprofit raising money for Doctors Without Borders, but Amazon is still the place for the esoteric and obscure titles.

[MineralMan]

26. I'm sort of off paper books these days, really.

My primary reading interests right now are non-fiction books from the 18th and 19th centuries. For those, Gutenberg.org makes Kindle-compatible copies, even illustrated freely downloadable, so I'm having lots of fun with that. Books I'd have to scour the shelves for and still not find are mine in seconds.

Right now, there are about a hundred books on my Kindle I haven't yet read. When those are done, I'll go get some more.

Old scientific texts, etiquette, cookery, travelogues, and other things are my favorite subjects. Technology, too, as it was, also interests me. I'm a person of odd tastes in reading, and always have been.

I'm sure, though, that I'll enjoy your recommendation, and will start reading it as soon as it arrives. Sounds fascinating.

[OregonBlue]

16. Here are some really good ones my aunt sent me years ago.

http://people.wallawalla.edu/~kevin.grussling/little_known_facts_of_life_in_th.htm

A bath equaled a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house
had the privilege of the fresh, clean water. Then all the other sons
and men bathed. They were followed by the women, and finally the children. Last
of all came the babies. By then the bath water was so dirty you could
actually lose someone in it. Hence the expression, "Don't throw the
baby out with the bath water,"

Most home floors were dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than
dirt, hence the expression "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors
which would get slippery when wet during the winter. So they spread thresh
(straw) on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter
progressed, they kept adding more thresh until when you opened the door it would
naturally start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed at the bottom of the
entry way,which they called a "threshold."

Fun facts about where our current expressions came from. More at link.

[MineralMan]

18. Nice. I did not know the threshold one.

I did know the baby and bathwater one, though.

[OregonBlue]

44. More fun ones at the link.

[muriel_volestrangler]

49. The "threshold" explanation sounds dubious

The OED points out the original meaning for 'thresh' was 'tread' or 'trample'; and a threshold is something you tread on. 'Thresh' doesn't appear as a noun in the OED at all, let alone as meaning 'straw'. It does show "threshold" was in use in Anglo-Saxon by 1000AD, so "Little Known Facts of Life In the 1500's" aren't that relevant to the word.

Another good site for English word and phrase derivations is www.phrases.org.uk. A discussion on this from there: http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/14/messages/663.html

[cali]

19. All the time. You might enjoy this.

It's an email exchange with a friend:

Him to me:

Chilly and warm. You know weather. Today, rain on and off. Someone should organize weather a bit. The current situation is too chancy.

Lovely bronzed eggs today, dyed with onion skins. Bells echoing in the basin, a quiet city. Happy Easter, with the question what does easter mean? Someone from the East?

Me to to him:

you sent me off (unintentionally, I'm sure) to discover the origins of the word "Easter".

With no further ado:

What is the origin of the word Easter?

Just as there are many traditions surrounding the celebration of Easter, there are many stories and legends surrounding the origin of the word Easter. To some, it is the history and celebration of spring; for others it is a day to remember deliverance; for many it is the celebration of new life in Christ. Let's look at a few explanations:

Eostre - a pagan Anglo-Saxon Goddess
This mythical figure is said to have been the goddess of the sunrise and the spring. She is the Teutonic goddess of the dawn. The direction of the sunrise, East, is named for her. In Norse mythology, the name is spelled Eostare. Another considered the Norse/Saxon goddess of spring is Ostara. Eastre is believed to be an ancient word for spring.

Pesach - the Passover
While pagans celebrated the rites of spring, the Jews celebrated Passover, the anniversary of the day God delivered them out of Egyptian bondage. God had demanded the firstborn male from every household, but had promised to pass over any house with the blood of a perfect lamb smeared on its doorpost. He then commanded the Jews to remember their deliverance through the ceremony of the Passover. Pesach is the Hebrew word for Passover. Its position in the Jewish calendar coincidentally corresponds to the beginning of Spring.
- See more at: http://www.allabouthistory.org/origin-of-the-word-easter-faq.htm#sthash.o0ZmMtqf.dpuf

Incidentally, I go for the Eostre explanation.

Him to me:

Now there are three other directions I don't know the origin of. Drat. Will curiosity never end?

The color of these eggs was bronze/brown. Darker than I would have thought. Red Onions?

Happy afterEaster.

back to him:

not to be rude or anything, but north, south and west, simply don't interest me at the moment- no doubt their origins will plague me at another time.

warm and lovely today; a harbinger of things to come.

back to me:

Darling,
oh yeah? remain uninterested in this:!!?

Whilst Odin and his brothers were creating a new world from the body parts of Ymir, worms kept crawling out of the remains. The worms became dwarfs. Not wishing to risk the sky falling down, the brothers told four of these dwarfs to hold up the sky, These four dwarves hold up Ymir's skull at the four cardinal points. Their names- Nordri, Sudri, Austri, Vestri- (North, South, East, West.)

More:

just read this. OK, uncle. that's irresistable. worms, dwarfs, skulls. hey, where's snow white?

and more:

In case your curiosity is piqued.


http://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/1077/what-are-the-historical-origin-of-terms-for-north-south-east-and-west

and on and on.

[MineralMan]

21. Absolutely. Every time you learn one thing, you find more things

to learn. It all makes life worthwhile, as far as I'm concerned. There's no reason not to just go right on learning. And English is such a stew of words from such a wide range of origins that there can be no end to the possibilities to learn.

The days of the week and months of the year also have interesting origins. We have lots of words with origins in paganism, which begs the question of why we consider ourselves a Christian nation when we have so many roots in the old religions.

We are nothing, if not contradictory, it seems.

[madamesilverspurs]

20. Right there with you!

My dream home (which will come into existence just as soon as I win the lottery) has a large room designed to house the entire hard copy Oxford English Dictionary. ...swoooooon...

[MineralMan]

23. I'm going to settle for my compact edition.

I have room for the full edition, but really have no interest in it any longer. I haven't priced a full set lately, but would probably have to settle for one with a bit of a musty smell, I think, and who needs that?

[think]

22. Nice link and resource. TY

It will probably come in handy from time to time.

[MineralMan]

24. I'm glad I could help!

[Jackpine Radical]

27. I have a half-assed knowledge of the Scand. languages & German,

with some French & a smattering of Spanish & Latin. I'm also fascinated by Proto-Indo-European & its derivatives.

One of my head games is to take a given word or group of similar words & translate them into as many languages as I can. You find some interesting and consistent patterns of phoneme change across languages, & discover all sorts of strange things.

Take the English word "dog." It's a real outlier. The other Germanic languages use "Hund," cognate with our "hound," which is a particular type of dog. The Romance languages all use some variant of "canis" (Latin), "Cane" (It.), "chien" (French), etc., except for Spanish, "perro."

As it turns out, the English word "dog" originally referred to a specialized type of dog (like a mastiff), but came to be the general term while "hound" receded to become the term for a type of hunting dog.

As for Spanish "perro," I looked it up & found the following:

One theory of the origin of "perro" derives it from 'persus' (Persian) the name of a hunting dog , originally, from Persia, which became very popular in the Roman Empire from the 3rd century onward. Other theories are that it originally meant a "sheep dog" and comes from p-r-r-r the sound that Medieval shepherds in northern Spain used when calling sheep.

[MineralMan]

31. Cool. Linguistics is a logical extension of etymology

for sure. It was one of my minor subjects at school, too.

[Louisiana1976]

33. I took a course in Word Origins (that was what it was called, instead of etymology) when I was

in college. I found it fascinating.

[rhett o rick]

28. You might enjoy the book, "The Professor and the Madman." It's the story

of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, the first real dictionary. It's a fascinating story.

[MineralMan]

29. Someone mentioned that upthread. I've already ordered a copy.

Thanks!

[OldEurope]

34. Define please: real dictionary?

There were dictionaries in ancient Greece, Photios as an example. There were dictionaries in other languages, too, in Italy (16th century) or Germany (17th century).
So, what do you consider a "real" dictionary?

[rhett o rick]

43. I didnt intend to start an argument. Read the book. nm

[gvstn]

30. I can't seem to find it now but

I happened on a etymology site with a really beautiful layout in just the past few months. I'm going to see if I can find it. It gave very detailed information for whichever word the link I followed referenced. If I find it I'll add it to the list in this thread.

There aren't many etymology comics so here's a rarity: http://xkcd.com/1010/

[Android3.14]

32. Boo-boo

I want to know the origin of boo-boo.

[MineralMan]

35. It's in there, at the link in the OP.

[chknltl]

36. The irony of 'idiots'

A few years back Thom Hartmann delved into the etymology of the word 'idiot'. I believe Thom claimed the word's origin was ancient Greek and it described a person unconcerned with public affairs. If I recall accurately he further said the word was not intended as a derogatory it simply described someone who had yet to attain a level of education needed to participate in local civic matters.

I have recently looked the word up myself and found this bit which supports what I heard Thom Hartmann say:

An idiot in Athenian democracy was someone who was characterized by self-centeredness and concerned almost exclusively with private—as opposed to public—affairs.[6] Idiocy was the natural state of ignorance into which all persons were born and its opposite, citizenship, was effected through formalized education.[6] In Athenian democracy, idiots were born and citizens were made through education (although citizenship was also largely hereditary). "Idiot" originally referred to "layman, person lacking professional skill", "person so mentally deficient as to be incapable of ordinary reasoning". Declining to take part in public life, such as democratic government of the polis (city state), was considered dishonorable. "Idiots" were seen as having bad judgment in public and political matters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot

And a bit more here: ἰ??ώ??? • (idiōtēs) (genitive ἰ??ώ??? ) m, first declension
1.a private person, one not engaged in public affairs
2.(adjectival use) private, homely
3.commoner, plebeian
4.uneducated person, layman, amateur
5.one who is not in the know, an outsider
6.an ignorant person, idiot
7.one who is awkward, clumsy
8.(in the plural) one's countrymen

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%BC%B0%CE%B4%CE%B9%CF%8E%CF%84%CE%B7%CF%82#Ancient_Greek

The irony as I see it is that one could today rightfully attach the label of idiot to those who lack the proper education to vote in their and their fellow citizens best interests. A further irony is in that when we call fellow DUers who refuse to vote 'idiots', we might not be far off on calling them exactly what those ancient Greeks would have called them.

[Mnemosyne]

37. You came from tomorrow to post this? I never know what day it is either. lol nt

[3catwoman3]

38. One of my favorite words...

...is lambent. Not too many opportunities to use it.

I used to love John Ciardi's radio spot - "Good Words To You." I was heartbroken when he died.

[uppityperson]

39. have you ever read the dictionary? (riffing on your encyclopedia thread). I love words and etymology

As a young adult I rescued an American Heritage dictionary from a free box and loved it because it had so much background on words. I have to say that 4 yrs Latin in high school helped a lot but Greek origin words are, well, Greek to me.

I always viewed susurration as a quiet buzz, both as onomatopoeic.

[MineralMan]

42. I never really read dictionaries, but i liked opening

them at random and lookin at the words on the pages. I did use them a lot, though to look up words I found in other reading.

[Nevernose]

40. There is only one proper source for English etymology:

The Oxford English Dictionary, online at oed.com

I cannot tell you how much I love that book. I'm thinking about buying it flowers for Mother's Day.

FWIW, depending on where one lives, one can log on with a library card.

[kag]

41. MineralMan, if you're interested...

I'll send you a copy of my book:

"U.S. State Names: The Stories of How Our States Were Named"

http://www.mountainstormpress.com

Like you, I have a greater-than-average interest in history, etymology, and toponyms. Many years ago I began researching how each of our states was named--not just the etymology of the word (although I include that, too) but the details about how it got to be applied to the region it now names. For instance, the name "Wyoming" originated in Pennsylvania. From my book:

The story of Wyoming’s name begins in Pennsylvania, specifically in a small valley of the Susquehanna River basin near Wilkes-Barre. The Algonquin-speaking Delaware Indians called the place something like mscheweamiing which meant “large prairie place” or “big flats.” The missionaries of the 1700s had difficulty with the name (go figure) and shortened it to “Wayomik.”

I go on to describe how the word was used in a poem to commemorate the massacre of a settlement of pioneers in 1778 in the Wyoming Valley by a group of British soldiers and Cayuga and Seneca Indians. That poem became relatively famous, and when Wyoming, the western territory was being carved out of Dakota Territory "Wyoming" was chosen for reasons I explain further.

Anyway, my husband convinced me to turn my research into a book, which I did. It took several years to finish the research and complete all the chapters, but it was a subject that interested me intensely, so it was fun to work on. I'm currently working on a second edition to update a few things and fix some embarrassing typos, but it won't be out for a while.

If you'll PM me an address I'll send you a complimentary copy.

[malthaussen]

46. Further south the settlers came up with "Wyomissing."

Which is in Berks county, PA. I expect the etymology is the same.

-- Mal

[Rowdyboy]

45. Todays word to explore at our house was a southernism, "whompy-jawwed"....

Which means unbalanced, uneven or crooked...as in "after Bubba cold-cocked him, Goober's face was all whompy-jawwed"

[Orrex]

47. Search for "agony" and check the third entry down the list.

Hmm...

[MineralMan]

48. Agony bags. That's funny.

The other entries, that have the word used in conjunction with other words, are always interesting.