The interesting Etymology thread

iamstop · 16-06-2021 5:36pm #1

Etymology is the study of the origins of words.

I've always had an interest in where words come from and evolved from. Maybe this will be the word version of the map thread. Maybe not.

Try to link your source.

I'll kick off with this one:

Groggy
It originated in the 18th century with a British man named Admiral Vernon, whose sailors gave him the nickname “Old Grog” on account of his cloak, which was made from a material called “grogram”, a weatherproof mixture of silk and wool. In 1740, he decreed that his sailors should be served their rum diluted with water, rather than neat. This was called “grog”, and the feeling experienced by sailors when they’d drunk too much of it was thus called “groggy”.

https://www.oxford-royale.com/articles/14-fascinating-word-origins-english-language/

16-06-2021 5:47pm

Boycott origin is the surname of a land agent in mayo who was ostracised from the community iirc

Capt'n Midnight · 16-06-2021 6:22pm

Butterfly does not come from Flutter By. But it should.

Yurt2 · 16-06-2021 6:38pm

The word bungalow comes from the Gujarati word for Bengali ('bangalo'), and was used shorthand for the type of houses built by non-Indians in the Bengal region of India.

The word riding (as in Tipperary North Riding / Tipperary South Riding) comes from the Danish word for thirds 'thridding'. Yorkshire, which had a strong Danish influence which can be still heard in the Yorkshire dialect, was divided into three 'ridings': North / East & West. For some reason it escaped whoever divided Tipperary in half that it meant 'thirds' originally, but it stuck until the start of this century when the county was merged for administrative purposes.

peasant · 16-06-2021 6:56pm

Zeitgeist is German (obvs) and means the mood/thinking/spirit of the time

Himbeergeist on the other hand has nothing to do with the mood of the raspberry...it's Schnaps (spirits)

Schnapps on the other hand is not peachy or raspberry -y ...it's ****e

16-06-2021 7:03pm

Yurt! wrote: »

it stuck until the start of this century when the county was merged for administrative purposes.

We prefer to say 'reunified', since it was a full county from 1715 and only divided in the Victorian period. That's very interesting about the etymology of riding.

The etymology of Tipperary itself: we were always taught in school that Tiobraid Arann means 'The well of knowledge', but actually it's not quite that. It means the 'Well of the River Ara'. Árann is, I think, an old Irish word for the kidney, which might be the source of that river, which flows through Tipperary town.

Ah, I'm a bit homesick now.

dxhound2005 · 16-06-2021 7:06pm

Third was Thrid and Bird was Brid up until a few hundreds years ago.

16-06-2021 7:13pm

The English rivers Avon (there’s more than one) are from the old pre Roman Celtic name for river.

What’s the name of that river. ** Roman pointing at a river **
River? ** confused Celt **
Ok we will call it that. ** Roman takes notes**

The name for river in modern Welsh is Afon. And in Irish it is Abhainn (the bh in this case is sounded like a W but in most other cases bh sounds like a V in Irish so the roots are the same).

Yurt2 · 16-06-2021 7:17pm

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

We prefer to say 'reunified', since it was a full county from 1715 and only divided in the Victorian period.

Mr Lowrychev, tear down this wall!

EmmetSpiceland · 16-06-2021 7:23pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

The English rivers Avon (there’s more than one) are from the old pre Roman Celtic name for river.

What’s the name of that river. ** Roman pointing at a river **
River? ** confused Celt **
Ok we will call it that. ** Roman takes notes**

Ah yes, that’s the river beside the forest of Your Finger You Fool.

dxhound2005 · 16-06-2021 7:34pm

Shannon is not from Sean Abhainn, Old River. It is from Sion Abhainn ,River of Wisdom.

One which might sound Aboriginal is Nullarbor. But it was coined by an Englishman from the Latin for No Trees.

KevRossi · 16-06-2021 8:32pm

Senegal possibly come from the Wolof 'Sunu-gal' which is what the first locals said when the Portuguese asked what the name of the country is. It literally translates as 'That's our canoe'.

It possibly also comes from the Wolof word Teranga which translates roughly as 'homeliness or hospitality'.

Or the Berbers, who had been trading with the area that is today Senegal for thousands of years before the first Europeans, referred to it as Zeranga, and would have passed this on to the Portuguese.

indioblack · 16-06-2021 9:08pm

When the Union army expanded at the start of the American Civil War the need for a large number of uniforms meant that manufacturers produced inferior quality clothing made from a material known as "Shoddy".

souter · 16-06-2021 9:24pm

nice comes from sh1t.
It's convoluted but basically it was the negation of knowledge, i.e. science, which comes from old latin scire to divide which (probably) shares a cognate with sh1t, dividing the body from the waste.
So nice meant not-science means ignorant. Which developed from a perjorative to a positive over the course of several centuries (not scientistific -> ignorant -> innocent -> idyllic).
Some of the paths here: https://www.etymologynerd.com/blog/nice-etymology

Nice.

Yurt2 · 16-06-2021 9:28pm

The late-Latin name for Scotland (Scotia) comes from a derogatory word the Romans used for Gaelic raiders 'Scoti'. The Romans didn't distinguish Gaels from either Ireland or Britain, and in fact the word Scotia was almost exclusively used to refer to Ireland as the raiding Gaels predominantly came from our island. Scot+land = land of the Irish.

The modern Gaelic word for Scotland 'Alba 'derives from the same Celtic root as the name Albion (what we sometimes call England when they're being a*sholes again).

The old Latin name for Scotland 'Caledonia,' is thought to be initially derived from the Brythonic (precursor language to Welsh) word for tough: 'caled'. Caledonia > 'land of the tough tribes.' This is what Brythonic people called the northern tribes of the Iron Age. The Caledonians didn't call themselves that (we don't know what they called themselves), only the proto-Welsh. Caledonia was generally used by ancient authors to refer to anything to do with inland or northern Britain, so not strictly Scotland either.

So in summary:

- Scotland actually means land of the Irish
- The Gaelic word for Scotland actually means England
- The old Latin word for Scotland came from the Welsh because the Scots were too busy eating Mars bars to name where they lived.

Confused? Try telling a Scotsman nobody bothered to name their country properly.

LarryGraham · 16-06-2021 9:37pm

Despite me wanting it to be true, fcuk does not originate from the Fornication Under Consent of the King urban legend.

A classic backronym as acronyms have only been used in the English language from 19th or 20th century. The word backronym is a portmanteau of the words back and acronym. Acronym has Ancient Greek origins meaning end or peak name. The word portmanteau is also a portmanteau in French combining to carry and cloak. It was introduced to the English language by Lewis Carroll and at the time a portmanteau was a type of suitcase with two equal sections ("two meanings packed into one word").

Anyway, back to fcuk. Unfortunately this has an unknown origin due to its common use over a long period of time. It has cognates in many languages meaning various things like strike, copulate and breed.

Thepillowman · 16-06-2021 9:39pm

dxhound2005 wrote: »

Shannon is not from Sean Abhainn, Old River. It is from Sion Abhainn ,River of Wisdom.

One which might sound Aboriginal is Nullarbor. But it was coined by an Englishman from the Latin for No Trees.

Here in Clare we were told the river was named after the Godess Sionna not sure if the spelling is correct. Granddaughter of Lir or maybe it was his Daughter.

dxhound2005 · 16-06-2021 9:41pm

Her name meant Wise, related to sionnach for the cunning fox I think.

silliussoddius · 16-06-2021 11:17pm

Yurt! wrote: »

The late-Latin name for Scotland (Scotia) comes from a derogatory word the Romans used for Gaelic raiders 'Scoti'. The Romans didn't distinguish Gaels from either Ireland or Britain, and in fact the word Scotia was almost exclusively used to refer to Ireland as the raiding Gaels predominantly came from our island. Scot+land = land of the Irish.

The modern Gaelic word for Scotland 'Alba 'derives from the same Celtic root as the name Albion (what we sometimes call England when they're being a*sholes again).

The old Latin name for Scotland 'Caledonia,' is thought to be initially derived from the Brythonic (precursor language to Welsh) word for tough: 'caled'. Caledonia > 'land of the tough tribes.' This is what Brythonic people called the northern tribes of the Iron Age. The Caledonians didn't call themselves that (we don't know what they called themselves), only the proto-Welsh. Caledonia was generally used by ancient authors to refer to anything to do with inland or northern Britain, so not strictly Scotland either.

So in summary:

- Scotland actually means land of the Irish
- The Gaelic word for Scotland actually means England
- The old Latin word for Scotland came from the Welsh because the Scots were too busy eating Mars bars to name where they lived.

Confused? Try telling a Scotsman nobody bothered to name their country properly.

And the word Gael comes from a Welsh word for raider or barbarian.
The endonym for Wales is Cymru which has the same origin as Cumbria and Cambridge, meaning fellow countrymen.

16-06-2021 11:29pm

Knacker is an interesting one.

I've posted this before, but it's perhaps a useful explanation for people not familiar with its etymology.

Knacker is a common pejorative term with a very interesting history.

It can be traced to the 1570s, where it relates to harness-makers, and describes anyone who helped farmers with horses (harness-making, castrating, or getting rid of carcasses)

It can be traced back to the Old Norse word hnakkur, meaning a saddle. Saddles are fitted just behind the horse's neck, of course, and hnakkur is itself related to the Norse word hnakki, meaning the back of the neck.

Interesting, isn't it? It's a bad slur to use against someone, but its history is rich. It's a highly pejorative, offensive word; but it's interesting to consider how well the link to horses has been preserved in the traveller community.

silliussoddius · 16-06-2021 11:41pm

I always thought knackers disposed of dead animals, particularly horses.

Pherekydes · 16-06-2021 11:53pm

late Middle English: from Old French ethimologie, via Latin from Greek etumologia, from etumologos ‘student of etymology’, from etumon, neuter singular of etumos ‘true’.

That's the etymology of etymology.

Or etymology².

Padraig Mor · 16-06-2021 11:55pm

The Cork term 'langer' which is variously applied to both men and their genetalia originated from Cork soldiers in the British Army serving in India and their exposure to the Langur monkey. This monkey has a long tail so it was originally quite a compliment to bestow on a man as it suggested the chap was generously endowed.

RobertKK · 17-06-2021 12:06am

Haggart.

In rural Ireland beside the farmhouse there is often a small piece of land next to the house called a haggart.
It come from the Vikings/Norse and means a hay yard - where hay was stored.
Some do spell it haggard but haggart is the correct spelling.
The Norse word is heygarthr.

17-06-2021 6:42am

I guess topical - The word Vaccine is meant to have come from the Latin word for cows - Vacca.

It comes from the discovery that people who got cow pox were much less likely to get small pox. And thus the world of vaccines.

Though there is some disagreement over whether it was actually cows - or horses - that were used in reality.

In the 14th Century ships arriving in Venice were sometimes required to spend 40 days sitting in the port to prevent the spread of plague. The italian for this "Quaranta Giorni" is often cited as the history behind the word "Quarantine".

dakar · 17-06-2021 6:51am

Helicopter is an interesting one.

It’s not really heli-copter, but helico-pter, spiral wing.

dakar · 17-06-2021 6:55am

Also pregnant is etymologically pre-gnant in Latin.

(prae - before) (gnasci - to be born)

New Home · 17-06-2021 9:31am

RobertKK wrote: »

Haggart.

In rural Ireland beside the farmhouse there is often a small piece of land next to the house called a haggart.
It come from the Vikings/Norse and means a hay yard - where hay was stored.
Some do spell it haggard but haggart is the correct spelling.
The Norse word is heygarthr.

I wonder, is that what originated the surname Hegarty, too.

Capt'n Midnight · 17-06-2021 10:00am

Pherekydes wrote: »

late Middle English: from Old French ethimologie, via Latin from Greek etumologia, from etumologos ‘student of etymology’, from etumon, neuter singular of etumos ‘true’.

That's the etymology of etymology.

Or etymology².

Tolkein used the old Anglo-Saxon orþanc enta geweorc "cunning work of giants" for the name of the giant tree shepherds in The Lord Of The Rings.

It's the root of Entymology.

MacDanger · 17-06-2021 10:04am

LarryGraham wrote: »

A classic backronym as acronyms have only been used in the English language from 19th or 20th century. The word backronym is a portmanteau of the words back and acronym. Acronym has Ancient Greek origins meaning end or peak name. The word portmanteau is also a portmanteau in French combining to carry and cloak. It was introduced to the English language by Lewis Carroll and at the time a portmanteau was a type of suitcase with two equal sections ("two meanings packed into one word").

And the French word for a portmanteau word is "mot valise" (word suitcase)

17-06-2021 10:26am

RobertKK wrote: »

Haggart.

In rural Ireland beside the farmhouse there is often a small piece of land next to the house called a haggart.
It come from the Vikings/Norse and means a hay yard - where hay was stored.
Some do spell it haggard but haggart is the correct spelling.
The Norse word is heygarthr.

That's a good one. We call it the "haggart" but in a text message etc would spell it "haggard". i always thought it was called this because the land is exhausted due to being over-grazed, poached or whatever. So it's haggard, like a tired person would be.

But the term 'that wan looks haggard' probably emerged later, and I assume it comes originally from the source you describe.

Here's a somewhat similar one. In Armagh there is an open-air market in the "Shambles yard", you have a "Shamble square" in Manchester and a "Fishamble street" in Dublin. A shamble is an obsolete word for an open-air slaughterhouse, and it became a synonym for a marketplace.

That great bible of etymology, etymonline.com, gives this:

Shambles: early 15c., "meat or fish market," from schamil "table, stall for vending" (c. 1300), from Old English scamol, scomul "stool, footstool" (also figurative); ... In English, sense evolved from "place where meat is sold" to "slaughterhouse" (1540s), then figuratively "place of butchery" (1590s), and generally "confusion, mess" (1901, usually in plural).

The interesting Etymology thread

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