Quotes About Etymology

How had it come about that these particular designs were chosen as our letters? Who decreed what sound would accompany each shape? And how was it decided the manner they would come together to form a word? 'Why is this so?' I demanded to know.

In the significance of names, that from which the name is derived is different sometimes from what it is intended to signify, as for instance, this name "stone" [lapis] is imposed from the fact that it hurts the foot [loedit pedem], but it is not imposed to signify that which hurts the foot, but rather to signify a certain kind of body; otherwise everything that hurts the foot would be a stone [*This refers to the Latin etymology of the word "lapis" which has no place in English].

Love and charity share the same root word (caritas). How is that possible, when everything in our recent history suggest they cannot coexist, that they are antiethical, that if you put the two of them together in a sack they would bite and scratch and scream, until one of them is torn apart?

Some historians say that when the Carthaginians landed in Spain the common soldiers shouted with one accord "Span! Span!"—for rabbits darted from every scrub, from every bush. The land was alive with rabbits. And Span in the Carthaginian tongue signifies Rabbit. Thus the land was called Hispania, or Rabbit-land, and the dogs, which were almost instantly perceived in full pursuit of the rabbits, were called Spaniels or rabbit dogs.

If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers.

The name might have derived from the Portuguese word brasa, meaning glowing coal

morphological

how the word janitor came from Janus, the god of entrances and exits,

English is the product of a Saxon warrior trying to make a date with an Angle bar-maid, and as such is no more legitimate than any of the other products of that conversation.

you know what English is? The result of the efforts of Norman men-at-arms to make dates with Saxon barmaids.

To spell (from an old Germanic word) first meant to speak or to utter. Then it meant to read, slowly, letter by letter. Then, by extension, just around Cawdrey's time, it meant to write words letter by letter. The last was a somewhat poetic usage. "Spell Eva back and Ave shall you find," wrote

The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.

'Religion,' I should note, has a disputed etymology in Latin: some say it's from 'relegere,' meaning 'to reread', while others say it's from religare, meaning 'to connect' or 'link.' Literature is life's fastener.

You see," continued the minister, bowing thankfully to the duke, "Dictionopolis is the place where all the words in the world come from. They're grown right here in our orchards.

?itao sam u jednoj enciklopediji da rije? ateist potje?e od gr?kog athos. A ta rije? ne zna?i osobu koja ne vjeruje u Boga, nego usamljenika, osobu koju su bogovi napustili.

Grandmother. Agnes had not said anything like "grandmother." The word hadn't even existed until the eighteenth century

You might, for example, be interested to know that the word "prestigious" is derived from the Latin praestigiae, which means "conjuror's tricks." Isn't that interesting? This word that we use to mean honorable and esteemed has its beginnings in a word that has everything to do with illusion, deception, and trickery.

One thing I never forgot from my Latin class is that a language that is descended from another language is called a daughter language. It was the beginning of the next era of my life, like this is of yours.

Podría interesarte saber, por ejemplo, que la palabra «prestigioso» deriva del término latino prestigiae, que significa «truco de prestidigitación». ¿No te parece interesante? La utilizamos para referirnos a lo honorable y lo valorado, pero esta palabra remite a la ilusión, el engaño, a las falsas impresiones.

In vino Veritas. In Aqua satietas. In... What is the Latin for Tea? What! Is there no Latin word for Tea? Upon my soul, if I had known that I would have let the vulgar stuff alone.

In the English language, the word "sadism" only goes back a hundred years or so. (It wasn't until 1897 that it first appeared in print, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.) In that sense, "sadism" is like "serial killer": a modern expression for an age-old phenomenon.

Never mind what my name is," the man said. "No one can pronounce it anyway. Just call me Sir.

The expression "following suit" is a curious one, because it has nothing to do with walking behind a matching set of clothing.

Did you know that the author William Shakespeare invented more than seventeen hundred words, including 'assassination' and 'bump'?