Quotes About Etymology

Native Americans also insist that "squaw" is a derogatory term. Some believe it derives from a French corruption of an Iroquois epithet for vagina, analogous to "cunt" in English. Others believe it meant "bitch" in Algonquian dialects spoken in Virginia.

Ergometer is Greek for 'work meter'

despite the headmaster's romantic claims that the origin of the cravat went back to the silk fascalia worn by Roman orators to warm their vocal cords, Langdon knew that, etymologically, cravat actually derived from a ruthless band of Croat mercenaries who donned knotted neckerchiefs before they stormed into battle. To this day, this ancient battle garb was donned by modern office warriors hoping to intimidate their enemies in daily boardroom battles.

The symbol "&" was a logogram—literally a picture representing a word. While many people assumed the symbol derived from the English word "and," it actually derived from the Latin word et. The ampersand's unusual design "&" was a typographical fusion of the letters E and T—the ligature still visible today in computer fonts like Trebuchet, whose ampersand "" clearly echoed its Latin origin.

A decir verdad, fueron los osos polares los que bautizaron el Ártico. Arktos es «oso» en griego.

Polar bears actually give the Arctic its name. Arktos is Greek for bear." Terrific. Rachel gazed nervously into the dark. "Antarctica has no polar bears," Tolland said. "So they call it Anti-arktos.

Help! Why is Wednesday spelled like that?

The farther back we trace the Egyptian language the more affinities it reveals with the Semitic tongues of the Near East.

She learned about Indian words that have been incorporated into American English, like moose and pecan and squash, and Penobscot words like kwai kwai, a friendly greeting, and woliwoni, thank you.

Chinese porcelain was popular, too. The word comes from the Italian for a cowrie shell; literally, porcellana was a 'little pig', and the connection seems grounded in the glossy shell's resemblance either to a pig's back or to a sow's glisteningly crinkled vagina.35

I can remember being surprised to find that kiosk is Turkish – as may be the card game bridge – and that berserk, like geyser and narwhal, is Icelandic: it seems to derive from the name of the bearskin coats worn by the fiercest Norse warriors.

He portrays the labours of the etymologist in whimsical terms: 'In search of the progenitors of our speech, we may wander from the tropick to the frozen zone, and find some in the valleys of Palestine, and some upon the rocks of Norway'. Johnson's

The best example is boondocks. Originally in Tagalog it signified a mountain, but, when poor natives explained that they came from mountainous areas, outsiders imagined the word was a general term for any slummy or primitive place.

example, we can hear a note of doubt in his report that the word 'porcelain' is 'said to be derived from pour cent années; because it was believed by Europeans, that the materials of porcelain was matured under ground one hundred years'. In fact it comes from the Italian word porcellana, meaning 'cowrie shell'—a diminutive derived from the Latin porcus ('pig'), as the cowrie has commonly

tennis' comes from the French tenez ('take it'). This dubious explanation turns out, on closer investigation, to be well founded, since early players—of 'real' tennis, not modern lawn tennis—apparently called out this word to alert the receiver that they were about to serve. Reading

is possible, too, that OK has its origins in the Wolof waw kay. That said, the expression has also been claimed as Greek, Finnish, Gaelic, Choctaw and French; as an abbreviation of the faintly humorous misspelling Orl Korrect or of Obediah Kelly, the name of a freight agent who initialled documents he'd checked; and as an inversion of the boxing term KO (knock-out), used because a boxer who hadn't been knocked out was considered to be … well, OK.

Of the approximately 27,000 words identified in the OED as having first been used between 1250 and 1450, more than a fifth have French origins, and more than three-quarters of these are nouns.43 About half of all words in common use are nouns, and the introduction of new nouns – so many of them material – marks the discovery of new things, new experiences, new attitudes. Nouns

Often we have three terms for the same thing--one Anglo-Saxon, one French, and one clearly absorbed from Latin or Greek. The Anglo-Saxon word is typically a neutral one; the French word connotes sophistication; and the Latin or Greek word, learnt from a written text rather than from human contact, is comparatively abstract and conveys a more scientific notion.

The word, 'cube', comes directly from the Arabic, Kaaba.

I found a great book called 'Slang Through the Ages' by Jonathon Green. It's basically a thesaurus of historical slang, and had lots of great old uses.

legends, which in the etymological sense are what one should pass on, are only the symbols of a tradional truth transported from one generation to the next.

To make dictionaries is dull work.

Lexicography is a chastening as well as an illuminating and fascinating art.

The word aerobics comes from two Greek words: aero, meaning "ability to," and bics, meaning "withstand tremendous boredom