Quotes About Etymology

Where would you be without etymology'? Lea asked sarcastically. 'I think I might find words a little less interesting,' said Mr Ruche.

The waters below are mayim (the Hebrew word for "water"), and waters above are sham-mayim—which some, but by no means all, scholars believe means "water there" (sham is Hebrew for "there").

In English, the word "left" derives from the Anglo-Saxon lyft, which means "weak" or "useless.

Ideographically the Chinese represent wife by a woman holding a broom—certainly not to brandish it offensively or defensively against her conjugal ally, neither for witchcraft, but for the more harmless uses for which the besom was first invented—the idea involved being thus not less homely than the etymological derivation of the English wife (weaver) and daughter (duhitar, milkmaid).

Moving from phonetics to etymology, 'vagina' originates from a word meaning sheath for a sword. Ain't got no vagina.

the soul concept is derived not from Latin but from early Old Nordic and Old Germanic sources. However, the terms "animate" and

To hunt words is to do no trespass.

cherophobia (chero is the Greek word for "rejoice").

Facts are often faint and flickering. They are the achievements of subtle investigations that must painstakingly stabilize evanescent effects or ingeniously combine several strands of evidence into a strong, weight-bearing cord. Above all, as their etymology suggests, [...] the most interesting and useful facts are not given but made, artifacts in the best sense of the word.

slubberdegullions.

it is possible that the Irish word for 'I play the fox', sionnachuighim, is where the word 'shenanigans' comes from.

Botany is the art of insulting flowers in Greek and Latin.

Etymologically, the word education means just a process of leading or bringing up.

'Concierge' comes from the Latin for 'slave.'

Words are so lovable. How could you not love words?

The etymology of the Hebrew word for prophet, navi, combines three processes: navach (to cry out), nava (to gush or flow), and navuv (to be hollow). The task of this meditation was to open the heart, to unclog the channel between the infinite and the mortal, and rise into a state of rapture known as mochin gadlut, Great Mind.

The Greek word for "rooster" is built from combined parts that mean "getter out of bed".

There's no such thing as an unabridged dictionary.

For example, the resemblance between the word for "bride" and the verb meaning "to steal away" in Indo-Germanic languages is taken as evidence of marriage by capture in early times

When I first started studying Greek, one of my absolute favorite parts was realizing that so many English words had these old, secret roots. Learning Greek was like being given a super-power: linguistic x-ray vision.

What is literally the most misused word in the English language? The word 'literally' has been used to mean its opposite for over 200 years.

Ah, yes, divorce, from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man's genitals through his wallet. ROBIN WILLIAMS

Ursus arctos isn't the polar bear, it's the brown bear. Ursus means "bear" in Latin and arctos means "bear" in Greek. The Arctic is named after the bear, not the other way around; it

Hravat is the Croatian word for "Croat" and it's where we get the word cravat. So Croatia means "tie land.