Quotes About Etymology

To really touch something, she is learning—the bark of a sycamore tree in the gardens; a pinned stag beetle in the Department of Etymology; the exquisitely polished interior of a scallop shell in Dr. Geffard's workshop—is to love it.

A is ???? is alpha: the inverted head of an ox. ? is ???? is beta: based on the floor plan of a house. ? is ? ???? is omega, the mega O: a great whale's mouth opening to swallow all the letters before it.

From the moment I was able to make my own decisions, I became what has come to be called a vegetarian – a word that originated here in England, you might like to know.

It is a curious fact that the word 'essayist' showed up in English before it existed in French.

Swahili is a modified form of the Arabic sawa-hil, meaning 'coast people?

That pause in conversation when you're about to introduce someone but you've forgotten their name. There's a word for it. In Scotland, it's called a tartle.

the Greek word literally means 'high city'

it seems to have been only at this time that the word demokratia came to be coined

Many of the most characteristic Macedonian names are transparently formed from Greek words.

Proto Indo European!

The word literature enters the room with its nose in the air. But get it in a corner, ask the right questions, and it will reluctantly fess up to its humble origins. It hails from the Latin litterae, you whisper in your date's ear. It puts on a big act, but it literally just means "things made of letters.

Then he read the first sentence from the introduction: Without question this modern American dictionary is one of the most surprisingly complex and profound documents ever to be created, for it embodies unparalleled etymological detail, reflecting not only superb lexicographic scholarship, but also the dreams and speech and imaginative talents of millions of people over thousands of years—for every person who has ever spoken or written in English has had a hand in its making.

APHÆRESIS  (APHÆ'RESIS)   n.s.[   figure in grammarthat takes away a letter or syllable from the beginning of a word.

ALKALI  (A'LKALI)   n.s.[The word alkali comes from an herb, called by the Egyptians kali; by us glasswort.] This

Ou is frequently used in the last syllable of words which in Latin end in or and are made English, as honour, labour, favour, from honor, labor, favor. Some late innovators have ejected the u, without considering that the last syllable gives the sound neither of or nor ur, but a sound between them, if not compounded of both; besides that they are probably derived to us from the French nouns in eur, as honeur, faveur.

C might be omitted in the language without loss, since one of its sounds might be supplied by, s, and the other by k, but that it preserves to the eye the etymology of words, as face from facies, captive from captivus.

C, according to English orthography, never ends a word; therefore we write stick, block, which were originally, sticke, blocke. In such words c is now mute.

How funny your name would be if you could follow it back to where the first person thought of saying it, naming himself that, or maybe some other persons thought of it and named that person. It would be like following a river to its source, which would be impossible. Rivers have no source.

risks. Thus we take it for granted that, when a relationship to a special loved person is endangered, we are not only anxious but are usually angry as well. As responses to the risk of loss, anxiety and anger go hand in hand. It is not for nothing that they have the same etymological root.

Why is it that children, taught the names of the months and the fact that there are twelve of them, don't ask why the ninth is called the seventh (September), the tenth called the eight (October), the eleventh called the ninth (November), the twelfth called the tenth (December)?

Greeks receives the name of   ethelobreskeia -- the term which Paul here makes use of. He has,   however, an eye to the etymology of the term, for ethelobreskeia   literally denotes a voluntary service, which men choose for themselves   at their own option, without authority from God.

Every word has a history. Every word has an image locked into its roots.

Lucifer's name means light and the reason they threw him out of heaven and he became the biggest devil and not the biggest saint anymore was what he did with language.

The popular etymology of the word mantram gives us some clue what it means to have the holy name at work in our consciousness. It is said that mantram comes from the roots man, "the mind," and tri, "to cross." The mantram is that which enables us to cross the sea of the mind. The sea is a perfect symbol for the mind. It is in constant motion; there is calm one day and storm the next.