Category: Latin (Lingua Latina)

Cars, carts and chariots

By Simon

Last week I was told that the English word car originally comes from the Irish word carr (donkey cart). Apparently when cars came to Ireland Irish speakers thought it was better to come up with a new word for them than to name them after the humble donkey cart, so the term gluaisteán (‘moving thing’) was coined. I hadn’t heard about this before so thought I’d check it.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary the English word car has been used to refer to a wheeled vehicle since 1300 and comes from the Old Northern French word carre, from the Latin carrum/carrus, which originally referred to a two-wheeled Celtic war chariot, from the Gaulish word karros, from the Proto-Indo-European word *krsos, from the root *kers- (to run).

There are related words in Welsh carr (cart, wagon), and in Breton: karr (chariot, cart), in Cornish: karr (car), in Manx: carr (car), in Spanish and Italian: carro (cart, wagon) and probably in other languages.

The word chariot comes from the same root as car, but cart probably comes from the Old Norse word kart-r (cart), according to the OED.

Another vehicle-related word we discussed last week is carbad (chariot), from the Old Irish carpat (war-chariot, waggon). It is related to the Welsh cerbyd (vehicle, car, carriage, coach), the Old Breton cerpit, the Gaulish carpentoracte, from the Latin corbis (basket), from carpentum (two wheeled chariot), which was probably borrowed from Gaulish. The root idea is ‘wicker’, referring to the basket character of the body of these chariots.

Gendarmes et policiers

By Simon

Yesterday there was some discussion of the police at the French Conversation Group – one of the members is a former policeman. We use the word policier, but later I remembered that another French word for policeman is gendarme, and it suddenly dawned on me that gendarme probably comes from gens d’armes (armed man). I checked this today and it’s right. It’s not something I’ve really thought about before, but when I did think about it, it seemed so obvious. Do you find that with words sometimes?

According to Reverso, French country police officers are called les gendarmes, but those in towns are called les agents de police or les policiers. A community police officer is un îlotier and a traffic police officer is un agent de la circulation.

According to the OED and the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word police comes from the Middle French police (public order, administration, government), from the Latin polītīa (citizenship, political organization, government), which is also the root of policy, politics, politican, etc. and comes from the Ancient Greek πολιτεία (politeia – citizenship, government, administration) from πολίτης (polites – citizen) from πολίς (polis – city, state), from the Proto-Indo-European *p(o)lH- (enclosed space, often on high ground).

Baguette de tambour

By Simon

Les baguettes de tambour, de http://francais.istockphoto.com/illustration-16429730-tambour-jouet-baguette-tambour-un-seul-objet-instrument-musique.php

Yesterday I discovered that in French a drumstick is a baguette de tambour, which conjured up images of French drummers playing their drums with long loaves of bread.

The word baguette comes from the Italian word bacchetta (little rod), a diminutive of bacchio (rod), from the Latin baculum (stick, staff). As well as meaning a type of French bread, it can also refer to “a small moulding of semicircular section” and “a gem, ususually a diamond, cut in a long rectangular shape” [Source: OED].

The French word tambour, which is also found in English and means a frame used in embroidery or a drum, comes from the Persian word tabῑr or from the Arabic word ṭubūl, which both mean ‘drum’. The word tambourine comes from the same root, as does timbre [source].

Some more drum-related French vocabulary:

– le tambour = drum
– la batterie = drum kit / drums
– Je joue de la batterie = I play the drums
– tambouriner = to drum
– pianoter / tambouriner sur la table = to drum one’s fingers on the table
– le tambourin = tambourine
– le (joueur de) tambour = drummer
– batteur (-euse) = drummer (in rock/jazz band)
– le roulement de tambour = drum roll
– la caisse claire = side/snare drum
– la grosse caisse = bass drum
– la boîte à rythme = drum machine
– le tambour de frein = brake drum
– le bidon de pétrole = oil drum

Source: Reverso

Parades

By Simon

Last weekend I saw a couple of parades – a small and rather damp one in Bangor on Saturday that was part of the Bangor Carnival – and a rather bigger and more elaborate one on Sunday in Manchester that was part of the Manchester Day celebrations. This got me wondering about the origins of the word parade.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary parade meant “a show of bravado” and “an assembly of troops for inspections” in the 1650s, and comes from the French word parade (a display, show, military parade). This comes either via Middle French, via the Italian parate (a warding or defending, a garish setting forth) or the Spanish parada (a staying or stopping), from the Vulgar Latin *parata, from the Latin parer (arrange, prepare, adorn). Parade came to be applied to non-military processions in the 1670s.

Parer comes from the Latin parare (to make ready), via the Old French parer (to arrange, prepare, trim), from the Proto-Indo-European root *per- (to bring forward/forth).

Panache, pegs and pinafores

By Simon

One thing we discussed last night at the French Conversation Group was whether panache means the same thing in French as it does in English.

According to the OED, panache [/pəˈnaʃ/ (UK) /pəˈnæʃ/ (USA)] comes from the Middle French pennache, which originally meant a tuft or plume of feathers, and by the late 19th century had come to mean “manly elegance or swagger, chivalrous or heroic courage, flamboyance, elegance, style”.

Pennache comes from the Italian pennacchio (plume), from the post-classical Latin pinnāculum, a dimmunitive of pinna (wing, feather, pointed peak), which comes from the Proto-Indo-European *bend- (something protruding). Other words that possibly come from the same root include pin, peg, pinafore, pinion and pinacle.

According to Le Dictionnaire, the French word panache means:

– ornement composé de plumes flottantes, placé sur une coiffure = an ornament of floating feathers worn on the head
– élément qui rappelle la forme de cet ornement = something resembling such an ornament
– surface triangulaire du pendentif d’une voûte en forme de sphère = a triangular area of a roof pendant in the shape of a sphere
– (au sens figuré) élégance et brio = (figuratively) elegance and panache

According to Reverso, panache can also mean:
– a plume (of smoke/water) = une panache (de fumée/d’eau)
– showiness

Some examples:
– avec panache = gallantly
– sans panache = unimpressive

A related word is panaché, which means:

– décoré de couleurs variées = decorated with various colours / varigated / colourful
– composé de différents éléments = made up of different parts / mixed
– boisson qui est composée de bière et de limonade = shandy (a mixture of beer/lager and lemonade)

Some examples:
– glace panachée = mixed ice cream
– salade panachée = mixed salad
– œillet panaché = variegated carnation

The verb panacher (to mix) also exists.

An alternative way to say ‘with great panache’ is avec maestria.

Pozo

By Simon

Last night I learnt a song, En el pozo María Luisa (In the Maria Lusia mine), from a Spanish friend. This song, which is also known as Nel Pozu Maria Luisa or Santa Bárbara Bendita, comes from Asturias in north west Spain and is usually sung in Asturian, Spanish or a mixture of the two. It is the story of a mining accident in the Pozu Maria Luisa coal mine, in the town of Ciaño in the municipality of Langreo.

While I was able to understand most of the words after hearing them a few times, some of them puzzled me. For example, when I heard the word pozo (mine) it sounded to me more like porzo, which I couldn’t find in my Spanish dictionaries when I looked. Eventually I found pozo when looking in the English-Spanish section for the word mine. Another word for mine is mina.

Pozo /’poθo/ is a well; a deep pool, the deep part of a river; a shaft, pit or mine; or the hold (of a ship). It comes from the Latin word puteus (pit, dungeon, well, cistern).

Expressions containing pozo include:

– pozo artesiano = artesian well
– pozo de petróleo = oil well
– pozo ciego/negro = cesspool
– caer en el pozo = to fall into oblivion
– pozo de aire = air shaft
– pozo de registro/visita = manhole / inspection hatch
– ser un pozo de ciencia = to be immensely learned
– es un pozo de maldad = he is utterly wicked

I assumed that the song was in Spanish, and that the words that puzzled me they were just ones I hadn’t heard before, like pozo. Now I realise that some of the words might have been Asturian – the Spanish friend who taught me the song is from Asturias.

Today and tomorrow

By Simon

Yesterday a friend asked me about the origins of the words today and tomorrow, and whether the to- part of them was orginally the. You sometimes come across expressions like ‘on the morrow’, and words appear with hypens in older texts: to-day and to-morrow.

According to the OED, today comes from the Old English tó dæg – the dæg part means day and the tó part means “at/in/during (a time), or on (a day). Tomorrow comes from to morȝen or to morwen – the morrow part means morning.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, today comes from the Old English todæge or to dæge (on (the) day), and Tomorrow comes from the middle English to morewe, from the Old English to morgenne (on (the) morrow), with morgenne being the dative of morgen (morning). They were written as two words until 16th century, then hypenated until the early 20th century.

In German (der) Morgen means morning, and morgen means tomorrow, and tomorrow morning is morgen früh or morgen vormittag, not morgen Morgen!

In French the word for today, aujourd’hui, comes from the expression au jour d’hui (on the day of today) – hui comes from the Latin hŏdĭē (today), a contraction of hŏc diē (this day). The Italian word for today, oggi, comes from the same root, and the expression al giorno d’oggi (nowadays, these days, today) has the same structure as aujourd’hui, though hasn’t replaced oggi as aujourd’hui has replaced hui in French. The Spanish and Portuguese words for today, hoy and hoje, also come from the same root and are used without embellishment. The Romanian word for today, astăzi, comes from a different root though – the Latin ista die (that day).

Sources: Wiktionnaire, Wikizionario, Wikcionario, Wikcionário & Wikționar.

Sporange

By Simon

Sproange /spɒˈrændʒ/ is another name for the sporangium /spɒˈrændʒɪəm/ of a plant, which the OED defines as “a receptacle containing spores; a spore-case or capsule.” Sporange comes via Latin from the Greek σπορά spore + ἀγγεῖον (vessel).

Sporange is also the only English word that rhymes with orange, a factoid I discovered on Lexiophiles, which lists a number of other English words that have no rhymes, including month, vacuum, obvious, penguin, husband and whilst. Do you know of words that rhyme with any of these?

A blog called Skorks lists a number of made up words that rhyme with orange, including:

– amoreange – an orange you instantly fall in love with
– quantorange – an orange that is both here and somewhere else at the same time
– tetrahedrorange – an orange shaped like a pyramid

According to the Oxford Dictionaries site, lozenge is a half-rhyme or pararhyme for orange.

Word skipping to Venus

By Simon

I was asked today about the origins of the word worship. The person who asked was told by a highly-educated minister that “worship” is derived from an old English word, “word-skip”. Supposedly, “word-skip” means “word shaper” or “shaper of words”.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary: worship comes from the Old English worðscip, wurðscip (Anglian), weorðscipe (West Saxon), “condition of being worthy, honor, renown”, from weorð (worthy), and -scipe, “state, condition of being”. The sense of “reverence paid to a supernatural or divine being” is first recorded in about 1300. The original sense is preserved in the title worshipful (c.1300). The verb to worship first appears in writing from about 1200. The word weorð comes from the Proto Germanic *werthaz (toward, opposite), which is possibly a derivative of Proto-Indo-European word *wert- (to turn, wind). from *wer- (to turn, bend).

The OED and the Collins Dictionary give the same etymology, and the OED lists the numerous ways worship was written in Middle English, including worðscipe, worðschipe, worðschepe, worþssipe, worþschip, wortscip, wortschyp, worsipe, worssipe, and so on.

The Dictionary of Word Origins says the worship originally meant “worthiness, distinction, credit, dignity” in Old English. Later is came to mean “respect or reverence”, and was used in religious contexts from the 13th century, and that is was used as a verb from the 12th century.

A related word is venerate, from the Latin venerāt- from venerārī/venerāre (to reverence, worship, adore), which comes from venus (beauty, love desire), from the Proto-Indo-European base *wen- (to strive after, wish, desire, be satisfied) [source]. This is also the root of the words for worship in Italian (venerare), Portuguese (venerar) and French (vénérer). The equivalent in Spanish is adorar or rendir culto a.

Purses and sporrans

By Simon

The word purse has an interesting history, I discovered today. It comes from the Old English word purs, from the Late Latin word bursa, which had a number of meanings of the centuries, including skin or leather; (money) bag; scrotum; exchange; and scholarship, allowance, and comes from the Greek word βύρσα (hide, leather).

bursa is also the root of bursar, bursary, purser and reimburse; and of words for purse in the Celtic languages: sparán (Irish) sporan (Scottish Gaelic), sporran (Manx), as well as the French word bourse (grant, purse, stock market, stock exchange), the Spanish word bolsa (bag, exchange, stock exchange, pocket, purse), and of similar words in quite a few other languages.

In British English purse usually refers to a small container used, mainly women, to keep their money, credit cards, etc in – British men generally carry their money in their pockets and/or in a wallet. What do Americans carry their money in?

In American English purse generally refers to a bag used to keep money, keys and other essentials in, especially by women – also known as a pocketbook (?). The British English equivalent the American purse is a handbag.

Sources: OED, Dictionary of Word Origins, Cambridge Dictionaries Online