Category: Etymology

Handles, sleeves, tails and legs

By Simon

Yesterday I discovered that there are quite a few different words for handle in French, depending on what kind of handle you’re referring to:

– poignée /pwa.ɲe/ is a door handle or the handle on the lid of something. It also means handful, as in une poignée de sel (a handful of salt) or Ils n’étaient qu’une poignée (There were only a handful of them). In can also refer to love handles (poignée d’amour) and a break handle (poignée de frein). [source]. It comes from poing /pwɛ̃/ (fist), from the Latin pugnus (fist) [source].

– anse /ɑ̃s/ is the handle of a cup, or a cove, and comes from the Latin ansa (handle, tiller).

The Welsh equivalents are dolen (bow, handle, link, loop, ear, noose) and trontol (handle).

– manche /mɑ̃ʃ/ is the handle of a tool or a saucepan, and also a sleeve, or neck (of a violin or guitar).

The Welsh equivalents are coes (leg, stalk, handle) and carn (hoof, hilt, handle).

– queue /kø/ = is the handle of a frying pan, and also a tail, stalk and queue (line of people). It comes from the Latin word coda, a variant of cauda (tail) [source].

Are handles metaphorically linked to the same words in other languages?

Tchatter

By Simon

Recently I came across a couple of French words I hadn’t seen before – tchatter /tʃa.te/ (to chat) and tchat /tʃat/ (chat). As far as I can tell, they seem to refer particularly to online chat. The definition of tchatter on Reverso is “discuter avec d’autres personnes en temps réel depuis un ordinateur.” (to talk with other people in real time via a computer).

Similar words include:

– tchatche /tʃatʃ/, which Reverso defines as ‘jabberism’ (have you heard that one before?), patter, loquacity, verbosity, blather, etc. and which appears in the phrase avoir (de) la tchatche or ‘to have the gift of the gab’.

– tchatcher /tʃa.tʃe/ – to talk a lot and charmingly

– tchatcheur /tʃa.tʃœʁ/ – a great boaster; a voluable or talkative person.

Another French word for to chat is bavarder, and alternatives to tchatter include bavarder en ligne, cyberbavarder and clavarder – the latter is apparently used in Quebec and is a portmanteau of clavier (keyboard) and bavarder.

According to Wikitionaire tchatter, which is also written chatter and chater, comes from the English word chat, which comes from the Middle English word chateren (to chatter), which is thought to be of imitative origin.

Tchatcher and related words apparently come via Pied-Noir slang from the Spanish word chachara (an animated but futile conversation).

A foreboding sky

By Simon

Last night when I went out the sky was dark with very low clouds, and I expected it to rain at any moment. It did start raining while I was outside, but fortunately I was inside by the time the heavy rain arrived. I said to a friend that the sky had looked decidedly foreboding. He agreed, and we wondered how you would say this in the past tense if you use forebode as a verb – e.g. the sky foreboded/forebod/forebad/forebid rain. It’s not a word I use every day so I wasn’t sure. Now I know that it’s foreboded.

To forebode means to warn of or indicate (an event, result, etc.) in advance; to have an intuition or premonition of (an event) [source]. Fore comes from the Old English prefix fore- (before), from the Proto-Indo-European root *per- (forward, through), and bode from the Old English word bodian from boda (messenger) [source].

Fore comes from the same root as the Latin words pro (before, for, on behalf of), prae (before) and per (through, for) [source], and related words in other languages.

I like the word bode – you could say that something bodes without specifying whether it bodes well or ill, it just bodes.

Bead houses

By Simon

There’s a village near where I live called Betws-y-Coed [ˈbɛtʊs ə ˈkɔɨd], which means ‘prayer house in the wood’. I knew the meaning of the name, but hadn’t considered where the word betws might come from. Last night a friend told me that it comes from an English word ‘bead house’, meaning a prayer house or oratory.

Wikipedia agress with this saying the word Betws or Bettws comes from the Old English bed-hus (house of prayer, oratory). The name was first recorded as ‘Betus’ in 1254.

According to this Old English Dictionary the Old English word bed means ‘prayer, supplication; religious ordinance, service’, hús means ‘house; temple, tabernacle; dwelling-place; inn; household; family, race’, and gebédhús is a house of prayer or oratory.

Apparently the Welsh words bacws (bakery) and warws (warehouse) contain the same hús root. I can’t find confirmation of this, but it sounds plausible. I guessed that these words came from English, but hadn’t made the connection with Betws before.

They must have been borrowed before the Great Vowel Shift which started during the 14th century. Before then house or hús was pronounced /hu:s/, as it still is in northern English and Scots. The /haus/ pronunciation emerged during the 18th century.

Cuddies

By Simon

An interesting Scots word I came across this week was cuddy which means coalfish or donkey and featured in the English translation of a Gaelic song. From the context I knew it was some kind of creature, but which one I wasn’t sure.

According to the Scots Language Centre website cuddy is a Scots word meaning donkey, a foolish person, a saw horse or a vaulting horse. A Scotch cuddy is a pedlar.

Another word that came up that was new to me was gaberlunzie /ɡæbərˈlʌnji/, an old Scots word for a licensed beggar who would seek fees to pray for the souls of other people [source].

Have you come across these words before?

Menhirs, dolmens and cromlechs

By Simon

A menhir from Brittany and a cromleac from Ireland

The word menhir come up in discussion yesterday and I posted it on Facebook today along with the the Welsh translation maen hir, which is what I found in this dictionary. This provoked further discussion about whether the two terms mean the same thing. So I thought I’d find out.

A menhir is a standing stone of the kind that Obelix delivers in the Asterix books. According to the Dictionary of Word Origins and the OED, menhir comes from Breton mean-hir (long stone), which is what the Welsh term maen hir means, so it seems that they are the same. The usual Breton word for such standing stones is peulvan, however.

The word dolmen (a prehistoric structure of two or more upright stones surmounted by a horizontal one), comes via French from Breton: the men part means stone, and the dol part either comes from the Breton word tōl (table), a borrowing from the Latin tabula (board, plank), or from the Cornish tol (hole). So dolmen either means ‘stone table’ or ‘stone hole’.

The word dolmen also exists in Welsh, and another word for such structures is cromlech, which exists in Welsh and English and comes from the Welsh words crwm (bent, stooped) and llech (stone), and is related to the Irish word cromleac (‘bent stone’).

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.

It’s blowing a hoolie

By Simon

Yesterday I spotted the interesting expression ‘it’s blowing a hoolie‘ on a friend’s facebook page. From the context I guessed it meant that it was very windy.

According to A Way with Words, to blow a hoolie means ‘(of weather) to storm; to forcefully gust, blow, and rain.’ It is perhaps connected to hooley, which is defined by Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang as “a rip-roaring party” and comes from Ireland.

The OED suggests that hoolie /hu(:)li/ comes from the Orkney Scots word hoolan (strong gale), from an unattested Norn form of the Old Icelandic ýlun (howling, wailing).

Have you come accross this expression before, or do you use it? Do you have any other expressions for describing windy, stormy weather?

True sisters

By Simon

The word for sister in Irish is deirfiúr /dʲɾʲəˈfˠuːɾˠ/, and it has always puzzled me why this word is so different from the words for sister in the other Gaelic languages: piuthar /pju.ər/ in Scottish Gaelic and shuyr /ʃuːr/ in Manx.

Yesterday I discovered that deirfiúr is in fact a combination of deirbh /dʲɾʲəv/ (true) and siúr /ʃuːɾˠ/ (sister). The word siúr originally meant sister in Old Irish, but came to mean kinswoman. To distinguish sisters from other female relations, deirb (true) was added to it, so the Old Irish word for sister was derbṡiur, which eventually became the Modern Irish deirfiúr – the s at the beginning of siur became f after mo (my), do (your) and a (his), and this mutation became fixed.

In Scottish Gaelic the word for sister came from Old Irish as fiur, which became piur and eventually piuthar.

The Old Irish word siur (sister) comes from the Proto-Celtic *swesūr, from the Proto-Indo-European *swésōr, which is the root for the word for sister in many European languages.

The Irish word for brother, deartháir /dʲɾʲəˈhaːɾʲ/, has a similar history: it is a combination of deirbh (true) and bráthair (brother) and used to be written dearbh-bhráthair or dearbhráthair. It comes from the Old Irish derbráthair, from the Proto-Celtic *brātīr, from the Proto-Indo-European *bʰréh₂tēr. In Modern Irish bráthair means brother as in a male member of a religious community or monk. In Old Irish it meant brother, kinsman or cousin.

Sources: Blas na Gàidhlig: The Practical Guide to Scottish Gaelic Pronunciation, by Michael Bauer
and Wiktionary

Press

By Simon

One word for cupboard used mainly in Hiberno and Scottish English is press. When I encountered it in one of my Irish courses as a translation of the Irish word prios it puzzled me somewhat as I’d never come across this word used to mean cupboard before. Today I spotted the term linen press in a book I’m reading and thought I’d find out more about this word.

According to the OED, a press is a large cupboard, usually with shelves, especially one that lives in a wall recess, and is used to store such things as linen, clothes, books, crockery and other kitchen item. It is sometimes referred to as a clothes-press or linen-press. It comes from the French word presse, which originally referred to a crowd or crush in battle, and by the 14th century also meant a clothes cupboard.

Do you call cupboards presses, or have you heard anybody doing so?