{"id":13188,"date":"2016-11-22T19:22:15","date_gmt":"2016-11-22T18:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/blog\/?p=13188"},"modified":"2016-11-22T19:22:15","modified_gmt":"2016-11-22T18:22:15","slug":"parched-torrents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=13188","title":{"rendered":"Parched torrents"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Heavy<\/p>\n

Quite a lot of rain has fallen over the past day or so in the UK, thanks to Storm Angus, so I thought I’d look at the origins of some rain-related words.<\/p>\n

The word rain<\/strong> comes from the Old English r\u0113n\/re\u0121n<\/em> \u200e(rain), from the Proto-Germanic *regnaz<\/em> \u200e(rain), possibly from the Proto-Indo-European *Hre\u01f5-<\/em> \u200e(to flow) or from *reg-<\/em> (moist, wet).<\/p>\n

When rain falls heavily it might be called torrential<\/strong> – it certainly was yesterday – a word which comes from torrent (rapid stream), from the Middle French torrent<\/em>, from Latin torrentem<\/em> from torr\u0113ns<\/em> (rushing, roaring (of streams); a rushing stream), a word which originally meant “roaring, boiling, burning, parching, hot, inflamed”, and which is the present participle of torrere<\/em> (to parch).<\/p>\n

With heavy rain you get floods<\/strong>, a word which comes from the Old English fl\u014dd<\/em> (a flowing of water, tide, an overflowing of land by water, a deluge, mass of water, river, sea, wave)”, from the Proto-Germanic *floduz<\/em> (flowing water, deluge), from the Proto-Indo-European root *pleu-<\/em> (to flow, float, swim), which is also the root of flow.<\/p>\n

Sources: Online Etymology Dictionary<\/a>, Wiktionary<\/a>, Daily Post<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Here’s a video of the sea being rather lively at Colwyn Bay (from the Daily Post<\/a>).<\/p>\n