{"id":22973,"date":"2023-07-12T16:03:19","date_gmt":"2023-07-12T16:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22973"},"modified":"2023-07-12T16:03:20","modified_gmt":"2023-07-12T16:03:20","slug":"attics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22973","title":{"rendered":"Attics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The attic in my house is currently being converted into a usable space, so I thought I\u2019d look into the origins of the word <strong>attic<\/strong> and related ones.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/omniglot\/53041223365\/in\/dateposted\/\" title=\"Attic\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53041223365_4483b8032c_z.jpg\" alt=\"Attic\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\"><\/a><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>An <strong>attic<\/strong> is:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The space, often unfinished and with sloped walls, directly below the roof in the uppermost part of a house or other building, generally used for storage or habitation.<\/li>\n<li>A person&#8217;s head or brain (<em>slang<\/em>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It comes from the French <strong>attique<\/strong> (penthouse flat\/apartment; Attic, delicate, elegant), from the Latin <em>atticus<\/em> (Attic &#8211; relating to Athenian culture or architecture), from the Ancient Greek <em>\u1f08\u03c4\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2<\/em> [at.ti.k\u00f3s] (Attic, Athenian). Apparently the name is related to the practice of decorating the top storey of building facades in the Attic architectural style [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/attic\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Another word for <strong>attic<\/strong> is <strong>loft<\/strong>, which used to mean air, sky or the heavens. It comes from the Middle English <em>lofte<\/em> (air, sky, loft), from the Old English <em>loft<\/em>, a version of <em>lyft<\/em> (air, atmosphere, sky), from the Proto-West-Germanic <em>*luftu<\/em> (roof, air). from the Proto-Germanic <em>*luftuz<\/em> (roof, firmament, heavens, sky, air) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/loft#English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Words from the same roots include <strong>lift<\/strong> and <strong>aloft<\/strong> in English, <strong>lucht<\/strong> (air) in Dutch and <strong>Luft<\/strong> (air) in German.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Attics<\/strong> might also be known as <strong>garrets<\/strong>, which comes from the Middle English <em>garett<\/em> (watchtower, turret, attic), from the Old French <em>garite<\/em> (watchtower), from <em>guarir<\/em> (to protect, save, cure, heal), from the Frankish <em>*warjan<\/em> (to ward off) , from the Proto-West Germanic <em>*warjan<\/em> (to ward off, defend against), from the Proto-Germanic <em>*warjan\u0105<\/em> (to ward off, defend against, thwart, stop) from the PIE <em>*wer-<\/em> (to heed) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/garret#English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Words from the same roots include <strong>weir<\/strong> in English, <strong>weren<\/strong> (to hold back, keep out, defend oneself) in Dutch,  <strong>wehren<\/strong> (to fight, defend) in German, <strong>gu\u00e9rir<\/strong> (to cure, heal) in French [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic\/warjan%C4%85\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Are there interesting words for <strong>attics<\/strong> in other languages?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The attic in my house is currently being converted into a usable space, so I thought I\u2019d look into the origins of the word attic and related ones. An attic is: The space, often unfinished and with sloped walls, directly below the roof in the uppermost part of a house or other building, generally used [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,104,107,111,116,10,26,33,34,44,45,202,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dutch","category-english","category-etymology","category-french","category-german","category-language","category-middle-english","category-old-english-aenglisc","category-old-french","category-proto-germanic","category-proto-indo-european","category-proto-west-germanic","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22973"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22975,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22973\/revisions\/22975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}