With the UK general election coming up tomorrow, I thought I’d look at the origins of a few election-related words.<\/p>\n
Vote<\/strong> comes from the Latin votum<\/em> (a vow, wish, promise, dedication), which can be traced back to the PIE root *ewegwh-<\/em> (to speak solemnly, vow). It first appeared in writing during the 15th century.<\/p>\n Election<\/strong>, which dates from the late 13th century, comes via the Anglo-Norman eleccioun<\/em> (choice, between legal alternatives), from the Latin electionem<\/em>, which is derived from eligere<\/em> (to pick out, select).<\/p>\n Hustings<\/strong> comes from the Old Norse h\u00fas\u00feing<\/em> (council) from hus<\/em> (house) plus \u00feing<\/em> (assembly). Hustings was first used to mean “a temporary platform for political speeches” during the early 18th century, and its meaning later expanded to include the whole election process. <\/p>\n The Al\u00feingi or Althing is Iceland’s parliament and comes from the Old Norse al<\/em> (all) plus \u00feing<\/em>. The name of the Isle of Man’s parliament, the Tynwald, comes from the Old Norse \u00deingvellir<\/em> (assembly fields).<\/p>\n Parliament<\/strong> comes from the Old French parlement<\/em>, which originally meant “speaking, talk,” from parler<\/em> (to speak). The origins of parler<\/em> can be traced back to the Late Latin parabolare<\/em> (to speak (in parables)), from parabola<\/em> (speech, discourse).<\/p>\n [update 06.05.10]<\/p>\n Candidate<\/strong> comes from the Latin candidatus<\/em> (one aspiring to office), which originally meant “white-robed”, and is the past participle of candidare<\/em> (to make white or bright). Office-seekers in ancient Rome traditionally wore white togas to symbolise their purity and worthiness for office. Every day togas were off-white or tan coloured.<\/p>\n The origins of candidare<\/em> can be traced back to the PIE root *kand-<\/em> (to glow, to shine) via the Latin candidum<\/em> (white; pure; sincere, honest, upright) from candere<\/em> (to shine). Other words that come from the same root include candle, candid, incandescent and incense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the UK general election coming up tomorrow, I thought I’d look at the origins of a few election-related words. Vote comes from the Latin votum (a vow, wish, promise, dedication), which can be traced back to the PIE root *ewegwh- (to speak solemnly, vow). It first appeared in writing during the 15th century. Election, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,107,118,10,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-etymology","category-greek","category-language","category-latin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2844","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=2844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2844\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}