Acrostic poems have vertical words hidden in them
Coming from Latin acrostichis, this term was borrowed in the 1580s
Right before that, we can trace it to Greek akrostikhis.
One part of that is akros, which meant "outermost" or "at the end".
Second, the word stikhos meant "row" or "line"
Together, an acrostic is something connecting the outermost parts of the row.
If we derive akros from PIE, it's reconstructed to ak, meaning "sharp"
Certainly interesting, and stikhos is from steigh, "to stride".

Writing a villanelle is quite a pain.
19 lines, six stanzas, and two rhymes must be planned
And now we have to repeat the refrain!

Thankfully, no strict meter- that would drive me insane.
But without iambic pentameter like this, it can often be bland.
Writing a villanelle is quite a pain.

In Italian, it meant "rural song", or something of that vein.
Then as Latin villanus, the word meant "farmhand".
And now we have to repeat the refrain!

It's related to our word villain, and that we attain
Through a connection of back-country land.
Writing a villanelle is quite a pain.

The root is Latin villa, meaning "farm" or a "family's domain"
From PIE weik, or "clan", of the familial brand.
And now we have to repeat the refrain!

Done with tercets; welcome to the quatrain!
Although the etymology was grand,
Writing a villanelle is quite a pain.
And now we have to repeat the refrain!

A sonnet is very tough to create
Composed of iambs, and fourteen lines long
The sounds unstressed, then stressed, and alternate
This took an hour but I still did it wrong.

It is from Italian, through the word
Sonetto, meaning "a miniature song"
And beyond Latin sonus, it's all blurred;
Proto-Italic helped the word along.

The best hope is the reconstruction swen
Which we think had to do with "noise" or "sound".
Well, sonnet's usage peaked ​with Shakespeare, then
It tapered off but is still used around.

Although very difficult to produce,
This etymology's neat, I deduce.

In 711 CE, Umayyads from North Africa conquered the Iberian peninsula and ruled large chunks Spain and Portugal for almost eight more centuries. These Muslims in particular were known as Moors​, a word which comes from a French apellation, more. More occasionally took the form of maure, and it comes from Latin Maurus, which described anyone from the North African region of Mauritania- that's also where the word Mauritania comes from. Beyond that, maurus is from Greek mauros, which most likely meant "black", but we're not a hundred percent sure. Time for some fun facts! This interpretation of moor has nothing to do with the "fasten" or "uncultivated land" definitions (those are Germanic), and the Latin name Maurus actually covered parts of modern-day Algeria and Morocco, but not the current country of Mauritania.

It seems almost intuitive that the phrase run amok has something to do with muck. In fact, it's often mistakenly written as run amuck. The truth is far more interesting: it was transliterated in the late seventeenth century from the Malay word amuk, which was basically the equivalent of Norse beserk: it described a frenzied state of furious attack, often resulting in killing sprees. This term was picked up by Portuguese sailors as amouco and was first used as an adjective or noun to describe the type of violent, unpredictable Malay they associated with the word.  Through Proto-Malay, amuk is from a Proto-Malayo-Polynesian root sounding like hamuk; cognates exist in other Oceanic languages meaning "haunt" and "charge", so it has something to do with running into battle as well.

The word molecule was first used in a scientific sense by Avogadro in 1811 and was brought into English in 1794 when it meant "small particle" of any type. However, it was used for more than a century before that in French, and wasn't too different in Latin as molecula. Now we get semantic variation; molecula is a diminutive of moles, which meant "mass" (so a molecule is a "tiny mass") and is sort of related to Avogadro's mole, through German. Moles also had a secondary definition of "barrier", and that's important for explaining the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction: apparently it derives from the root mo, meaning "exertion", because it requires effort to overcome barriers. Usage of the word molecule in literature over time has been slowly decreasing since a peak in the 1960s.

I'm very rarely surprised by etymologies these days, but learning about shrapnel was a blast. Turns out that the word for "projectile fragment" was named after a person, Henry Shrapnel, who invented a type of exploding shell in the early 1800s while serving as a lieutenant in the British army.  It is thought that the Shrapnel surname comes from French Charbonnel after the a and r letters were switched around somehow. Charbonbel is a diminutive of Old French charbon, a word for "coal", which comes from Latin carbonem, with the same meaning. Carbonem is reconstructed as having derived from the Proto-Indo-European root ker, or "to burn", the connection obviously being that you burn coal (Carbonem is also the etymon of the element carbon). Interestingly, usage over time for the word "shrapnel" had more than a fourfold jump during World War I, which makes sense, considering the unparalleled devastation of the trench warfare. Apart from that, it's been pretty constant.

Danger​ has held a lot of definitions over the years. Over seven hundred years ago, it might have meant "insolence" and "arrogance", but those are just side definitions lost to time. When the word was first borrowed in the 1200s, it meant "power" or "jurisdiction". The connection here is that one can be in danger when under the power of others. Through Anglo-Norman and Old French dangier, danger traces to Latin dominus, meaning "lord". This means that the term is connected to dominance and dominion, both of which also help explain the origin. Through a "lord of the house" definition, dominus comes from domus, a word for "house", and that in turn derives from Proto-Indo-European dem, also "house". Usage of the word danger in literature has been on a decreasing trend since a 1790s peak; looks like people are safer nowadays.

To you, the word diagnosis probably evokes images of doctors in lab coats delivering grim news. The term can, however, refer to any kind of scientific identification, and that definition was more prominent when the word was borrowed from medical Latin in the 1680s. That eventually traces to Ancient Greek diagingoskein, a verb meaning "to discern", which is still tied very closely to the modern denotation. This is where it gets interesting, though: diagingoskein can be broken down into two words: dia, "between" or "apart", and gignoskein, "to learn". Since there are two objects involved in both definitions of dia, it makes sense that it would come from Proto-Indo-European dwo, meaning "two" (also making it the relative of two, di-, and duo-). Gignoskein, meanwhile, came from PIE gno, "to know". So diagnosis can be interpreted to mean "knowing two" or "learning apart".

Palantir is a rather sketchy data analytics company that contracts out to the Department of Defense and is valued at over $41 billion. Its name is rather interesting for such a corporation: it comes from an object in Lord of the Rings, the palantír, which served as a scrying orb to communicate and see events from around the world (more ominously, it could be used to corrupt people). The name was chosen for the obvious connection to secret observation, but it's also probably not a coincidence that billionaire investor/chairman Peter Thiel founded five other companies with LOTR-based names (Rivendell One LLC, Lembas LLC, Valar Ventures, and Mithril Capital Management). Maybe he's just a huge fantasy geek. Anyway, J. R. R. Tolkien created the word from his Quenya language to mean "far-seeing". Inspired by Finnish and classical languages, Quenya was one of the first major conlangs and is really cool; Tolkien was a big fan of etymology and you should check out his pioneering work in language creation if you have more time.

What is a haiku?
It's a Japanese poem
​With twelve syllables.

Originally,
These were meant to be funny.
The name reflects that.

At first, the word was
Haikai no ku, defined as
"a humorous verse".

Both parts of that phrase
Derive from Middle Chinese
Where it's hard to trace.

​Now, the term haiku
Came here in 1902;
Use increased since then.

The word limerick is a rather peculiar noun
It was named after Luimneach, a small Irish town
Because there was a song verse that included its name
Often found in these poems, which brought it some fame.
So let's break it down:

Luimneach comes from lom na each, which was found
to have a definition of "grassless horse ground".
​That developed from Proto-Celtic for over an eon
And had the same meanings in Proto-Indo-European
But more with a lomm es hekwos sound.

Limericks today are usually one verse
And normally funny, but they're kept terse
They follow a predictable array
A rhyme pattern of a/a/b/b/a.
Anyway, cool origin to disperse.

The verb to catfish is surprisingly a product of this decade. The term for "lure someone into an online relationship under false pretenses" was first used in the 2010 documentary Catfish, the eponymous story from the film being a metaphor comparing those relationships to the fishing practice of throwing a catfish into a vat of cod to keep the other fish more active. After the documentary, MTV started a television series, also called Catfish, and it was then that the word truly took off in its current sense. Let's trace back the fishy etymology: a catfish was so named because of its cat-like whiskers. Cat comes from Old English catt, from Proto-Germanic kattuz​, from Latin cattus, which could be Afro-Asiatic. Fish is from Old English fisc, from Proto-Germanic fiskaz, from Proto-Indo-European pisk. Meanings remained constant, as these were relatively simple words and didn't have to change definition through time.

Tetanus is a type of infection that's most distinguishable by the muscular spasm symptoms. Turns out the etymology has a lot to do with that! The word was borrowed in the late fourteenth century from Latin, and even further back hails from Ancient Greek tetanos​, which meant "muscular spasm" (obviously the connection is because of the effect tetanus has) but earlier on it also carried the definition of "a stretching" (not too much of a stretch, heh). That comes from the verb teinein, meaning "to stretch", and, through Proto-Hellenic, we can finally derive this from the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction ten, same meaning. Teinein is also present in "tone" and "hypotenuse" (we'll cover tone​ in a future post; hypotenuse is already done), and usage of the word tetanus in literature over time has been decreasing since 1924

The word chemistry has a debatable origin, but all of the possibilities are fascinating. The more recent parts are still universally accepted: we all agree that in the 1600s, the noun was synonymous with alchemy, and the scientific definition wasn't until the 1780s and beyond. Everybody also concurs that both words come from Latin alchemista, meaning "alchemist". That's from Arabic al-kimiya, from Ancient Greek khemeia, which meant "liquid" (because a lot of alchemy involved changing one type of liquid into another). However, here it gets fuzzy, and the origin is unknown. It could be from khemia, which referred to Egypt and meant "land of black earth" (alchemy was often associated with Egypt and was thought by some to be a "black art"). Alternatively, khemeia could derive from khymatos, a word used in association with pouring thing, or khyma, which meant "fluid". It's lost to the ages, much like alchemical secrets allegedly are.

Frolic is a beautiful term that somehow captures the essence of what frolicking feels like. The meaning of "playfully prance around" is from the 1580s; before that, it was actually an adjective describing someone as "full of joy". However, that wasn't around for long; the word was borrowed in the 1530s from Dutch vrolik, also "cheerful". This underwent quite a bit of alterations as we travel back to Old Dutch; some attested variations included vrolijk, vrolijc, frolik, and vrolyc. The common things in all these words (despite the continued definition) are the two Dutch roots: vro, meaning "merry", and lyc, meaning "like". Vro is reconstructed as coming from Proto-Indo-European preu, or "hop", which makes the act of frolicking​ an etymological jumping for joy.

In the Rolling Stones song Sympathy for the Devil, Mick Jagger sings "and I laid traps for troubadours / Who get killed before they reach Bombay". This is quite the bizarre lyric, and it's far from obvious what it's supposed to allude to. Apparently, it's a reference to the dangers of the "Hippie Trail", a counterculture journey taken by Western hippies across Asia in the 1960s and '70s. A lot of the tourists were tricked and sometimes killed by drug dealers along the route, and the Rolling Stones are implying that the Devil was present there. But what the heck is a troubadour​? Today, it can mean "poet" of any kind, but originally it only referred a type of French poet in the Middle Ages, and that's still a persisting definition. The earliest recorded use of the word was in an 1100s Occitan text, and before that everything is speculatory. There's a good chance that it might trace from Latin tropus, meaning "song", though, and that would be from Ancient Greek tropos, which meant "style" and is the etymon of trope. Fascinating stuff!

Vicissitude is a rather euphonious word describing a negative development of any type. It was borrowed in the 1560s from Middle French and became very popular until it really dropped in usage after 1900. The Middle French word was borrowed from Latin vicissitudinem, which meant "alteration", and the root of that is vicis, "change" (this is also the etymon of the Spanish and French words for "time", vez and fois, respectively). Vicis is thought to be from the Proto-Indo-European reconstrction weik, which was a verb with a general meaning of "bend", through a connection of "turning". Weik spawned a whole litany of other terms, like the vice in vice versa or vice president and villa, among others. Such interesting developments and none of them negative- I guess you could say the etymology of vicissitude is far from vicissitudinous!

The word toggle was first attested in 1769, with the specialized nautical meaning of "a pin passed through the eye of a rope". Nobody's a hundred percent sure where that come from, but some etymologists theorize that it might be connected to the word tug. What's far more interesting than that, though, is how the word developed after it was adopted. Toggle bolt is another sailing term referring to a fastener that spreads out the weight of an item- that was coined in 1794. By 1836, a verb form developed, meaning "to secure with a toggle or toggle bolt". In 1934, we finally move onto land, as toggle was attested in a context meaning "wall fastener" of any kind, and history was made in 1936 when toggle switch (the up-and-down kind) was coined. This development, which came about because the switch looked a lot like ​a toggle, was important because it influenced all the future meanings. In 1979, toggle was first used in reference to computers, for a key which turns something on and off, and in 1982, it came to mean "alternate between actions". Usage of the word toggle today is almost three times what it was a hundred years ago- and it's all because of the development of computing.

In my first language of Serbian and in Russian, we use the word семафор for "traffic light". When spoken aloud, this sounds like sehmah-for. Yesterday in traffic I had an epiphany concerning this: in English, we also have the word semaphore (pronounced the exact same way) as a noun for the communication system using colored flags to send messages. You can see the connection: both use colors to signal something to you. It seems like the words from both languages come from French semafore, which literally meant "bearer of symbols". This has two parts: Ancient Greek sema, meaning "sign", and phoros, meaning "bearer". Sema, a root in semantic and polysemy, comes from the Proto-Indo-European root dyeh, meaning "to notice". Phoros, which is present in phosphorous and Christopher, comes from Proto-Indo-European bher, "carry". Surprisingly, usage of the word semaphore in literature over time increased all the way up to the 1990s, but has been on the downturn since.

The word voluptuous is a rather suggestive yet beautiful-sounding word meaning "sexually attractive", but earlier on it had a different definition of "sexual desire". The word was borrowed in the late 1300s along with many other words from the Old French language, where it took the forms of either volumptueuse or voluptueux and had a general meaning of "desire" of any type. As we move back in time to Latin, we lose a lot of unnecessary vowels with the word voluptas, meaning "pleasure", "satisfaction", "enjoyment", and more along those lines. Voluptas was a conjugation of the adverbial form volup, "pleasurably", which was volupe in Old Latin. Most likely, volupe can be derived from the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction wel, meaning "to wish" or "to will", because somebody would wish for a will pleasurable things to occur. Usage of the word voluptuous in literature over time has been decreasing dramatically since a peak in the 1780s.

Somebody just requested the word despacito, so why not? It seems to have entered the American vernacular at this point. In Spanish, the word means "slowly", and the song is named that because the singer wants to savor his relationship slowly. The -ito, though, is sort of a diminutive, and the real word for "slowly" is despacio. Now we can eliminate the prefix de-, which meant "of" or "from" and comes from the same Latin root that gives us the de- in defrost, defuse, debilitate, et cetera. The root is espacio, which meant "space", in this case referring to a period of time. So, "of a period of time", something is going slowly. Espacio is from Latin spatium, which is the etymon of the English word space​ and very similar in application. That in turn traces to a Proto-Indo-European reconstruction, speh, which meant "to pull" (as in you're creating a space by pulling something apart). Observing Google Trends for the keyword despacito is, like finding the etymology, quite entertaining: there's a giant spike in June 2017 and has recently stabilized, decreasing more slowly... or should I say more despacito?

When the Normans conquered England in the late eleventh century, they brought their code of laws with them, using an archaic form of French, which has greatly influenced our legal system. One example of this impact is the word culprit, which is actually a contraction of the phrase Culpable: prest d'averrer nostre bille, which would translate to English as "Culpable: ready to aver our indictment" or, without the jargon, "Guilty: ready to state charges". This was originally a phrase used by prosecuters to indicate that they believed the defendant was actually not innocent as they claimed and were prepared to move forward with the trial and prove that. Onto etymology! The root in the word culpable traces to Latin culpa, which meant "crime", "blame", "guilt", or "error" (also the source of mea culpa, "my bad"). Culpa, through Proto-Italic, comes from a Proto-Indo-European reconstruction sounding like kolpeh and meaning "turn" because of a connection of taking a wrong turn.

The word peacock was coined at the start of the fourteenth century, but there was a lot of variation in Middle English: we saw forms like pecok, pekok, pocok, pacok, and poucock rise and fall in usage. You can sort of see here that peas have nothing to do with it, despite how the modern word might look. The elements involved here are probably po-, pertaining to birds also found in peafowl and peahen, and coc, meaning "hen" and precursor to both the modern words for chickens and penises (the connection being the concept of fertility). Po in all likelihood is from Old English pawa, which is from Latin pavo (the etymon of the Spanish word for "turkey"), which could be from an Ancient Greek word for "peacock", and that could be from Tamil, which would be interesting, but it's all speculative at that point. Coc is from Proto-Germanic kukkaz (same meaning), of imitative origin. Usage of the word peacock has been decreasing in literature since a peak in the late nineteenth century, and has been pretty constant in Google Trends since 2004.

Four centuries ago, the word janitor meant "door-keeper", and only later did it have anything to do with cleaning rooms, the connection being that both tasks were encompassed by the role of general caretaker. The word was borrowed in the 1580s from the Latin word ianitor, also "door-keeper", and that comes from the word for "door", ianus​. Ianus is a very interesting word for several reasons: it also held the definitions of "covered passageway", "gate", or "arch", and is the etymon of Janus, the name for the two-faced Roman god of decisions and doorways. It is thought to further derive from the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction hey, meaning "to go". Etymologists aren't a hundred percent sure on that, though, so let's pivot to the synchronic aspect of the word. Janitor has been decreasing in usage since the 1920s, as other terms like custodian became more preferred by the public.