Horchata is a broad term for different types of milky plant-based drinks, all of them very tasty and usually served chilled. The structure of the word seems rather odd to an American observer, and that's because it comes from Spanish. Before that, it was definitely part of a local dialect, most likely the Valencian variation of Catalan, as the word orxata, which in turn could possibly come from the Catalan root ordi, meaning "barley", because one type of horchata was made out of barley. Other theories for the derivation of orxata include an Arabic source, but whichever route it did take, the word is thought to trace to Latin hordeum, also "barley". Hordeum is further believed to be from the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction grsdeyom, which meant "bristly" and is connected due to the prickly qualities of grain in general.
0 Comments
The word tropical was first used in English in the 1520s when someone added the suffix -al to the pre-existing word tropic. At the time, it only referred to the geographic zones, but by the late seventeenth century it came to mean any place that was humid like the tropics. Tropic in its purest form refers to the most north or south latitude where the sun can still be directly overhead, and obviously this was associated with warmer climates over time to have a more general meaning. The word comes from Latin tropicus, "pertaining to the solstice" (this zenith can only occur on the solstices for the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn), and that's from Ancient Greek tropikos, which had to do with changes in general. That derives from trope, meaning "turn" (and etymon of English trope), which is reconstructed to PIE trep, also "turn".
The word forgive has been around in English in one form or another for many centuries, but there's been a lot of variation along the way. In Middle English, the word could be spelled foryiven or forjiven, and in Old English it was forgiefan, which still had the same meaning, but also carried additional definitions of "give up" or "provide". This is because the elements composing the word, for and giefan, are equivalents of the modern day words for and give. To forgive is to metaphorically give up a grudge, and that's how the definition got attached. It makes a lot of sense if you think about it, but people rarely do consider it. For, through Proto-Germanic, goes back to Proto-Indo-European per, meaning "before", and giefan traces to the Proto-Germanic word for "give", gebana, which in turn is thought to be from PIE geb, which could also mean "move"
In the musical Hamilton, the titular character raps that he's going to "get a scholarship to King's College". Now, there are several King's Colleges around the world, including one in the setting of New York City, but what Hamilton was actually referring to was Columbia College before it changed its name. When the school was established in 1754, it was by royal charter, so it was named King's College. Due to the American war, the school had to shutter for eight years between 1776 and 1784, and, when it reopened, the royalty obviously wasn't too popular, so they renamed it Columbia after the personification of the USA (in case you haven't heard of her, she was replaced by the Statue of Liberty in popular perception around the 1920s), and it later grew into the well-known university it is today. Columbia was used to cartographically refer to North America as early as the 1730s, and is named after the explorer Christopher Columbus.
The word baguette came to us in the late fifteenth century from Old French baguelette. -Ette is just a diminutive suffix meaning "small", so we can eliminate that to better analyze the root, baguel, which meant "twist". It makes sense that baguette would mean "small twist", because there is a faint rotating pattern on the top of the bread. That's interesting in itself, but what's really fascinating is how the term is related to our current word bagel, which is also a twist and comes directly from the Old French noun. Another cognate is bugle, the type of instrument, which adopted the "twist" definition in German as bugel due to the characteristic loop in the horn. All three of these words eventually can be traced back to Latin bucure, which meant "to twist" and derives from a Proto-Indo-European reconstruction, bheg, also "twist". Also, if you haven't gathered from the title, that was entirely fake, but it seemed awfully real, didn't it? You never know when I could be lying to you... Happy April Fool's Day!
|
AUTHORHello! I'm Adam Aleksic. I have a linguistics degree from Harvard University, where I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society and wrote my thesis on Serbo-Croatian language policy. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy traveling, trivia, philosophy, board games, conlanging, and art history.
Archives
December 2023
TAGS |