THE ETYMOLOGY NERD
  • Home
  • ALGOSPEAK
  • Infographics
    • Interactive Map
  • EVENTS
  • MORE
    • Shop
    • Media/publicity

HROFI'S BRIDGE

2/6/2019

0 Comments

 
There are 21 cities and towns named Rochester in 17 American states, Canada, and Australia. All of these are named after Rochester​, a city in Kent, England. But where does that name come from? Let's start with the suffix -chester, which you've certainly seen in many city names. That and -cester always come from the Old English word ceaster, which means "Roman camp", so all cities with names like Leicester, Westchester, Worcester, and so on (just some examples I could think of) were either colonized by the Romans or are named after cities colonized by the Romans. Meanwhile, the stem of the word comes from the Old English word Hrofes, which is the possessive of the name Hrofi. So Rochester means "Hrofi's Roman camp"... except it doesn't. Turns out that the scribe who copied down the name into English, St. Bede the Venerable, mistranslated the Latin word Durobrivae, which was supposed to be "fort by the bridge". Instead of "bridge", we got Hrofi, which became the Ro- in the 22 international Rochesters.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    AUTHOR

    Picture
    Hello! I'm Adam Aleksic. You're looking at a super outdated page

    Archives

    December 2023
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016

    TAGS

    All
    Interview
    Satire

Picture
CONTACT: [email protected]
SUBSTACK • TIKTOK • INSTAGRAM • YOUTUBE
I do not have a facebook account that's an impostor
  • Home
  • ALGOSPEAK
  • Infographics
    • Interactive Map
  • EVENTS
  • MORE
    • Shop
    • Media/publicity