To me, the word kiosk implies a small booth, along the lines of one-window newsstands, information centers, or small touchscreen stations. That's the implication in most Anglophone countries (except in Australia, where the term refers to take-out places), but many other places use the original definition of "open pavilion" that could refer to much larger structures; the connection was a perceived resemblance in shape. Kiosk was borrowed in the early sixteen hundreds from French kiosque, and the concept in turn was taken from the Ottomans, who called it koshk. That traces to Persian kushk, which meant "palace" and has an unknown origin. Thanks to the adoption of the modern definition, usage of the word kiosk in literature skyrocketed during the 1980s.
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Abdul
1/26/2020 12:34:07 pm
Hi Adam,
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AUTHORHello! I'm Adam Aleksic, a senior studying government and linguistics at Harvard University, where I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy trivia, politics, vexillology, geography, board games, conlanging, art history, and law.
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