THE ETYMOLOGY NERD
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STAR SAILOR

3/15/2017

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For such a futuristic word, astronaut sure has old origins. It was popularized by NASA for the Mercury missions, but lingered in the English language among the stories of science fiction writers, arguably as far back as the nineteenth century. Whoever did create it obviously combined two Greek words, astro (also the source of astral), meaning "of the stars", and naut (also the source of nautical), meaning "of the sea". Astro is a combining form of the earlier Greek word astron, which meant "star". This comes from the Ancient Greek word aster, from Proto-Indo-European hster, both still meaning "star". Here it gets interesting: hster is reconstructed as having come from the even earlier PIE word hehs, which meant "to burn", though it wasn't until thousands of years later that we realized that the stars are continuously burning. Naut, on the other hand, comes from nautes ("sailor"), which itself derives from naus, ("ship").  This probably traces to the Proto-Indo-European word nau, which meant "boat" and may or may not come from the earlier PIE word meaning "swim". So while we can definitely say that an astronaut is a "star sailor", it's only a possibility that they are also "fire swimmers".
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Catherine Hannan link
6/18/2019 01:40:39 pm

I just came across your website while trying to research a possible connection between the Latin word nauta and the English words net and note. Since I'm not an etymologist, I have really been struggling with this, but I've given it my best shot. Hopefully you can help me out.
I know that nauta is a masculine word meaning sailor. But the word endings, both singular and plural are feminine. The explanation I got back when I took Latin years ago was that "nauta" was a borrowed word, origins unknown. But some researchers have placed it origins with the Greek. The Romans borrowed a lot of words from the Greeks and vice versa, but it's curious why they neglected to change the word ending in this case. Especially since this word, in its time, was an occupational word. I've been wondering if perhaps this word goes back to an earlier occupation other than sailing, possibly to net making, which might actually explain better why this word would retain its feminine gender.
I have found connections between the words net, knit and knot, which in turn go back to the word ned: an Indo-European word meaning node from which dozens of words have sprung. And there is a similarity between the spellings of the word naught and the Latin/Greek naut, but no direct connection that looks promising. It is also curious that the nautical mile is measured in knots, but this seems to be purely coincidence - unless it goes back to an earlier time than has been recorded historically.
I'm also trying to find a possible connection between the words knot and note, which I believe ties into this from a different direction - that "knot" work might have once been a form of "nota"tion. I think we see a remnant of this in modern musical notation. The "notes" recorded on lines to the right of staves look very much like "knots" tied in cords hung sideways off of staffs. Could music long ago have been read top to bottom rather than left to right? Curious nomenclature we have in music: chords, staffs, bars and brackets. Possibly coincidence, but I've not found any other explanation of why this specific terminology.
Maybe this all means nothing. Maybe just an overactive imagination. If I'm wasting my time trying to figure this out, just let me know. Thanks.

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