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THOROUGHLY WHITE

1/6/2020

1 Comment

 
The word diaper was first used in a story about a knight from the year 1350, when it was spelled diapre. After that, it also took the forms ​dyapre, dyapere, dyaper, dyoper, dieper, dyeper, diapre, and dipar until diaper became the standard during the seventeenth century. The term comes from the Old French word diapre, which specifically referred to a a type of cloth with a repeating pattern (these were often used as diapers). That, through Latin diasprum, traces to the Ancient Greek word diaspros, which was composed of the prefix dia-, meaning "across" or "thoroughly, and the root aspros, "white" (the diapres were typically white). Dia derives from Proto-Indo-European dwo ("two") and aspros was relatively rare but is thought to also be from PIE. The British slang word nappy is a diminutive of napkin.
1 Comment
Jim Brown
6/4/2020 12:21:52 am

Early diapers were white and had a pattern? Seems unlikely.
Is there a connection to the word diaspora? Also seems unlikely, but there is a lot of similarity.

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    Hello! 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. 
      If I don't cover it soon, I probably already did it
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