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TOXIC BOW

8/30/2018

2 Comments

 
We borrowed the word toxic from French toxique​ in the late seventeenth century. Toxique​ comes from Latin toxicus, which meant "poisoned", not unlike today's definition. This in turn comes from Ancient Greek toxikon, which had the very specific meaning of "poison meant to be used on arrows". There was actually a more ubiquitous word for "poison" in general, ion, but the io- sound was considered "too weak" so, for scientific purposes, toxikon was repurposed instead. Now, the word toxikon can be conjugated to toxikos, meaning "of or pertaining to bows", from toxon, "bow" (you can see here the metonymic shift, through association of poison on the bows). Finding the etymon of taxon is difficult, as nothing is confirmed about it. Linguists think that there is a connection to the Latin word taxus, which had a definition of "javelin", and that both words either come from  a Scythian origin or the Iranian word taxsa​, meaning "bow".
2 Comments
Dawn Davis
8/18/2021 08:06:12 am

Thank you Adam,

Is it implied In the case of "toxon" being a bow that it is actually an arrow?? I don't understand why someone would put poison on a bow.

You have a fascinating website from which I've learned the meaning of two new words (not in connection to my inquiry)!

Cheers,
Dawn

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Gracie
7/19/2022 03:15:11 pm

Revelation 6:2
And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

Interestingly, the Antichrist [ this white horse spoken of above comes before Jesus Christ who comes on a white horse at His second coming to the earth ]

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    Hello! I'm Adam Aleksic. This year, I graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Government and Linguistics. There, I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society and wrote a thesis on Serbo-Croatian language policy, ​magna cum laude. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy philosophy, trivia, vexillology, geography, board games, conlanging, art history, and law. 
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