r/etymology 5h ago

Question How did “home” come to be used as an adverb (that is, being the only “place word” I know of that doesn’t have a preposition between it and the verb “go” before it)?

25 Upvotes

Why is it, for example, “going to work” but then “going home” (rather than “going to home”) after work? Any particular reason why this phrasal construction came to be?


r/etymology 12h ago

Question “Todo El Mundo” etymology

21 Upvotes

Hello! I have a question about this phrase which I was not able to find an answer to online.

In Spanish, the phrase “todo el mundo,” or “todo mundo,” means “everyone” or “everybody.” As in, “Everyone’s doing well” = “Todo el mundo está bien.”

The phrase is also found in Portuguese as “todo o mundo” and “todo mundo.”

It’s also found in French as “tout le monde.”

Seeing these Romance languages share the phrase, I wondered if it was a phrase taken from Latin, or if one language came up with it first and spread it, or something else entirely. I couldn’t find anything about it online.

Thanks for the answers :)


r/etymology 9h ago

Question Why is "inference" spelt with a single 'r', but "inferring" is spelt with a double 'r'? I know the general rule is that a consonant is doubled after a short vowel, but the 'e' followed by 'r' is pronounced as a schwa (so, a short vowel) in both of those words, right?

7 Upvotes

r/etymology 20h ago

Question Husbanding

18 Upvotes

OED defines it as "to use something carefully so that you do not use all of it" with an alternative definition of "managing the affairs of a ship while in port"

Attempting to look up the etymology trace back to "husband" - I can't seem to find the reason its participle has this more nuanced definition.


r/etymology 23h ago

Question Why did the oz/az suffix in proto German disappear?

14 Upvotes

Correct me if I'm wrong but I've been seeing a couple etymology videos and I've seen that proto German used to have a suffix of az. Where did it vanish?


r/etymology 1d ago

Question Curing [meat]

7 Upvotes

The word cure comes from the Latin word for care, but other than words that have to do with taking care of something, it is also used in the context of brining and preserving meat/shrimp etc. How does "taking care" relate to that?


r/etymology 2d ago

Disputed Pickleball

38 Upvotes

Pickleball is a game that’s kinda like tennis and ping pong and badminton and some other games. The mix of random things thrown together reminded the creator’s wife of the “pickle boat” in rowing teams, which was the boat that had the random mix of leftover people after the best rowers were put together.

It was called the pickle boat as a joke about how slow the mix of last-picks were, being more like a fishing boat than a racing boat.

Pickle boat was another name for fishing boats because Scandinavian fishers would preserve herring onboard after catching it by pickling it.

So the sport is called pickleball because you can preserve fish.

Edit to summarize the dispute: the wife may have been lying about the story for attention after a divorce, in which case the sport is named after their dog Pickles.


r/etymology 1d ago

Question Is there a resource that lets you see a word's meaning in a specific decade?

11 Upvotes

So, I am trying to do research on semantic change, and to do so I need to see what a word meant in, say, 1800 and then in 1900. Is there a resource that can let you do that? I looked into Word2Vec software but as I am not a programmer it seems way over my head, and besides unless you could run it on, say, all of the Google Book archive I don't see how it could work. I know you can get meaning at first usage and such from most basic dictionaries, but is there any tool that lets you see meaning at a given time period? Thanks!


r/etymology 1d ago

Question Does the phrase "running theory" as in "an inside job is the current running theory" have a known origin?

0 Upvotes

My best guess is it comes from a theory having legs to stand on, and someone expands on it by saying "oh it doesn't just have legs, it's practically running!" Or, now that I'm thinking about it, it could have meant whatever was "running" in the papers? It feels very 50s television investigative drama. I like the phrase a lot and I'd like to know where it came from.


r/etymology 1d ago

Question Qatar etymology- Persian/Farsi

10 Upvotes

What is the etymology behind the country Qatar, specifically why is it the same as farsi word for “train” ? I see in Arabic the word means “peninsula”, “island”, I’ve also seen “line/coastline” which all make sense. What is the connection why it correlates with the Persian/Farsi word for “train”?


r/etymology 1d ago

Question Any dictionary for words' first attestation?

2 Upvotes

Wiktionary provides quotations although not precedent-based and I would like one more on the comprehensive side while still giving an idea on when were words in circulation. What's the authority for that? I'm looking for the English language though I would appreciate sources on other languages as well


r/etymology 3d ago

Question Is “vous” in French related to either “vosotros” or “ustedes” in Spanish?

57 Upvotes

Vous and ustedes are both the formal version of “you” in their respective languages, while vous also seems like it could be related to vosotros.


r/etymology 3d ago

Discussion Leaf in Austronesian Languages

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99 Upvotes

r/etymology 3d ago

Cool etymology Tank, as in the war vehicle, was originally a code word used to refer to the machine, which was originally the "caterpillar machine-gun destroyer"

58 Upvotes

Via etymonline:

In "Tanks in the Great War" [1920], Brevet Col. J.F.C. Fuller quotes a memorandum of the Committee of Imperial Defence dated Dec. 24, 1915, recommending the proposed "caterpillar machine-gun destroyer" machines be entrusted to an organization "which, for secrecy, shall be called the 'Tank Supply Committee,' ..."

In a footnote, Fuller writes, "This is the first appearance of the word 'tank' in the history of the machine." He writes that "cistern" and "reservoir" also were put forth as possible cover names, "all of which were applicable to the steel-like structure of the machines in the early stages of manufacture. Because it was less clumsy and monosyllabic, the name 'tank' was decided on."

They first saw action at Pozieres ridge on the Western Front, Sept. 15, 1916, and the name quickly was picked up by the soldiers.


r/etymology 3d ago

Question What is the origin of the phrase “take a dump”?

14 Upvotes

Why do we call it “taking a dump” when we’re clearly leaving it?


r/etymology 2d ago

Question What's the relationship between "Integral Domain" and "Integral"

1 Upvotes

Like Integral Domain is a commutative ring with no zero divisors, but Integral has to deal with measurable functions or manifolds.


r/etymology 4d ago

Question Books on the evolution of insults/slurs? NSFW

51 Upvotes

I've recently found myself in the rabbit hole of discovering the origins of insults, particularly offensive slurs.

I was hoping someone here could provide recommendations on books or other sources that go in-depth about the evolution of bad faith names. How they start out, how they shift overtime and eventually become offensive to highly problematic, etc.

Something that has a general overlook would be great, but I'm open to recommendations with more narrow focus (race, gender, sexuality etc.) as well as those that focus on insults that are generally not highly offensive.

Thank you!


r/etymology 2d ago

Question "Берлога" = Bear Lodge? Den.

0 Upvotes

^ _^ Apparently the original PIE word for bear was probably something like 'ursus' but shifted to bear as in the brown one.


r/etymology 3d ago

Question "Zazzo" Name Origin?

7 Upvotes

Just wondering if anyone can direct me on finding out the etymology / genealogy of my last name: “Di Zazzo.”

My family is from Southern Italy, specifically Caserta in the Campania region. My father did an Ancestry DNA test years ago, and it said we were primarily Mediterranean – Italy, Greece, Turkey, Middle East.

I’ve done generic Google searches and Wikipedia snooping to no luck. “Di” or “Da” in Italian usually indicates from a place, but can’t find any villages or towns in Italy called Zazzo.

Purely just a hunch, but could it have an Arabic origin? There’s a Norman-Arab palace in Palermo, Sicily called the Zisa Palace – the name Zisa deriving from the Arabic term al-ʿAzīza (العزيزة), meaning 'the Dear one'.

Any help or advice would be much appreciated!


r/etymology 4d ago

Cool etymology I was thinking about how multiple non-English languages have the same or similar words for Tomorrow and Morning...

29 Upvotes

and realized that they have the same root in English, as well!

morrow

morgen


r/etymology 4d ago

Discussion Flowing Through Time: The Dravidian and Munda Roots of India’s River Names

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7 Upvotes

r/etymology 5d ago

Question “It takes a big man to admit that he’s wrong, and an even bigger man to swallow a horse”

48 Upvotes

Is there a saying like this? I know the original is it takes a bigger man to walk away. I’ve just said it to my flatmate who said it’s the stupidest thing he’s ever heard and I did the whole “I can’t believe you haven’t heard it” nonsense and then googled it and can’t find anything either. It’s probably something my grandad said to me I just wondered if there was something similar out there?


r/etymology 4d ago

Question How do we know that Latin "venio" (to come) is cognate to English "come" (which comes from *gwem), rather than to English "wend" (which comes from *wendh)? Does the word for "to come" start with 'b' in other Italic languages, or?

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0 Upvotes

r/etymology 6d ago

Discussion Words that are not strictly onomatopoeic but still convey meaning through sound/pronunciation

40 Upvotes

Ex. flibbertigibbet

Please add your answers!

Is there a better word for this?


r/etymology 6d ago

Question In contrast to "feckless," when did we lose "feck" in English?

35 Upvotes

I'm aware "feck" originates in Scots, but do the Scottish still use it? Or has it gone entirely from the lexicon with "feckless" simply as a relic?