174 Fun Facts About Etymology

The Greek root of 'etymology', etymos, means what?

True: etymos meant 'true' or 'real', since Greek thinkers held that a word's origin revealed its true sense; lacking historical records, their own derivations were mostly guesswork.

What is the term for a noun after which something is named, like Elizabeth I for the Elizabethan era?

An eponym can even name a stretch of time: the Assyrians named each year after a high official as early as the second millennium BC.

Which author first used 'portmanteau' for a blended word like smog or motel?

Lewis Carroll: in Through the Looking-Glass (1871) Humpty Dumpty explains 'slithy' as two meanings packed into one word, like a two-compartment portmanteau suitcase.

Which Oxford English Dictionary editor coined the term 'back-formation', citing 'burgle' from 'burglar'?

James Murray, the Oxford English Dictionary's chief editor from 1879, introduced 'back-formation' in its own entry for 'burgle', a verb that had only recently been carved out of the older noun 'burglar'.

The word 'loanword' is itself an example of what?

A calque: 'loanword' is a word-for-word translation of German Lehnwort, while 'calque' itself, fittingly, is a loanword from French.

The Earl of Sandwich reputedly ate meat between bread to avoid leaving what?

Gaming table: the tale comes from a foreign visitor's account of London in the 1770s, where a gambling statesman eats beef between toast rather than stop play; the book never names John Montagu, the 4th Earl.

The word 'boycott' comes from a land agent shunned in which country in 1880?

Ireland: Captain Charles Boycott, land agent for Lord Erne in County Mayo, was shunned by Land League tenants in 1880, and his surname became the word within months.

What does 'quarantine' literally mean, from the Italian word quarantena?

Forty days: plague-era Italian ports kept arriving ships waiting a quarantena, a spell of forty days, before anyone could land; the word already named forty-day periods of fasting and penance.

Which word did Karel Čapek's play R.U.R. give the world, from the Czech for 'forced labour'?

Robot: the play fills a factory with manufactured workers, and Čapek credited his brother Josef with suggesting the name, from robota, the forced labour serfs once owed their lords.

Which poet coined 'pandemonium' as the name of the capital of Hell?

John Milton: in Paradise Lost the fallen angels raise Pandaemonium, 'all demons', as the palace where Satan holds council; the wild uproar we now call pandemonium is a later, figurative sense.

Most reference works trace 'OK' to a late-1830s abbreviation fad in which city?

Boston: the Morning Post printed 'o.k.' for 'oll korrect' in March 1839 as a joke, and it outlived the fad because Martin Van Buren, nicknamed Old Kinderhook, used O.K. as a slogan in his 1840 re-election campaign.

The bikini was named after an atoll where what had happened four days earlier?

A public nuclear bomb test: the US set off the Able bomb at Bikini Atoll on 1 July 1946, and Louis Réard borrowed the name for a swimsuit so skimpy that a Paris showgirl, not a fashion model, wore it at the launch.

Some dictionaries trace the 'mate' in checkmate to a Persian phrase meaning what?

The king is helpless: on this reading Persian shāh māt has māt as 'at a loss' or 'defeated'; the better-known gloss 'the king is dead' takes the word for Arabic māta, 'he died'.

Which English word derives from the name of the Roman goddess Ceres?

Cereal comes from Latin cerealis, 'of Ceres', the Roman goddess of grain and the harvest; ceramic, cerebral and ceremony share only the spelling.

Which English word derives from the name of the goat-legged Greek god Pan?

Panic comes from Greek panikon, 'of Pan': the goat-legged god was believed to cause sudden groundless fear in flocks and travellers; panorama, pandemic and pantry merely share the spelling.

Which month is named after the two-faced Roman god of doorways?

January: Janus, the two-faced Roman god of doorways and beginnings, was shown looking both ways at once, a fitting patron for the month the Romans came to count as the start of the year.

Thursday is the Germanic equivalent of the Roman day named for which god?

Jupiter: Latin dies Iovis, 'Jupiter's day', survives in French jeudi and Italian giovedì; Germanic peoples swapped in their own thunder god Thunor (Thor), giving Thursday.

Which English weekday is named after the god the Norse called Odin?

Wednesday: Old English Wōdnesdæg, 'Woden's day', uses the Anglo-Saxon name for Odin; it was a translation of the Roman 'day of Mercury', which is why the French say mercredi.

Which English word derives from the name of the Roman god Vulcan?

Volcano: Vulcan was the Roman god of fire and the forge, and the Romans pictured his workshop smoking beneath fiery mountains such as Etna and the island still called Vulcano.

Which ocean's name goes back to the Titan who held up the heavens?

Atlantic: Greek Atlantikos, 'of Atlas', at first meant only the sea off north-west Africa, beyond the mountains where the Titan was said to hold up the heavens; the name spread to the whole ocean much later.

Which word for self-love comes from a youth who pined for his own reflection?

Narcissism: in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Narcissus cannot tear himself away from his reflection in a pool and dies beside it, and a narcissus flower springs up on the spot.

The mausoleum takes its name from the tomb of King Mausolus at which ancient city?

Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum): the tomb built around 350 BC for Mausolus, satrap of Caria, by his widow Artemisia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Which Athenian lawgiver's harsh code gave English a word for severe laws?

Draco: his code of about 621 BC was said to punish even trivial offences with death, giving us 'draconian'; by tradition Solon later repealed all of it except the law on homicide.

The word 'ostracism' derives from what?

Pottery sherds used as voting tokens: each citizen scratched a name on an ostrakon, a broken piece of pottery, and the man with the most votes was banished for ten years.

Which word for a flatterer comes from Greek for 'one who shows the fig'?

Sycophant: Greek sykophantēs first meant an informer; one old story has them denouncing fig smugglers, another points to a rude hand gesture called the fig, and neither is proven.

The Greek root of 'sarcasm' means what?

To tear flesh: Greek sarkazein, from sarx, 'flesh', meant to strip off the flesh as a dog would, then to bite the lip in rage, and finally to sneer, the sense English borrowed.

The word 'academy' comes from the grove of Akademos, where which Greek philosopher founded his school?

Plato: he taught in a grove named for Akademos, a hero of Greek legend, so every academy since carries the name of an obscure mythical figure instead of its famous founder.

Stoicism takes its name from what feature of the agora where Zeno of Citium taught?

A painted porch: Zeno taught around 300 BC in the Stoa Poikile, the 'Painted Porch', a colonnade hung with battle scenes on the north side of the agora, so his followers were called Stoics.

The word 'lyceum' comes from a gymnasium beside Apollo's sanctuary where which philosopher founded his school?

Aristotle: he set up his school among the covered walks of the Lyceum, a public gymnasium named for the neighbouring sanctuary of Apollo Lykeios, and the name later passed to schools and lecture halls.

'Muscle' comes from Latin musculus, the diminutive of what animal?

Mouse: Latin musculus means 'little mouse', from mus; a flexing biceps was thought to look like a mouse moving under the skin, and Greek mys likewise meant both.

'Malaria' comes from Italian words meaning what?

Bad air: Italian mala aria, 'bad air', blamed the disease on marsh vapours; only in 1897 did Ronald Ross show that mosquitoes carry the parasite.

'Candidate' derives from a Latin word meaning what?

Shining white: Latin candidatus, 'clothed in white', comes from candidus, 'shining white', because Romans seeking office wore specially whitened togas; the same root gives us 'candid'.

The Latin salarium, root of 'salary', derives from the word for what?

Salt: Latin salarium comes from sal, 'salt', most likely a soldier's allowance for buying salt; the story that legionaries were paid in salt itself is unsupported.

A popular but false etymology says 'sincere' comes from Latin words meaning what?

Without wax: the tale that honest sculptors sold marble sine cera, unpatched with wax, is folklore; sincerus more likely means 'of one growth', unmixed, from sem- and crescere.

The 'aster' in 'disaster' is Greek for what?

Star: Italian disastro, 'ill-starred', pairs a pejorative dis- with astro, from Greek astron, 'star', reflecting the belief that calamities were caused by unfavourable planets.

The word 'assassin' shares its roots with which substance?

Hashish: Arabic hashshāshīn, 'hashish users', was a slur on the Nizari Ismailis, whose medieval killings of Crusader and Muslim leaders gave Europe the word via Italian and French.

The Arabic term al-jabr, root of 'algebra', originally referred to what?

Setting broken bones: al-jabr means 'reunion of broken parts', used for bone-setting and, in al-Khwarizmi's 9th-century treatise, for restoring balance in equations; in 16th-century English 'algebra' also meant bone-setting.

Which astronomical term comes from the Arabic for 'opposite'?

Nadir: Arabic naẓīr as-samt, 'opposite the zenith', named the point of the sky directly beneath an observer; English later stretched the word to mean the lowest point of anything.

Which trade word reached English via Italian from the Arabic for 'notification'?

Tariff: Arabic taʿrīf, 'notification', came to mean a list of fees to be paid, and Mediterranean trade carried it into Italian as tariffa; that first sense lives on wherever a tariff is simply a list of prices.

English 'coffee' goes back to Arabic qahwah by way of kahve, a word in which language?

Turkish: Ottoman kahve carried Arabic qahwah west into Europe's languages; medieval Arab lexicons traced qahwah itself to a word for an alcoholic drink.

Which seat's name comes from an Arabic word usually glossed as a raised bench or platform?

Sofa: Arabic ṣuffa is usually glossed as a stone or wooden bench, though one dictionary makes it a carpet; in early English a sofa was a raised, cushioned part of the floor in an Eastern room, not a piece of furniture.

Which sweetener's name goes back to Sanskrit śarkarā, 'grit or gravel'?

Sugar: Sanskrit śarkarā, 'grit, gravel', came to name the gritty crystals and travelled west as Persian shakar and Arabic sukkar; 'jaggery' is traced to the same word.

'Sorbet' reached English from French, but the Persian sharbat behind it named what?

A beverage: Persian sharbat was a sweet fruit drink, from an Arabic verb meaning 'to drink'; the word travelled west twice, giving English both 'sherbet' and, through Italian sorbetto, 'sorbet'.

Which of these words for stolen goods came into English from Hindi?

Loot: Hindi lūṭ, plunder, was picked up by the British in South Asia; plunder itself is an older borrowing, said to have reached English during the Thirty Years' War.

'Khaki' is a loanword from Hindustani that literally means what?

Soil-coloured: khākī comes from Persian khāk, 'dust' or 'earth'; a frontier regiment, the Corps of Guides, adopted the drab cloth in the 1840s, and armies around the world later copied it as camouflage.

'Shampoo' derives from a Hindi word meaning what?

To press or knead: Hindi chāmpo, imperative of chāmpnā, 'to press, knead', first meant a massage in English (1762) and only in the 1860s shifted to washing hair.

'Catamaran' comes from a Tamil word meaning what?

Tied logs: Tamil kaṭṭumaram, from kaṭṭu, 'binding', and maram, 'wood', named a raft of tree trunks lashed together; English later moved the word to boats with two parallel hulls.

'Juggernaut' derives from Jagannath, a Sanskrit title of Krishna meaning what?

World-lord: Sanskrit Jagannātha, from jagat, 'world', and nātha, 'lord', is a title of Krishna whose huge temple chariot at Puri was said to crush devotees beneath its wheels.

'Bandana' goes back to the Hindi verb bāndhnā, which means what?

To tie: bāndhnā gave bāndhnū, a way of knotting cloth before dyeing so that the bound points stay pale; the spotted handkerchiefs made this way carried the name west.

'Tycoon' derives from a Japanese title meaning 'great lord' used for whom?

The shōgun: taikun, 'great lord', was the title his officials used with foreign envoys; Americans took it home after Perry's mission, and those around Abraham Lincoln nicknamed him 'the Tycoon'.

'Tsunami' is a borrowing from Japanese meaning what?

Harbour wave: Japanese tsu, 'harbour', and nami, 'wave', named waves that seemed to appear only when they surged into port; English adopted the word in 1896 after the Meiji Sanriku disaster.

The word 'emoji' comes from Japanese words meaning what?

Picture and character: Japanese e, 'picture', plus moji, 'written character'; the likeness to 'emotion' and 'emoticon' is pure coincidence.

US Marines borrowed 'gung-ho' from a Chinese term they took to mean what?

Work together: Evans Carlson gave his Marine Raiders gōnghé as a motto in the Second World War, believing it meant 'work together'; in Chinese it was only the short name of the Industrial Cooperatives.

Which condiment's name is usually traced to a Hokkien Chinese word for pickled-fish brine?

Ketchup: Hokkien kê-chiap was a brine of pickled fish, and the name reached English traders in South-East Asia, perhaps by way of Malay kicap; tomatoes only joined the recipe around 1800.

By popular myth, 'kangaroo' was an Aboriginal reply meaning what?

I don't understand: the tale, also told as 'I don't know', is false; fieldwork in the 1970s confirmed gangurru as the Guugu Yimithirr name for a large kangaroo, just as Cook's party had recorded it.

'Avocado' comes via Spanish from a word in which language?

Nahuatl: the Aztec word āhuacatl became Spanish aguacate, probably bent into avocado under the pull of an old Spanish word for a lawyer; English mangled it further into 'alligator pear'.

The tomato's species name, lycopersicum, literally means what?

Wolf peach: the name joins Greek lykos, 'wolf', and persikon, 'peach'; accounts differ on why, one tracing it to a plant in the ancient physician Galen, another to folklore linking nightshades with werewolves.

The Taíno word batata, which gave English a familiar vegetable name, actually meant what?

Sweet potato: Taíno batata named the sweet potato, the first of the two to reach Europe; Spanish patata, probably influenced by Quechua papa, then passed the name to the unrelated Andean potato.

A false etymology derives 'barbecue' from a French phrase meaning what?

From beard to tail: the tale that barbecue comes from French barbe à queue, a beast roasted whole, is a myth; the word is Spanish barbacoa, from a Taíno term for a wooden frame set on posts.

Which storm word did Spanish explorers pick up from the Taíno people?

Hurricane: Taíno hurakán became Spanish huracán, and English writers tried dozens of spellings, among them furacane, herrycano and hurlecane, before hurricane won out in the 1600s.

Which explorer's writings first recorded canoa, the Caribbean word behind 'canoe'?

Columbus used canoa for the dugout boats he saw in the Caribbean; Spanish carried the word home, and English tried cano, canow and canoa before the spelling settled in the 1700s.

'Raccoon' comes from a Powhatan word meaning what?

Animal that scratches with its hands: Captain John Smith wrote the Powhatan word down in spellings such as aroughcun, later worn smooth into raccoon; Germans instead call it Waschbär, 'wash-bear', for dousing its food.

The ancestral roots of 'skunk' combine 'fox' with what verb?

To urinate: the word's reconstructed ancestor joins a root for urinating to one meaning 'fox'; English settlers borrowed it from a New England language as 'squunck' in the 1630s.

'Chipmunk' may come from the Odawa name of which other animal?

Red squirrel: Odawa jidmoonh, cousin of Ojibwe ajidamoo, names the red squirrel and literally means 'one who descends trees headlong'; an early English spelling was 'chitmunk'.

'Toboggan' likely comes from a word for sled in which language family?

Algonquian: French Canadians took tabagane from a word for sled in an Algonquian language such as Mi'kmaq, and English borrowed it from them; in the American South a toboggan is now also a knitted cap.

'Anorak' comes from a word in which language?

Greenlandic: annoraaq, a hooded jacket, reached English in the 1920s; by the 1980s British slang was calling obsessive hobbyists 'anoraks' after the coats they were supposed to wear.

The Canary Islands take their name from the Latin for 'Islands of the' what?

Dogs: Pliny the Elder put the name Canaria down to the island's many large dogs (Latin canis), though it may really echo a Berber people, the Canarii; the songbird was later named after the islands.

'Calico' takes its name from a port in which country?

India: calico is named after Calicut, now Kozhikode, on the Malabar Coast, where Europeans first bought the cotton cloth; in Britain the word still means a plain white cloth, in America a printed one.

The knitted fabric 'jersey' is named after an island in which sea?

English Channel: jersey is named after Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands, long known for knitted woollens and fishermen's sweaters; the name later moved on to athletes' close-fitting shirts.

The tuxedo is named after a village in which US state?

New York: the tuxedo is named after the country club at Tuxedo Park, a millionaires' colony north of New York City, where the short jacket was adopted for small dinners in place of the tailcoat.

The cardigan is named after an earl who led which famous cavalry action?

The Charge of the Light Brigade: James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, led it at Balaclava in 1854; the cardigan is said to copy the knitted wool waistcoat British officers wore in that Crimean campaign.

The word 'maverick' is usually traced to a Texas rancher who failed to do what?

Brand his cattle: Samuel Maverick, a Texas lawyer, left the calves of his herd unbranded; his name is thought to have passed to any stray unbranded calf, and later to an independent-minded person.

Étienne de Silhouette, whose name became a word, held which post in 1759?

French finance minister: Étienne de Silhouette was Louis XV's Controller-General of Finances for eight months in 1759; by the usual account his penny-pinching made 'à la Silhouette' a tag for anything cheap, cut-paper portraits included.

Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, whose name went to the guillotine, followed which profession?

Physician: Dr Guillotin only proposed, in 1789, that France behead the condemned by machine as a humane reform; the surgeon Antoine Louis designed it, and it was first called the louisette.

The leotard is named after a French performer of what kind?

Acrobat: Jules Léotard, a French trapeze artist, gave the first flying-trapeze show in Paris in 1859 wearing a skin-tight one-piece; the garment took his name only after his death in 1870.

Bloomers take their name from Amelia Bloomer, an activist in which cause?

Women's rights: Amelia Bloomer, editor of The Lily and a suffrage campaigner, promoted the loose 'Turkish' trousers Elizabeth Smith Miller wore in 1851, and the press tagged them bloomers.

Wellington boots are named after a duke who won which battle?

Waterloo: Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, had his London shoemaker George Hoby strip the tassel from the Hessian boot and cut it lower, and fashionable men copied their war hero's boots.

The saxophone was invented by an instrument maker of which nationality?

Belgian: Adolphe Sax, born in Dinant in 1814, moved to Paris and patented the saxophone there in 1846, intending it for orchestras and military bands.

Louis Braille, whose name became a writing system, lost his sight how?

A childhood accident: aged three, Louis Braille pierced an eye with an awl in his father's leather workshop at Coupvray; infection took the sight of both, and while still a schoolboy he began the dot code that bears his name.

Pasteurization is named for Louis Pasteur's 1860s work on which drink?

Wine: Pasteur showed that briefly heating wine killed the microbes that soured it; the process that took his name was extended to milk only later.

Luigi Galvani, namesake of galvanization, famously made what twitch with electricity?

Frog legs: in 1780s Bologna Luigi Galvani made dissected frog legs twitch with sparks and metal contacts, calling it 'animal electricity'; Volta's rebuttal led to the battery, and 'galvanize' kept Galvani's name.

Which fair featured the original Ferris Wheel that gave the ride its name?

Chicago World's Columbian Exposition, 1893: George Washington Gale Ferris Jr.'s 80-metre wheel, built to answer Paris's Eiffel Tower of 1889, carried 36 cars of up to 60 riders each.

The compression-ignition engine is named after which engineer?

Rudolf Diesel, a German engineer born in Paris in 1858, patented his compression-ignition engine in 1892; he vanished from the Channel steamer Dresden in September 1913.

Shrapnel is named after an officer of which British corps?

Royal Artillery: Lieutenant Henry Shrapnel began experimenting in 1784 with hollow shells packed with shot that burst in mid-air; the British Army adopted the design in 1803, and it took its inventor's name.

Nicotine is named after Jean Nicot, who sent tobacco home as French ambassador to which country?

Portugal: from his embassy in Lisbon, Nicot sent tobacco seeds and leaves to France; botanists named the plant Nicotiana after him, and the alkaloid found in it was called nicotine in the early 1800s.

Whose 'animal magnetism' did a 1784 Paris commission including Benjamin Franklin find baseless?

Franz Mesmer: the 1784 royal commission, with the chemist Lavoisier sitting beside Franklin, ran experiments and found no evidence for Mesmer's magnetic fluid, but his name survived in 'mesmerize'.

The word 'kindergarten' was coined in 1840 by which pedagogue?

Friedrich Fröbel renamed his play institute at Bad Blankenburg a Kindergarten, 'garden of children', in 1840, because he believed children should be nurtured like plants in a garden.

Who coined 'utopia' for a 1516 book?

Thomas More coined Utopia for his 1516 book about an ideal island, from Greek ou, 'not', and topos, 'place', so 'no place', with a pun on eu-topos, 'good place'.

The Three Princes of Serendip, the tale behind 'serendipity', came from an island now called what?

Sri Lanka: Serendip is the old Persian and Arabic name for Ceylon, now Sri Lanka; Horace Walpole coined 'serendipity' in a 1754 letter after the princes' knack for lucky discoveries.

'Gerrymander' blends salamander with the name of a governor of which state?

Massachusetts: Governor Elbridge Gerry signed the 1812 redistricting bill that produced a salamander-shaped state senate district in Essex County; a newspaper cartoon dubbed it the Gerry-mander, and Gerry became vice president in 1813.

The two men credited with coining 'lynch law' both lived in which state in the 1780s?

Virginia: Charles Lynch of Bedford County headed an irregular court that punished Loyalists during the Revolutionary War, and William Lynch of Pittsylvania County is linked to a vigilance committee of about 1780; both were Virginians.

'Dunce' mocks the followers of a medieval theologian from which country?

Scotland: followers of the medieval philosopher John Duns Scotus, said to have been born at Duns in the Scottish Borders, were mocked by 16th-century humanists as hair-splitters, and 'Duns man' shrank into the insult dunce.

The 'mare' in 'nightmare' was originally what?

A demon that sits on sleepers' chests: Old English mare was an evil spirit believed to crush sleepers and cause bad dreams; it is unrelated to 'mare', a female horse, and survives in German Nachtmahr.

The word 'nerd' first appeared in print in a 1950 book by which author?

Dr. Seuss: If I Ran the Zoo (1950) lists 'a Nerkle, a Nerd, and a Seersucker too'; Newsweek reported 'nerd' as teenage slang for a square in 1951.

A famous myth says 'quiz' was invented on a bet in 1791 in which city?

Dublin: the tale has theatre manager Richard Daly betting he could coin a word overnight and paying street children to chalk 'quiz' across Dublin in 1791; the word was already in use in the 1780s, so the story is a myth.

Bluetooth technology is named after a 10th-century king of which country?

Denmark: Harald Bluetooth united Denmark in the 10th century; Intel's Jim Kardach proposed his name as a code name because the standard was meant to unite the PC and mobile industries, and the logo merges his runic initials.

French saboter, the source of 'sabotage', is usually said to have first meant what?

Clatter in wooden shoes: French saboter, from sabot, 'wooden shoe', is usually glossed as to walk loudly, then to bungle a job; the popular tale of clogs thrown into machines is unsupported.

'Biscotti' literally means what in Italian?

Twice cooked: Italian biscotto, from Latin bis coctus, 'twice cooked', because the dough is baked, sliced and baked again to dry it; English 'biscuit' has the same origin.

'Marathon' comes from the legend of which Greek messenger?

Pheidippides: Herodotus has him run to Sparta to seek help before the battle in 490 BC; the dying messenger who runs from Marathon with news of victory appears only in Plutarch and Lucian, centuries later.

The dye colour magenta commemorates an 1859 battle in which modern country?

Italy: French chemist François-Emmanuel Verguin patented the dye in 1859 as fuchsine; it was renamed to celebrate that June's French and Sardinian victory over Austria at Magenta, a town in Lombardy.

The word 'coach' probably derives from the name of a village in which country?

Hungary: Hungarian kocsi, 'of Kocs', named the carriages built in the village of Kocs from the 15th century; a sports coach is the same word, from Oxford slang for a tutor who 'carries' a student through exams.

The word 'ghetto' originates from a Jewish quarter in which city?

Venice: a 1516 decree confined the city's Jews to an island district called the Ghetto, and the name spread to Jewish quarters elsewhere; it may come from getto, a foundry on the site, though the origin is disputed.

'Paparazzi' comes from a photographer character in which 1960 film?

La Dolce Vita: Federico Fellini's film named its news photographer Paparazzo; by one account the surname was picked at random from a man named in George Gissing's travel book By the Ionian Sea, though its origin is disputed.

Confetti originally referred to what in Italian?

Small sweets: Italian confetti were the sugar-coated sweets thrown at carnival, from Latin confectum, 'prepared'; cheap chalk or plaster pellets and then paper took their place, and English kept the name for the paper.

'Piano' is short for pianoforte, itself from an Italian phrase meaning what?

Harpsichord with soft and loud: Bartolomeo Cristofori's invention of about 1700 was described as gravicembalo col piano e forte, a harpsichord whose hammers could play soft and loud, later shortened to pianoforte and piano.

'Siesta' comes from a Latin phrase meaning what?

Sixth hour: Latin sexta hora was counted from dawn, so the sixth hour fell at midday, the time for a rest; 'noon' is a cousin that slipped, from nona hora, the ninth hour, about 3 p.m.

'Guerrilla' comes from a Spanish word meaning what?

Little war: Spanish guerrilla is the diminutive of guerra, 'war', and named the irregular fighting against Napoleon's armies in the Peninsular War of 1808–14, whence English took it.

'Alligator' is an English mangling of the Spanish el lagarto, meaning what?

The lizard: Spanish explorers in Florida called the reptile el lagarto, 'the lizard'; English speakers ran article and noun together as 'aligarto', and the modern spelling alligator settled by the 1620s.

'Rodeo', once a livestock gathering, comes from a Spanish verb meaning what?

To surround: Spanish rodear, 'to go round, surround', comes from rueda, 'wheel'; English first used rodeo for a herd round-up, and the riding-contest sense came later.

'Vigilante' came into American English from a Spanish word for what?

A watchman: Spanish vigilante, 'watchman', from Latin vigilans, 'watchful', was applied in the United States to members of self-appointed vigilance committees, which kept rough order where official authority was weak.

'Cookie' in American English derives from a Dutch word meaning what?

Little cake: Dutch koekje, diminutive of koek, 'cake', was borrowed into American English, which is why Americans say cookie where Britons say biscuit.

'Coleslaw' is an anglicisation of a Dutch term meaning what?

Cabbage salad: Dutch koolsla joins kool, 'cabbage', and sla, short for salade, 'salad'; it reached American English in the 1790s, and its second half now stands alone there as 'slaw'.

The word 'landscape', first recorded in 1598, was borrowed from which trade's jargon?

Dutch painters: English borrowed landschap as a studio word for a picture of inland scenery, so a 'landscape' was a painting first and only later the countryside itself; the -schap ending is cousin to English -ship.

The Oxford English Dictionary's favoured theory derives 'Yankee' from what?

Janke, a Dutch diminutive name: the OED calls 'Little Jan' perhaps the most plausible theory, though the origin is uncertain; in one account, Dutch colonists pinned the nickname on English settlers in Connecticut.

The English word 'ombudsman' is rooted in an Old Norse word meaning what?

Representative: Old Norse umboðsmaðr joined umboð, 'commission', and maðr, 'man', for someone entrusted to act for another; Sweden gave the title to a parliamentary watchdog in 1809, and English borrowed it from Swedish.

The 'gås' in smörgåsbord literally means what?

Goose: Swedish smörgås, literally 'butter-goose', first meant the lumps of butter that rise to the surface of churned cream, then a buttered slice of bread; bord is 'table'.

'Geyser' comes from the name of a specific geyser in which country?

Iceland: the Great Geysir in the Haukadalur valley, named from Icelandic geysa, 'to gush', gave every spouting hot spring its name, yet it has itself spent long spells almost dormant.

'Ski' entered English from which language?

Norwegian: ski descends from Old Norse skíð, a split stick of wood; English kept the Norwegian spelling but not its 'shee' pronunciation, and early on often wrote it 'skee'.

'Vodka' is a Russian diminutive literally meaning what?

Little water: vodka is the diminutive of Russian voda, 'water'; spirits were named as waters elsewhere too, as in Latin aqua vitae and Gaelic uisge beatha, both 'water of life', the second being the root of 'whisky'.

The Russian word sputnik literally means what?

Fellow-traveller: Russian sputnik, from s-, 'with', and put', 'path', means a travelling companion, and so a satellite; the Soviets launched the first, Sputnik 1, on 4 October 1957.

'Poltergeist' comes from German words meaning what?

Noisy ghost: German poltern, 'to rumble, make a racket', plus Geist, 'ghost', names a spirit known less by being seen than by the knocks and bangs blamed on it; English borrowed the word in the 19th century.

'Wanderlust' combines German words meaning what?

To hike and desire: German wandern, 'to hike, wander', and Lust, 'desire', make Wanderlust; German also has Fernweh, 'far-sickness', coined as the opposite of Heimweh, 'homesickness'.

'Glitch' is thought to come from German and Yiddish words meaning what?

To slip or slide: 'glitch' probably comes from Yiddish glitsh, 'a slip', akin to German glitschen, 'to slip'; it is said to have been 1940s radio slang, and astronaut John Glenn, writing in 1962, defined a glitch as a spike in voltage.

'Chutzpah' derives from a Hebrew word meaning what?

Insolence or audacity: Hebrew ḥutspah, 'insolence', reached English through Yiddish khutspe; Leo Rosten's classic example is the man who kills his parents and then pleads for mercy as an orphan.

'Bagel' derives from a Yiddish word meaning what?

Ring or bracelet: Yiddish beygl goes back to Middle High German böugel, a little ring, from bouc, 'ring, bracelet'; its first written mention, Kraków's Jewish community rules of 1610, ties it to celebrating a birth.

The element cobalt is named after what?

A goblin blamed by German miners: Kobold, a mine-goblin, got the blame for ores that looked like silver but yielded poison fumes and no metal; Georg Brandt isolated cobalt from them in the 1730s.

Which currency takes its name from the thaler, a silver coin first struck at Joachimsthal in Bohemia?

Dollar: Joachimsthaler was shortened to thaler, then Low German daler; Spanish pieces of eight were called dollars in Britain's American colonies, and that familiarity made it the name of the US currency.

Which dance's name may come from a Bohemian word for 'Polish woman' or for 'half'?

Polka: dictionaries derive the Bohemian dance's name from polka, 'Polish woman', or from půlka, 'half', for its half-steps; the 1840s craze was so big that unrelated goods borrowed the name, which is how polka dots got theirs.

The word 'umbrella' evolved from the Latin umbra, meaning what?

Shadow: Latin umbra, 'shade, shadow', gave Italian ombrella, 'little shade', a sunshade; English took 'umbrella' around 1600 and the rain sense followed, while French parapluie means 'against rain'.

The Greek krystallos, source of 'crystal', was also the word for what?

Ice: Greek krystallos, from kryos, 'frost', meant ice; ancient writers such as Pliny took clear quartz for water frozen so hard it would never thaw, so rock crystal shared the name.

'Curfew' comes from an Old French phrase meaning what?

Cover fire: Old French cuevrefeu named the evening bell, rung at about eight or nine, that told medieval households to bank their hearths for the night so an untended fire could not burn down the town.

The word 'mortgage' derives from a Law French term with what literal meaning?

A 'death pledge', because the pledge dies either when the loan is repaid or when the property is taken through foreclosure.

The English word 'window' comes from an Old Norse word literally meaning what?

Wind eye: Old Norse vindauga joined vindr, 'wind', and auga, 'eye', for an unglazed hole in the roof; the Norse word drove out Old English eagþyrl, 'eye-hole'.

The flower name 'daisy' is thought to be a corruption of which phrase?

'Day's eye' fits because the whole head closes at night and opens each morning; Chaucer called it the 'eye of the day'.

The word 'vaccine' comes from the Latin for which animal, thanks to Edward Jenner's smallpox work?

Cow is 'vacca' in Latin, and the first vaccine was made from cowpox. Edward Jenner showed that catching mild cowpox left people immune to deadly smallpox.

The word 'clue' first meant what object, which Ariadne gave Theseus to escape the Labyrinth?

A ball of thread, then spelled 'clew', is what the word first meant. Because Theseus followed one out of the maze, 'clue' came to mean anything that guides you to a solution.

'Karaoke' is a Japanese coinage, half of it clipped from an English word, that literally means what?

Empty orchestra is the literal meaning: 'kara' is empty and 'oke' is short for 'okesutora', the Japanese borrowing of the English word orchestra. English later borrowed the whole word back.

'Orangutan' joins two Malay words: 'hutan', meaning forest, and 'orang', which means what?

Person is what 'orang' means, making the ape a 'person of the forest'. The phrase may first have described forest-dwelling people before Europeans applied it to the animal.

'Gymnasium' comes from the Greek 'gymnos', which described how ancient athletes exercised: in what state?

Naked is the meaning of 'gymnos', and the verb 'gymnazein' literally meant to train naked. Greek gymnasia also trained the mind, which is why a Gymnasium in Germany is a high school.

The farewell 'goodbye' is a contraction, later reshaped to match 'good day', of which older English blessing?

God be with ye had been squeezed into 'godbwye' by the 1570s. 'God' then slid into 'good' under the influence of greetings such as 'good day' and 'good evening'.

Which facial hair style is named after a Union general of the Civil War, with his surname flipped?

Sideburns began as 'burnsides', after General Ambrose Burnside, who wore thick side whiskers joined to a moustache above a shaved chin. Americans flipped the word in the 1880s.

The word 'galaxy' comes from the Greek for which drink, describing the pale band across the night sky?

Milk is 'gala' in Greek, and the Greeks called the hazy stripe overhead 'galaxias kyklos', the milky circle. The English name Milky Way translates the Latin 'via lactea'.

Before 'quiz' meant a short test, the word was 1780s slang, perhaps from universities, for whom?

An eccentric, or simply an oddball, was a 'quiz' by 1782. The classroom sense of a short test dates only from the mid-1800s, and no one is sure where the word came from.

The word 'money' traces back to a title of which Roman goddess, near whose temple coins were struck?

Juno carried the title Moneta, and Rome's coins were made beside her temple on the Capitoline Hill. The same title also gave English the word 'mint'.

The root 'chron', found in 'chronic', 'chronology' and 'synchronize', comes from a Greek word meaning what?

Time is 'khronos' in Greek, so a chronic illness is literally one that lasts a long time. An anachronism, by the same logic, is something placed in the wrong time.

The root 'geo', shared by 'geography', 'geology' and 'geometry', comes from the Greek word for what?

Earth is 'gē' in Greek, so geometry is literally 'earth-measuring'. English once translated the Latin word the same way, as 'eorðcræft', or earth-craft.

The root 'phon', heard in 'telephone', 'symphony' and 'microphone', comes from a Greek word meaning what?

Sound, or voice, is 'phōnē' in Greek, so a symphony is literally a 'sounding together'. The word once named instruments ranging from the hurdy-gurdy to the bagpipe.

The Latin root 'port', found in 'transport', 'portable' and 'export', means to do what?

To carry is 'portare' in Latin, and even 'sport' belongs to the family. It is short for 'disport', literally to carry the mind away from serious matters.

The Latin root 'aud', shared by 'audience', 'audition' and 'auditorium', means to do what?

To hear is 'audire' in Latin, which is why an audit is literally a hearing. Official examinations of accounts were originally done aloud.

The Latin root 'scrib' or 'script', seen in 'describe', 'prescription' and 'scribble', means to do what?

To write is 'scribere' in Latin, and 'scribble' grew out of it. The medieval verb meant to write quickly and carelessly, without regard to correctness.

The root 'man' or 'manu', found in 'manual', 'manicure' and 'manufacture', comes from the Latin word for what?

Hand is 'manus' in Latin, and 'manure' is a surprise member of the family. The verb first meant to cultivate land by manual labour, long before it named the dung spread on fields.

'Placate', 'placid' and 'placebo' share the Latin root 'plac', which means to do what?

To please is 'placere' in Latin, and 'placebo' is simply its future tense: I shall please. Doctors later used the word for a medicine given more to please than to benefit the patient.

'Insult', 'exult' and 'resilient' all grow from the Latin verb 'salire', which means to do what?

To leap is 'salire' in Latin, so an insult was at first a leap upon someone, and to exult was to jump for joy. The salmon may be a relative: its Latin name probably meant 'leaper'.

The Latin root 'struct', found in 'construct', 'structure' and 'instruct', means to do what?

To build is 'struere' in Latin, and 'destroy' is the same verb in reverse. Latin 'destruere' meant to demolish, literally to un-build.

The Latin root 'rupt', found in 'erupt', 'interrupt' and 'bankrupt', means to do what?

To break is 'rumpere' in Latin, and even 'route' is a relative. It comes from 'rupta via', a way broken open by force, such as one cut through a forest.

The Latin root 'dict', found in 'dictate', 'predict' and 'contradict', means to do what?

To say is 'dicere' in Latin, and its offshoot 'dictare' meant to say often or prescribe. That gave Rome the dictator, an official temporarily given absolute power.

The Latin root 'spect', found in 'spectator', 'inspect' and 'spectacle', means to do what?

To look at something is 'specere' in Latin, and 'despise' hides the same root. Latin 'despicere' literally meant to look down on someone.

The Latin root 'tract', found in 'tractor', 'attract' and 'extract', means to do what?

To pull is 'trahere' in Latin, and 'train' comes from the same verb. Long before railways, the word meant the trailing part of a robe, something dragged along behind.

The Latin root 'cred', found in 'credit', 'incredible' and 'credentials', means to do what?

To believe is 'credere' in Latin, and 'credo' means I believe. A creed is named after that opening word of the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds in Latin.

The root 'derm', found in 'dermatologist', 'epidermis' and 'hypodermic', comes from the Greek word for what?

Skin is 'derma' in Greek, which makes a pachyderm literally 'thick-skinned'. A French naturalist chose that label in the 1790s for elephants, rhinos and other hoofed heavyweights.

'Doctor', 'document' and 'doctrine' share the Latin root 'doc', which means to do what?

To teach is 'docere' in Latin, so a doctor was first a scholar or religious instructor. The medical sense crept in from about 1400 and was not common until the late 1500s.

Which everyday word is a hybrid that bolts the Greek 'tele', meaning far, onto a Latin root for seeing?

Television pairs Greek 'tele' with Latin 'visio', sight, unlike the all-Greek telescope and telegraph. Its first documented use was by the Russian scientist Constantin Perskyi, in a paper read in Paris in 1900.

The root 'naut', found in 'astronaut', 'cosmonaut' and 'nautical', comes from a Greek word for whom?

Sailor is 'nautēs' in Greek, from 'naus', a ship. 'Nausea' belongs to the same family: it began as the Greek word for seasickness, literally ship-sickness.

The Latin root 'corp', found in 'corpse', 'corporation' and 'incorporate', is the word for what?

Body is 'corpus' in Latin, so a corporation is literally a group of people united in one body. The law still treats a company that way, as a single artificial being.

The Latin root 'ann' or 'enn', found in 'annual', 'anniversary' and 'millennium', is the word for what?

Year is 'annus' in Latin, so an anniversary is literally the turning of a year. English first used the word mainly for the yearly return of the day a person died or a saint was martyred.

The Latin root 'duc' or 'duct', found in 'conduct', 'introduce' and 'educate', means to do what?

To lead is 'ducere' in Latin, and a Roman 'dux' was a leader or commander. That title became the English 'duke', the highest rank of hereditary nobleman.

'Companion' and 'pantry' share the Latin root 'pan', which is the word for which everyday food?

Bread is 'panis' in Latin, so a companion is literally someone you share bread with. A pantry was originally the bread room, before it held provisions of every kind.

The words 'senate', 'senior' and 'senile' share the Latin root 'sen', which carries what basic meaning?

Old is the meaning: the Roman Senate was literally a council of elders. 'Sir' and 'sire' are worn-down forms of the Latin 'senior', which simply meant older.

'Philosophy' joins two Greek roots, also seen in 'bibliophile' and 'sophomore', that together literally mean what?

Love of wisdom is the literal sense of the Greek 'philosophia'. Pythagoras is said to have been the first to call himself a 'philosophos' rather than a 'sophos', a wise man, which seemed immodest.

'Congregate', 'segregate' and 'gregarious' share the Latin root 'greg', the word for what?

A flock or herd is 'grex' in Latin, so gregarious first described animals that live in groups. 'Egregious' began as praise for standing out from the flock, before ironic use soured it.

'Cosmos' and 'cosmetic' share a Greek root; what did 'kosmos' mean before it came to mean the universe?

Order, or orderly arrangement, is what 'kosmos' first meant. The verb 'kosmein' meant to arrange or adorn, which is how make-up came to be called cosmetics.

'Agony', 'antagonist' and 'protagonist' share the Greek root 'agon', which means what?

A contest is 'agōn' in Greek, especially one at the public games. A protagonist was the actor who played the first part, and agony began as the struggle for victory in events such as wrestling.

'Vague', 'vagabond' and 'extravagant' share the Latin root 'vag', which means to do what?

To wander is 'vagari' in Latin, so an extravagant idea is one that strays outside the usual bounds. The word began in Church law, describing papal decrees left out of the official collections.

'Innocent', 'innocuous' and 'noxious' share the Latin root 'noc' or 'nox', which means to do what?

To harm is 'nocere' in Latin, so an innocent is literally someone who does no harm. 'Nuisance' grew from the same verb and once meant real injury, not mere annoyance.