Category: Etymology

Schurrbart

By Simon

Schnurrbart

I came across the wonderful German word Schnurrbart [ˈʃnʊrba:ɐ̯t] recently and just liked the sound of it. The Bart part means beard – you can see the connection – and the Schnurr part comes from schnurren (to purr).

According to Wikipedia: “Ein Schnurrbart ist ein über der Oberlippe wachsender Bart.” or “A moustache is an beard growing over the lip”, and it is also referred to as an Oberlippenbart (overlipbeard). A large moustache is called a Schnauzbart (Schnauze = lip, muzzle, snout).

Other words used for moustache in German include Bürste (brush), Schnauzer (a type of dog), Schnorres, Schnorrati, Sör, Rotzbremse (“snot brake”) and Popelfänger (“bogie catcher”). Do you know/use any others?

Other words for moustache in English include tache/tash, whiskers, face fungus, tea/soup strainer, snot catcher/mop, lip rug, and crumb catcher.

The English word moustache comes from French, from the Neapolitan word mustaccio.

Do moustaches have interesting names or nicknames in other languages?

Sources: bab.La dictionary, PONS dictionary, Wikipedia, howtogrowamoustache.com, OED

Market places

By Simon

Last week the origins of the word agora came up in conversation and I thought I’d find out more.

An agora was a place of gathering or marketplace in Ancient Greece. It comes from the Ancient Greek ἀγείρω [ageirō] (I gather, collect), from the Proto-Indo-European *ger- (to assemble, gather together), which is the root of the English words gregarious, aggregate, congregate, egregious, segregate, allegory, category, and panegyric, via the Latin gregārius (of the herd, common), which comes from grex (herd, flock).

In Romance languages, such as Aragonese, Asuturian, Galician, Ladino, Mirandese and Portuguese, the word agora is also found, but it means ‘now’ and comes from the Latin expression hāc hōra (‘this hour’). The Spanish word ahora (now) comes from the same root. hōra comes from the Ancient Greek ὥρα [hōra] (time, season, year), from the Proto-Indo-European *yōr-ā, a suffixed form of *yēr/*yeh₁r- (year, season), which is the root of the English word year, and the words for year in many other Indo-European languages.

Source: Wiktionary

The friend who asked about agora wondered whether the Welsh word agor (open) might come from the same root. I haven’t been able to find any information about this. Does anybody know?

Voices and calls

By Simon

After writing yesterday’s post I was thinking about the Czech word hlas [ɦɫas] (voice, vote) and realised that it is quite similar to the Welsh word for voice, llais [ɬais]. I wondered it they share the same root.

Hlas comes from the Proto-Slavic *golsъ (voice), from the Proto-Balto-Slavic *galsas (voice), from the Proto-Indo-European *golHsos, from *gels- (to call)

The words for voice in other Slavic languages come from the same root: Old East Slavic: голосъ (golosŭ); Belarusian: голас (hólas); Russian: голос (gólos) and глас (glas – archaic/poetic); Ukrainian: голос (hólos); Old Church Slavonic: гласъ (glasŭ); Bulgarian: глас (glas); Macedonian: глас (glas); Serbo-Croatian: гла̑с; Slovene: glas; Kashubian: głos; Polish: głos; Slovak: hlas; Lower Sorbian: głos; Upper Sorban: hłós.

Also from the same root are the Latin gallas (cockrel); Romani glaso (voice); Romanian glas (voice, vote); Old Norse kalla (to call); English call, Dutch kallen (to chat, talk); German kallen (to scream, talk loudly, talk too much); Lithuanian galsas (sound, echo); Welsh galw (to call) and llais (voice); and possibly the Irish and Scottish Gaelic glaodh (to cry, shout).

Sources: Wiktionary

Souhlasím

By Simon

I learnt a useful Czech expression today – souhlasím – which means ‘I agree; all right; ok(ay)’. The element hlas (voice; sound; vote) I recognise, and I guessed that the prefix sou- might mean together, or something similar.

According to Wiktionary, sou- is akin to the English prefix co- (together, mutually, jointly), so souhlasím might be literally translated as ‘I together-voice’ or ‘I with-voice’.

Examples of usage and related expressions:

– souhlasím s tebou – I agree with you
– souhlasím s dlouhou procházkou – I am quite game for a long walk
– souhlas = agreement; consent; acceptance; approval; consensus
– souhlasit (s) – to agree (with); approve; concure; assent; go along (with)
– souhlasící = agreeable; congruous; consentaneous

Sources: slovnik.cz, bab.la Dictionary

Attercop

By Simon

Attercop / Lob / Cob / Spider

In The Hobbit, Bilbo uses the words attercop, lazy lob, crazy cob, and old tomnodd as insults he’s attacked by giant spiders in Mirkwood. I guessed that they are alternative names for spiders, but I thought I’d check.

Attercop is a word for spider from the Old English átorcoppe, from átor/attor (poison) and coppe, from cop (top, summit, round head), or copp (cup, vessel). It is apparently still used in North Yorkshire, though is considered old fashioned. It can also mean a peevish or ill-natured person. Possibly related words include the Norwegian edderkopp(er) (spider) and the Danish edderkop(per).

Lob is another extinct word for spider from the Old English lobbe/loppe, of unknown origin.

Cob is another extinct word for spider that features in cobweb, and is probably cognate with the Flemish cobbe/coppe (spider) and Westphalian cobbe (spider).

I can’t find any information about tomnodd. Do you know where it might come from?

Other Old English words for spider include gangewifre (‘a weaver as he goes’) spíðra, wæfergange, gongelwæfre and spigt.

Source: OED, Word Wide Words, Wiktionary, Old English Tranlsator

Towns, gardens and fences

By Simon

Last week I went to Denbigh, a small town in the north east of Wales, to sing in a concert. On the way there there was some discussion about the origins and meaning of the name Denbigh. So I thought I’d find out more. The English name of the town doesn’t mean anything, but the Welsh name, Dinbych, means ‘small fortress’ – din is an old word for fort or castle related to the word dinas (fort; refuge; city), and bych is a variant form of bach (small). Related words include dinasfraint (citzenship), dinasol (civic, municipal), and dinaswr (citizen).

Din comes from the same root as the Irish dún (fort), the Scottish Gaelic dùn (fortress, heap), the Manx doon (fort, fastness, stronghold, bastion, earth fort, dun, fortified rock), and din (fortress) in Breton and Cornish – the Proto-Celtic *dūnom (stronghold) [source], which is cognate with the Proto-Germanic *tunaz/*tunan (fortified place), the root of the Old English tuun/tūn (an enclosure; farmstead; village; estate), from which we get the word town; and of the Dutch tuin (garden), and the German Zaun (fence, hedge).

The element -dunum in Gaulish/Latin places names, such as Lugdunum (Lyon) and Acitodunum (Ahun), comes from the same root, as does the element -ton in English places names such as Workington, Ulverston, Dalton and Warton.

The root of all these words is the PIE *dhu-no- (enclosed, fortified place, hill-fort), from *dheue- (to close, finish, come full circle) [source].

Here’s a Glossary of Welsh Place-Name Elements, and a Key to English places names.

Smoking Funky Radio

By Simon

Radio / Rundfunk

The word radio is based on the verb to radiate, which comes from the Latin radius, which means stick rod; beam, ray (of light); shuttle (of loom); rod for drawing figures (in mathematics), radius of circle; long olive (plant); spoke (of wheel).

Radio or radiotelegraphy, the wireless transmission of signals through space by electromagnetic radiation of a frequency below that of visible light, was originally called wireless telegraphy, which was abbreviated to wireless in the UK. The word radio was first used in the sense of wireless transmission in 1897 by Édouard Branly, a French physicist, as part of radioconductor. The first commercial broadcasts in the USA started in the 1920s and radio was the word used for them.

The word radio, or something similar is used in many of the world’s languages, however there are some exceptions: in German, for example, radio is Rundfunk [ˈʀʊntfʊŋk], although in Swiss German Radio is used. Rund means around or round, and Funk means radio or wireless, and funken means to cable; to radio; to send; to transmit (via radio). A related word is Hörfunk [ˈhøːɐ̯fuŋk], which means broadcasting: Hör comes from hören (to hear/listen),

In Mandarin Chinese radio is 收音机 [收音機 – shōuyīnjī] (‘recive sound machine’), in Hmong it’s xov tooj cua, in Icelandic it’s útvarp (‘out throw’ ?) and a radio is viðtæki (‘wide machine/apparatus’ ?).

Are there other languages in which the word for radio is not a variant on radio?

The English word funk, as in the style of music, or the unpleasant smell, comes from the Norman French funquer/funquier (“to smoke, reek”), from the Old Northern French fungier (“to smoke”), from the Vulgar Latin fūmicāre, an alteration of the Latin fūmigāre (“to smoke, fumigate”).

Sources: Wikipedia, Collins Latin Dictionary, Wiktionary, bab.la Dictionary, Icelandic Online Dictionary

Mountains and molehills

By Simon

Making a mountain out of a molehill

I discovered yesterday that the French word for mole is taupe /top/, and I wondered if this might be related to the English word taupe, which, according to the OED, means ‘A brownish shade of grey resembling the colour of moleskin’ or in others words, mole-coloured.

The English word taupe comes from the French, which comes from the Latin talpa (mole), which is of unknown origin, according to Wiktionnary.

Mole-related words and expressions in French include:

– taupinière = molehill
– taupier = mole catcher
– être myope comme une taupe = to be blind as a bat
– noir comme une taupe = pitch-black

The French equivalent of to make a mountain out of a molehill is se faire une montagne d’un rien or faire une montagne d’une taupinière. What is the equivalent of this phrase in other languages?

A Snell Wind

By Simon

The Scots phrase, a snell wind, appears in one of the books I’m reading at the moment, and as I hadn’t come across it before it mystified me a bit. It’s some kind of wind, but what kind?

According to the OED, snell is a Scots and Northern English word meaning:

1. (of a person) quick in movement or action; prompt, smart, active, strenuous
2. keen-witted, clever, sharp, acute, smart
3. severe, sharp, unsparing
4. (of weather) keen, bitter, severe
5. grievous, heavy, stinging; rigorous; painful
6. shrill, clear-sounding

So it seems that the most likely meaning for a snell wind is a bitter one.

Snell comes from the Middle English snell (quick, fast) from the Old English snel(l), from the Proto-Germanic *snellaz (active, swift, brisk). It is cognate with the German schnell (quick, swift, active), the Italian snello (quick, nimble), the Old French esnel/isnel (snell), and the Occitan isnel/irnel (snell), the Old Norse snjallr (skilful, excellent), the Swedish snäll (nice, kind, kind-hearted, decent, clever, benignant) and the Danish snild (clever) [source].

A related word is snellness (sharpness, keenness).

When I haver

By Simon

In the Proclaimers song I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles), which we often sing in the Bangor ukulele club, the Scots word haver makes several appearances (see the lyrics here), and none of us know what it means. I thought it meant something like to shout, like holler, or to cry.

According to The Online Scots Dictionary, haver [‘he:vər] means:

– n. Nonsense, foolish talk, gossip, chatter.
– v. To talk in a foolish or trivial manner, speak nonsense, to babble, gossip. To make a fuss about nothing, to make a pretence of being busy, to dawdle, to potter about, to saunter, lounge. pt. pp. haivert, haivered. adj. Half-witted.

The OED defines haver as:

1. to talk garrulously and foolishly; to talk nonsense. (Chiefly Sc. and north. dial.)
2. to hesitate, to be slow in deciding. (Orig. Sc. dial. but now in general English use)

Related words include haiverin = babbling chatter; nonsensical gossiping, and haiverel = halfwit; wittless.

There’s another haver, which is listed separately in dictionaries, which means oats and comes from the Middle English haver, from Old Norse hafri (oats), from the Proto-Germanic *habrô (oats), from the Proto-Indo-European *kapro- (goat) [source].

Related words include:

– havermeal = oatmeal, half-ground meal
– haverpoke = a horse’s nosebag

Have you ever havered? Do you have any other words with a similar meaning?