939: aloft, aloof, and alow Jul 5, 2017

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Plenty of words from various trades end up making their way into day-to-day speech. 'Aloft', which now can refer to anything raised up, was originally a sailing-term denoting the top have a ship. That and the word 'loft' both come from an Old Norse word 'lopt' meaning 'air'; derivatives appear in other places, in fact in German the airfare is called the 'luftwaffe' and 'balloon' is 'luftballoon'. 'Aloof' as well was once a nautical terms that originally meant "the direction of the wind" but now used almost exclusively relates to people, and probably cats. 'Alow', however, is one nautical term that did not enter casual speech, but it still refers to the lower half of a ship, and is also related to the word 'lie'.

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