1897: minister and master Feb 24, 2020

We probably all think of both 'master' and 'minister' as authoritative roles, but this has not always been the case. Namely with the case of 'minister' this is true, as it originally meant 'servant', sharing a root with the word 'minus'. 'Master' is the opposite of that in some ways, being a doublet with 'magistrate' meaning 'leader' from a Latin root meaning 'more'.
Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

1511: "I'll be home in 3 days; don't wash" Might be False Jan 31, 2019

752: Circumfix Dec 29, 2016

1187: A Decline in Declension? Mar 10, 2018