Word Facts

Plenty of place-names now adopted into English came about when the Romans would simply generalize an area with a name that did not match that of the locals, such as with ' Belgium ', though other times this was reversed, such as with the Germanicized ' Switzerland '. The city of York in England was called 'Eboracum' in Latin when the Romans originally settled. The name did not come from out of nowhere, and it is thought that this comes from Common Brythonic, though no one knows the precise language that was spoken in that area at that exact time. The meaning is only reconstructed from similarities between other Celtic languages including the Irish 'iúr', Scottish Gaelic 'iubhar', and Welsh 'efwr' that the meaning in Latin 'land of the yew-tree' is understood. Celtic words for 'yew' also appear in France, such as with the city, 'Ivry le Temple' in the Northern part of the country.

It isn't uncommon to see '-onym' at the end of words that have a meaning associated with names or words. 'Synonym' and 'antonym' may be the most common, but there are others including ' demonym '. There is also the 'retronym' which is quite a new word—only invented in the 1980's—referring to a word that is created from an existing one for the purpose of distinguishing two different meanings that original word has newly acquired. This comes up usually for two reasons, either due to technological advancements or from social changes. With books for example, e-readers that allow people to download books necessitate the differentiation between traditional paper-books and e(lectronic)-books. Another example is when same-sex couples gained marriage-rights, what could have always just been called 'marriage' then was distinguished through other terms like 'straight-marriage' and 'gay-marriage' among other terms. If there ar...

It may sound pretty silly that The Grand Teton mountain, part of the Trois Tetons in Wyoming are French for 'big tit' and 'three tits' respectively, but naming places after breasts is more than may seem at first glance on a map. Generally, this is because place-names change over time and gradually shift from whatever the original pronunciations were. The city of Manchester in England was 'Mamucium' in Latin. Many names for English cities were either Latinized from Celtic, or were invented when Romans made settlements in a given area for the first time, such as the city of York which was erected as a fort by the Romans under the name 'Eboracum' (more on this at a later date). Manchester, however, was renamed by the Romans in the first century AD as 'Mamucium' from Celtic meaning 'breast-shaped hill'. Many other places in the U.K. have this 'mam' beginning, including 'Mam Barisdale' in Scotland as well as others. Some brea...

Words are only as meaningful as what people associate with them. With 'yacht', for example, it is largely thought of as a purely recreational ship, and likely also associated with the rich. That is, unless you spoke Dutch in the 16th century in which case the word might have a strong association with European pirates. The term, originally in Dutch as 'jaghte' or 'jaghtschip' was a fast boat which the Dutch navy used to chase, or indeed hunt pirates in the Low Countries. The word originates from a word meaning to hunt, spelt 'jagt', 'jaght' or 'jacht'. The German word 'Jäger' meaning 'hunter' is related to this and may be more familiar to English speakers from various aspects of pop-culture. If you're curious about the shift between '-gh-' and '-ch-' you can see more here , though as a loan-word, 'yacht' is something of an exception in English. 

Plenty of words come from given names including ' doll(y) ' as a toy (and a prostitute), 'john' as a man who hires a prostitute, and ' dick ' as a penis. Generally, these words arise because of the commonality of the name and thence an association between whatever the word means the people. Some words derive from given names but come about not because of their frequencies, and instead because of one person in particular associated with it. 'Madeleine' is spelt a number of different ways including 'Madeline', 'Madelyn', however, only the first of these is the term for the little French pastry. The baked good is called such since it is named after the French pastry-cook, Madeleine Paulmier. The variation in spelling would have even existed with the common nickname too, which is usually Maddy or Maddie.

On certain coat of arms there will be lions which represented courage, among other things. Richard I of England, also known as Richard the Lion Heart had three lions on his crest, but if you were to take a time-machine and ask him what they were called, he might call them 'leopards'. The 'leo-' of that last word is the same as 'Leo' the constellation, with that and 'lion' both from the Latin for, you guessed it, 'lion' ultimately from Greek. What's perhaps more interesting is that the '-pard' in the second half of 'leopard' also comes from a Greek word, 'pardos', meaning 'leopard' as we think of them now, but really 'panthers' before the name was given to the American cat. In older writings in English 'pard' would have been normal in the same context as 'leopard' now. For a long period in history, 'lion' and 'leopard' were more or less interchangeable, as some people t...

Learning another language can be difficult, but learning one that has similar vocabulary, grammar or another similarity would be easier, so languages like French or Dutch are easier for English speakers to pick up than Arabic or Mandarin . Nevertheless, a word that look similar to another in one language will not necessarily mean the same thing in the other. Generally, these are called "false cognates", and though this generally refers to similar pronunciation or spelling, two words could be cognates irrespective of their apparent relation so long as they derive from the same word. The English word 'forlorn' meaning 'sad, lonely, or abandoned' comes from the Old English 'forloren' when it meant ‘depraved’ as the past participle of 'forlēosan'. While 'forlorn' does not mean the same as the Dutch 'verliezen' or German 'verlieren' which both mean 'lose', they all come from a Germanic origin that in English became...

There are plenty of groups of words that are all etymologically related though they do not have similar meanings, much in the same way as with 'budget', 'bulge', and 'belly' . The words 'pouch' and 'pocket' denote similar things and are relatively close in appearance, so it might not be too surprising that they are indeed related. The '-et' that exist in 'pocket' is typical of many other French diminutives that are found in English, though the stem is not 'pock' in this case, but 'poke'. It may be true that most English speakers would associate that word with the act of jabbing, 'poke' does also refer to a small purse in some dialects, you may recognize the word from the phrase "a pig in a poke". While they all come from Old French, the words come from different dialects so while 'poke' and 'pouch were 'poche' in Old Northern French (which would have been 'pouch' in Ol...