So, yesterday I scored tickets to the May 2 Bjork concert at Radio City. I'm totally psyched a) because it's Bjork, b) because I got amazing seats and c) Radio City is supposedly a great venue. Although I've been living in NYC for about 8 years not once in that time have I been to Radio City. In fact, even though I grew up on the geographically propinquant Long Island I've only been to Radio City once in my entire life and that was in 1985 to see Disney's The Black Cauldron.

The word cauldron is from the Latin calidus meaning "warm, hot" and from this root we also get the term caldera which refers to the cavity on the summit of a volcano.

The Black Cauldron was based on Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles which themselves are said to be loosely based on the collection of medieval Welsh prose stories known as the Mabinogion. Professor Eric Hamp has suggested that mabinogi derives from the name of the Celtic god Maponos who was equated with Apollo in Roman times; this is a shame because this hump would have been far more interesting if everything circulated back to Vulcan, the Roman volcano god. Some humps just don't work out.

The Black Cauldron [IMDB]
caldera [Online Etymology Dictionary]
Maponos [Wikipedia]
Mabinogion [Wikipedia]

Labels: Latin, The Daily Hump

The English word petition originally had a chiefly religious sense, meaning a supplication or prayer. The word comes from the Latin verb petere "to require, seek, go forward, to aim at" and ultimately we can trace its origin to the Proto-Indo-European base *pet-/*pte-, "to rush, to fly". From this base we've gotten words like pterodactyl, the Old English feðer (feather) and fearn (fern--for its feather-like fronds), and the Latin penna, meaning "feather, wing" which survives in modern ornithology to mean the contour feather of a bird (as opposed to a down feather or plume). From the Italian plural of penna we get penne, as in the pasta, whose diagonally cut ends likely reminded people of writing utensils, pens, whose name also comes from penna because pens were made from quills, the main shafts of feathers.

petition [Online Etymology Dictionary]
pen [Online Etymology Dictionary]
fern [Online Etymology Dictionary]
penne [AHD]

Labels: Italian, Latin, Old English, PIE, The Daily Hump

I was watching the highly underrated 1966 spy flick Funeral in Berlin last night. Harry Palmer, played by Michael Caine, and Israeli secret agent Samantha Steel enter her apartment to find that it's been ransacked*. Harry's exact words are "You've been burgled."

Burgled is a back-formation of burglar; etymologically speaking a back-formation is created when you remove all the bits and pieces (affixes) of an earlier word to derive, falsely, an "orginal" form. Burglar was from Medieval Latin via Old French. The Latin verb burgare, meaning "to break open, commit burglary" comes from the Latin burgus meaning "fortress, castle" (which is a Germanic loan-word similar akin to borough, bourgeois, etc...). While burglar appeared in English (via Middle English) as early as the 1540s burgled didn't show up until the late 19th c.

*Ransacked is from the Old Norse rannsaka, meaning "to pillage" and literally comes from "to search the house". The second element saka, "to search", is related to the Old Norse soekja, which is the root of our word seek.

burglar [Online Etymology Dictionary]
ransack [Online Etymology Dictionary]
burgle [OED]
back-formation [Wikipedia]
Funeral in Berlin [IMDB]

Labels: Latin, Medieval Latin, Old French, Old Norse, The Daily Hump

I just discovered that gnomic, an adjective meaning "marked by aphorisms or maxims", has no relation to the small race of men who live underground and are known for their pointy hats. Gnomic shares a root with gnostic, the Greek gignoskein, which means "to learn, to come to know" (the Proto-Indo-European base of "to know" is *gno-, the g becoming a k in Proto-Germanic, hence our word know).

Gnome, which was used in a 16th c. treatise by Paracelsus to mean "elemental earth beings", is from the Latin gnomus. This may come from the Greek *genomos "earth-dweller." The garden-variety gnome started appearing in English gardens around the mid 19th c. when they were imported from Germany.

For a great gnome resource check out Gnome and Garden.*

*Obligatory disclosure: I date the author's sister.

gnome [Online Etymology Dictionary]
gnomic [Online Etymology Dictionary]
gnomic [AHD]
gnome [Wikipedia]
gnosticism [Wikipedia]

Labels: Greek, Latin, PIE, The Daily Hump

I always assumed goo had some sort of onomatopoeic quality. Goo! But, in fact, it seems to be short for burgoo which is a thick stew (originally porridge) native to both New England and, oddly, Kentucky and southern Illinois. It's believe that burgoo is an alteration of ragout, also a stew, which is from the French ragoûter "to revive the taste". Goût is from the Latin gustus "taste", which gives us words such as gusto and disgust.

Gustus is from the Proto-Indo-European base *geus-. Interestingly, although this formed the root for "taste" in Greek and Latin in Germanic and Celtic words the root mostly took on the meaning "try" or "choose". Thus we find the Proto-Germanic *keusan leading to the Old Norse kjosa "to choose" and the word kyrja "chooser". Hence, in Norse mythology, the Valkyries are literally "choosers of the slain (valr, as in Valhalla)".

goo [Online Etymology Dictionary]
ragout [Online Etymology Dictionary]
Valkyrie [Online Etymology Dictionary]
burgoo [AHD]
ragout [AHD]

Labels: French, Greek, Latin, Old Norse, PIE, Proto-Germanic, The Daily Hump

Continuing with yesterday's theme (I'm still thinking about the creepy goodness of The Wicker Man), today I'm looking at the holiday being celebrated by the Summerisle residents, Beltane. Beltane is Lowland Scot coming from the Gaelic bealltainn, corresponding to our May 1, which marked the start of summer in the Celtic calendar.

The related Old Irish beltene is from belo-te(p)niâ

where the first element belo- is a cognate with the English word bale (as in bale-fire), the Anglo-Saxon bael, and also the Lithuanian baltas, meaning 'white' or 'shining' and from which the Baltic Sea takes its name.

The second element may be from the Old Irish ten "fire" (thus Beltene would be "bright fire"). This element is from Proto-Indo-European *tepnos, which is related to Latin tepidus "warm".

Beltane [OED]
Beltane [Wikipedia]
Beltane [Online Etymology Dictionary]

Labels: Anglo-Saxon, Gaelic, Latin, Lithuanian, Lowland Scots, Old Irish, PIE, The Daily Hump

The ides of March, a date that will live in infamy (at least for members of the gens Julia). For it's on this day that Gaius Julius Caesar, from the Caesarian section of Rome, was slain by a gaggle of senators which included among them supposed bff Brutus. Of course, Caesar got a pretty good heads up from one Titus Vestricius Spurinna whose name may not be well known but job title surely is: soothsayer. Alas, Titus's warnings were not heeded and the world took receipt of one very dead emperor 2,051 years ago today.

Sooth comes from the Old English soð meaning "truth". Soð is the noun form of the adjective soþ, "true", which was originally *sonþ- and from the Proto-Germanic *santhaz (not to be confused with the Proto-Germanic sexual practice known as dirty *santhaz), a cognate with Old English synn "sin" and Latin sontis "guilty". Ultimately, we go back to the Proto-Indo-European *es-ont meaning "being, existence". This also is the root of today's s-forms of the verb "to be" such as the Latin sunt, German sind and French sont.

Sooth is also a linguistic cousin of soothe, which came from the Old English soðian "show to be true". How this came to mean "to quiet, mollify" beats me. Any ideas?

sooth [Online Etymology Dictionary]
soothe [Online Etymology Dictionary]
Ides of March [Wikipedia]
Julius Caesar [Wikipedia]
Titus Vestricius Spurinna [Wikipedia]

Labels: French, German, Latin, Old English, PIE, Proto-Germanic, The Daily Hump

I began today pondering whether jade, the gemstone, has any relation to the sensation of being jaded caused from over-indulgence. As I discovered the words are not only unrelated but one exists purely because of French gender confusion.

In the 17th c., when the gemstone was still rather unfamiliar, the feminine l'ejade became the masculine le jade via a simple error and hence our modern word jade is not ejade. L'ejade comes from the Spanish piedra de (la) ijada (stone of colic) because of the gem's supposed ability to cure this ailment. Ijada goes back to the Latin ilia meaning flanks or kidney areas (see ilium, one of the pelvic bones).

The blah kind of jade is a figurative sense coming from a noun meaning "a beaten down horse". This may be related to the Old Norse jalda, meaning "mare", which is itself from Finno-Ugric. The OED says there's no evidence to support any of this but it's as good a guess as any.

jade [Online Etymology Dictionary]
jade [OED]

Labels: Finno-Ugric, French, Latin, Old Norse, Spanish, The Daily Hump

I love chickpeas. I love hummus. I love falafel. Falafel comes from the Arabic falāfil, which is the plural of filfil, meaning "pepper". It's likely that this word is related to the Sanskrit pippalī (long pepper), which comes from the Sanskrit pippalam, and referred to the pipal, a fig tree native to India. Incidentally, this is the same species of tree Siddhartha Gautama was sitting underneath when he became enlightened. That's one spicy Buddha.

Our word pepper is from this same root via the Old English pipor, Latin piper and Greek peperi.

pepper [AHD]
falafel [AHD]
pipal [AHD]
pepper [Online Etymology Dictionary]
sacred fig [Wikipedia]

Labels: Arabic, Greek, Latin, Old English, Sanskrit, The Daily Hump

Hump This is a (quasi-)weekly Friday feature where you, the WordHumper reader, choose which lucky word gets humped back to the stoneage (or at least to Proto-Indo-Europa). Today's request comes from RM in California who writes:

Dear Wordhumper,

Like so many in my close knit family, I have an affinity for rodents and in particular, squirrels. Once, I saw a show on some cable channel I no longer get that said the word 'squirrel' comes from a greek word meaning something along the lines of, 'covers head with his tail for shade'. I could be totally wrong because this was awhile ago. So, where does the word 'squirrel' come from?

RM, thanks for the question--our word squirrel comes to us via the Anglo-Norman esquirel circa 1327. Is it a coincidence that the word appears a mere twenty years before the black death ravaged Europe and just one decade before the launch of the Hundred Years' War? I don't think so. That being said, the squirrel made it into Old French (escurel) via the Latin sciurus, which came from the Greek skiouros, literally meaning "shadow-tailed." The notion is squirrels have large bushy tails which allow them to easily shade themselves. Fascinating.

If you have a word you'd like humped please email it along with your city or state to wordhumper@gmail.com. To paraphrase Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest, the ladies sweat my Wordhump style like the squirrels sweat the nuts.

squirrel [Online Etymology Dictionary]

Labels: Anglo-Norman, Greek, Hump This, Latin, Old French

Every once in awhile I stumble upon a word I've never heard before but really probably should know. Yesterday, while reading At Goldman, bald pate == big bucks I stopped and thought "Pate? Is that a typo? And if so, what should the word be?" Of course, it turns out pate is not a typo--it's a real word referring to the top of one's head and is believed to be a shortened form of the Old French patene which comes from the Medieval Latin patena, ultimately from the Latin patina meaning "pan, dish."

You loyal WordHumper readers will likely remember that we've seen pantina before, in regards to the knee; patina is the root for the kneecap's scientific name patella.

pate (1) [Online Etymology Dictionary]

Labels: Latin, Medieval Latin, Old French, The Daily Hump

The Latin word torpedo, coming from the verb torpere, meaning "to be numbed," entered the English language in the 16th c. as a name for the electric ray, so called for its ability to shock. The weaponized version of the torpedo was invented by Robert Fulton for use with his Nautilus submarine; but rather than a self-propelled underwater missile, these torpedoes were stationary mines that floated in the water (these are what Union naval officer David Farragut was referring to when he apocryphally exclaimed "Damn the torpedoes!"). It wasn't until World War I that our modern concept of the torpedo came into fruition. Related, we find the word torpor, meaning a lethargic state.

The Latin torpere can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European root *ster-, meaning stiff, and is the source of our word sterile (which originally had the sense of rigidity--kind of funny).

torpedo [Online Etymology Dictionary]
torpor [Online Etymology Dictionary]
sterile [Online Etymology Dictionary]
torpedo [OED]
torpedo [Wikipedia]
electric ray [Wikipedia]

Labels: Latin, PIE, The Daily Hump

Humping and Valentine's Day go together like wine and stinky cheese: Accoding to the Catholic Encyclopedia, via Wikipedia,

...the saint whose feast was celebrated on the day now known as St. Valentine's Day was possibly one of three martyred men named Valentinus who lived in the late third century...The name was a popular one in Late Antiquity, with its connotations of valens, "being strong". Several emperors and a pope bore the name, not to mention a powerful gnostic teacher of the second century, Valentinius, for a time drawing a threateningly large following.

You (al)chemists in the crowd probably noticed that valens looks a lot like valence, as in the electronic shell that encases an atom. Valence electrons are the negatively-charged particles that orbit in this shell; the more of these (max 8), the less likely the atom will react with anything.

Another form of valens, valere (be strong), is the root of our word valiant. These words all come from Proto-Indo-European base *wal-, likewise meaning "be strong," which happens to also be the roots of the Germanic names Walter and Waldo.

Saint Valentine [Wikipedia]
valence electrons [Wikipedia]
Valentine [Online Etymology Dictionary]
valence [Online Etymology Dictionary]
valiant [Online Etymology Dictionary]
Waldo and Walter [Behind the Name]

Labels: Latin, PIE, The Daily Hump

You may notice the humps this week are shorter; I've got a lot of work to do. Now that that's out of the way today we're going to (very gingerly) hump the scythe: whether reaping barley or souls it's the go-to tool. First things first, however; that initial sc- that we've come to know and love didn't show up until around the 15th c., likely influenced by the Latin verb scindere (to cut: think scissors). Before this time the we had the Middle English sithe and before that the Old English sigði. We can trace the word further back to the Proto-Germanic *segithoz and the Proto-Indo-European base *sek-, meaning "cut".

The base *sek- also happens to be the root of our modern words section, a "cutting off or division," and scythe's close relative, sickle.

scythe [Online Etymology Dictionary]
scythe [OED]
sickle [Online Etymology Dictionary]

Labels: Latin, Middle English, Old English, PIE, Proto-Germanic, The Daily Hump

In yesterday's hump commenter Auntie Sarah pondered why the meat that we eat doesn't often share a name with the animal that it came from: examples being cow-->beef, pig-->pork and deer-->venison. Beef and pork are direct decendants of the Latin names for these animals, so the name change does not reflect another instance of the hunting taboo described in the last post. Venison is a bit more interesting, however.

Venison, too, comes from Latin, but does not follow the beef/pork pattern because venison's root had nothing to do with deer. Rather, venison is from the past participle of the Latin verb venari, meaning to hunt or pursue. When English first took the word from the Old French back at the end of the 13th c., venison actual referred to the flesh of any animal killed in a hunt. It's only in later centuries that the definition became restricted to deer meat.

The Latin venari is likely from the Proto-Indo-European base *wen-, which has been translated as "to strive after, wish, desire, be satisfied." This also happens to form the base for that goddess on a mountain top burning like a silver flame, on the summit of beauty and love; I believe Venus was her name.

Shocking Blue [Wikipedia]
venison [Online Etymology Dictionary]
Venus [Online Etymology Dictionary]
venison [AHD]
venison [OED]

Labels: Latin, Old French, PIE, The Daily Hump

For you non-New Yorkers in the crowd, we're in the midst of a pretty nasty cold snap. Perhaps this is why I've spent the week so far humping reindeer and narwhals. Well, it's still freezing here, so why ruin a good pattern? Today we're going to look at the Arctic and hump the whole damn thing.

I've travelled beyond the Arctic Circle; it's an incredible place and I highly recommend it. Unfortunately, I didn't see any polar bears and that's a real etymological disappointment. See, Arctic comes from Latin arcticus, which comes from the Greek arktikos, meaning "of the bear." Bears? Yes. The Greeks were referring to the constellation Ursa Major which sits in the north. The Greek arktikos recalls the Proto-Indo-European root *rtko, which we also come upon in the Welsh word for bear, arth; this is a probable source for the name Arthur.

Interestingly, in Middle English the word was not Arctic, but rather Artic. This is because in Medieval Latin that first c sound ceased to be pronounced so the Old French, the source of the Middle English, dropped the letter completely. The c was restored in 1601 after the word was refashioned to adhere to the original Latin spelling.

Not surprisingly Antarctic comes from anti + Arctic; that is, "the opposite of the Arctic." And no, despite my graphic there are no polar bears in the southern hemisphere...I was simply trying to draw a connection between the word Arctic and bears. Nevermind. My genius is wasted on you.

arctic [AHD]
Arctic [Online Etymology Dictionary]
Antarctic [Online Etymology Dictionary]
Arctic [OED]
Arthur [Behind the Name]
Ursa Major [Wikipedia]

Labels: Greek, Latin, Medieval Latin, Middle English, Old French, PIE, The Daily Hump, Welsh Gaelic

Yesterday we humped reindeer and today we're going to hump another animal with an affinity for the cold, the arctic narwhal. The narwhal is a type of whale most notable for the extremely long tusk that juts from the left jaw of the male. These tusks can grow up to 10 feet long which is pretty impressive when you consider the whale itself is no longer than 16 feet.

In Inuit legend the narwhal was created when a woman holding onto a harpoon was dragged into the sea by a beluga and became twisted upon the weapon. In Medieval folklore many Europeans equated the narwhal tusk to the unicorn horn. Vikings and other northern traders sold the tusks for large sums of gold as cups fashioned from the ivory were believed to negate the effect of any poison which they held inside.

The word narwhal comes to us from the Danish and Norwegian narhval, which itself is from the Old Norse nāhvalr. It is generally assumed that the Old Norse name is derived from nār, corpse (from its whitish color) + hvalr, whale, although this is not known for sure. Another suggestion is that the narwhal was named "the corpse whale" for its ability to lie belly up and motionless for a few minutes at a time. Or, alternatively, nā- could be short for the Old Norse nál, meaning needle, an obvious reference to the male's tusk.

Here's a fun bit of mental masturbation: If we assume the first element nā- is from nār (corpse) this is a cognate with the Old English ne, neo, which is an element associated with things that are dead. Examples in Old English include neobedd (death bed), the root of our modern word need (surprisingly enough) and orcneas (evil spirits); orcneas is the likely source of our word orc and shares a Latin root with orca, another species of whale.

narwhal [Wikipedia]
narwhal [AHD]
narwhal [Online Etymology Dictionary]
narwhal [OED]
orca [Online Etymology Dictionary]
need [OED]
orc [OED]
orc [Online Etymology Dictionary]

Labels: Danish, Latin, Norwegian, Old English, Old Norse, The Daily Hump

I've always been a firm believer in never airing one's fears out in public. Perhaps it's unwarranted paranoia but putting this information out there opens one up to mental torture on a colossal scale. But a few years ago my grandmother, after surprising me by suddenly speaking German, told me that one should always know the language of one's enemy. By extension, I've come to realize we should also understand the language we use to identify our enemy, which is what brings me to today's hump, one of the banes of my existence, the caterpillar.

It's not so much I have a fear of caterpillars as much as they simply give me the willies. And I'm an animal person--I don't mind snakes, I like mice and rats, even most insects don't bother me. No, caterpillars (and millipedes and centipedes) hold a special place in my gut. I'm so acutely aware of caterpillars that I'm convinced I can smell their presence; I know this from the series of unscientific experiments I ran while mowing the lawn. I'd get a whiff of larva and shawnuff on a nearby plant would be a thick nasty green tomato caterpillar. Or above my head a colony of tent caterpillars would be weaving their hellish web of arboreal misery. And there, on the driveway, was a woolly bear caterpillar, least offensive of the lot simply because it had the misfortune of being run over by the car. My keen sense of smell protects me from these monsters.

Caterpillar ultimately comes to us from the Old French chatepelose, which literally translates to "hairy cat." You may remember cat from a previous hump but the second element is from the Latin pilosus, meaning "hair." The Italian surname Pelosi comes from this same Latin root. Has the House of Representatives been taken over by a caterpillar masquerading as a San Francisco liberal? Given the facts it seems plausible.

Judge caterpillars for yourself, but remember this;

Our word caterpillar is first recorded in English in 1440 in the form catyrpel. Catyr, the first part of catyrpel, may indicate the existence of an English word *cater, meaning "tomcat," otherwise attested only in caterwaul. Cater would be cognate with Middle High German kater and Dutch kater. The latter part of catyrpel seems to have become associated with the word piller, "plunderer"...[from AHD: emphasis mine]

See? Even our modern day spelling hints to the caterpillar's intrinsic malevolence. Madame Speaker (if that is your real name), I rest my case.

caterpillar [AHD]
caterpillar [Online Etymology Dictionary]
caterpillar [OED]
caterpillar [Wikipedia]
Italian surnames [Italy World Club]

Labels: Dutch, Latin, Middle High German, Old French, The Daily Hump

Before I get on the humpbus this morning I want to rave about the amazing Peter, Bjorn & John concert last night at Mercury Lounge. PB&J played an extra-long set with tons of energy and were totally channeling The Kinks. I definitely recommend checking them out while they're not yet completely huge.

My name is Humpty, pronounced with a Umpty.
Yo ladies, oh how I like to hump thee.

A Sibyl (note the capital S) is a member of a group of women who the Greeks and Romans regarded as having powers of divination and prophecy. In common noun form the word has come to mean a witch or, as used in the quote below from Network, a fortune-teller. Our word sibyl comes to us from the Greek Sibulla by way of Latin (Sibylla), Old French and Middle English (sibile). The word's origin is not fully understood but it is thought to come from the Doric Siobolla and from Attic Theoboule, meaning "divine wish."

Diana: Did you know there are a number of psychics working as licensed brokers on Wall Street? Some of them counsel their clients by use of Tarot cards. They're all pretty successful, even in a bear market and selling short. I met one of them a couple of weeks ago and thought of doing a show around her -- The Wayward Witch of Wall Street, something like that...Her name, aptly enough, is Sibyl. Sybil the Soothsayer.

sibyl [AHD]
sibyl [Online Etymology Dictionary]
Sibyl [OED]
Cybill Shepherd [IMDB]

Labels: Attic, Doric, Greek, Latin, Middle English, Old French, The Daily Hump

Growing up it was a rare treat when we'd find a praying mantis in the yard. At most we'd spot one once per summer; the mantis would usually be found sitting on a tree limb curiously observing whoever happened to be mowing the lawn that day. I remember often hearing there was a $50 fine for killing one of the creatures. That turns out to be false, but regardless the graceful animals are certainly not pests so who would want to do them harm anyway?

Moving on...mantis is Greek for "seer" and as the AHD notes

the Greeks, who made the connection between the upraised front legs of a mantis waiting for its prey and the hands of a prophet in prayer, used the name mantis to mean “the praying mantis.” This word and sense were picked up in Modern Latin and from there came into English, being first recorded in 1658. Once we know the origin of the term mantis, we realize that the species names praying mantis and Mantis religiosa are a bit redundant.

In addition, the word is directly related to the suffix -mancy (as in necromancy). The Greek mantis is from the verb mainesthai, meaning "to be inspired", which is in turn related to menos, "passion, spirit." This is the source of our word mania. All of these forms derive from the Proto-Indo-European *men-, "to think, to have one's mind aroused, rage, be furious", which is the root of our English word mind.

mantis [Online Etymology Dictionary]
praying mantis [Wikipedia]

Labels: Greek, Latin, PIE, The Daily Hump