#Tag · bonfire.cafe

The 600-year-old origins of the word 'hello'

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260113-hello-hiya-aloha-what-our-greetings-reveal

#HackerNews #600YearOrigins #hello #LanguageHistory #Greetings #Etymology

'Hullo, hillo, holla': The 600-year-old origins of the word 'hello'

It's 200 years since the word "hello" was first used in print - though its roots date back to the 15th Century. How has the language of greetings evolved - and what does it tell us?

Alex, the Hearth Fire boosted

Alliterative/Endless Knot

@AllEndlessKnot@toot.community · 5 days ago

The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is VIRUS/WOOZY #wotd #virus #woozy

If you’re feeling woozy, you might want to check to see if you’ve caught a virus, at least that’s what the etymology suggests. The word woozy, an American English colloquialism first recorded in 1897, seems to be an alternation of oozy “muddy”. There are in fact two separate words ooze, one meaning “mud, slime” and the other “to flow, leak out slowly”, the second from the Proto-Indo-European root *wes- meaning “wet”, and the first, from which woozy seems to come, from the root *weis- meaning “to flow”, and from this root probably comes the Latin word virus meaning “poison”, which was the original sense of the English word virus in the 14th century before it developed it’s modern sense related to infectious diseases over the 18th and 19th centuries.

Alliterative/Endless Knot

@AllEndlessKnot@toot.community · 5 days ago

The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is VIRUS/WOOZY #wotd #virus #woozy

Shaula Evans

@ShaulaEvans@zirk.us · 4 weeks ago

It only just occurred to me that the English and French words garage come from the French verb garer which also gives us the French word "gare" for train station (as in La Gare du Nord).

I have been staring at these words all my life. I have no idea why this decided to click tonight. (Except that I was thinking about the Italian word parcheggio.)

#English #French #Language #Etymology

Alex, the Hearth Fire boosted

Alliterative/Endless Knot

@AllEndlessKnot@toot.community · last month

The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is RUDOLPH/WOLF #wotd #Rudolph #wolf #RudolphTheRedNosedReindeer
#Christmas #Christmas2025 #Xmas

As it turns out, all of the other reindeer probably should have been shunning Rudolph, as he seems to be a wolf in reindeer’s clothing. The name of that most famous reindeer of all, Rudolph, literally means “famous-wolf”, the -olph part related to the word wolf, a common Germanic name element found in the name of the hero Beowulf, and the first part from Germanic hruod “fame, glory”, also a Germanic name element also found in the name Roger, literally “famous spear”.

Anke boosted

Naomi P

@gannet@sunny.garden · 2 months ago

Yesterday, I was talking with spouse about the various words in English that come from the Latin word for lead: plumbum.

There’s plumber, plumb-bob, and vertical things being plumb. Probably other things too.

But I suddenly said to him, “I wonder if plum as in ‘plum crazy’ is another such word?”

So I just looked it up, and the answer is yes:

‘The notion of "exact measurement" led to the extended adverbial sense of "completely, downright" (1748), sometimes spelled plump, plum, or plunk.’

https://www.etymonline.com/word/plumb

#etymology #words

Alliterative/Endless Knot

@AllEndlessKnot@toot.community · last month

The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is RUDOLPH/WOLF #wotd #Rudolph #wolf #RudolphTheRedNosedReindeer
#Christmas #Christmas2025 #Xmas

Naomi P

@gannet@sunny.garden · 2 months ago

Yesterday, I was talking with spouse about the various words in English that come from the Latin word for lead: plumbum.

There’s plumber, plumb-bob, and vertical things being plumb. Probably other things too.

But I suddenly said to him, “I wonder if plum as in ‘plum crazy’ is another such word?”

So I just looked it up, and the answer is yes:

‘The notion of "exact measurement" led to the extended adverbial sense of "completely, downright" (1748), sometimes spelled plump, plum, or plunk.’

https://www.etymonline.com/word/plumb

#etymology #words

Alex, the Hearth Fire boosted

Alliterative/Endless Knot

@AllEndlessKnot@toot.community · 2 months ago

The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is MAYOR/MAJOR #wotd #mayor #major #ZohranForNYC #Mamdani

The cause of progressivism in the US won a major victory with the election of Zohran Mamdami as mayor of New York City, and etymologically that makes sense. The word mayor, borrowed from Old French maire ca. 1300 in the sense “head of a city or town government” but with the original sense “greater, superior”, comes from Latin maior, the comparative form of the adjective magnus “large, great, big, high, tall, long, broad, extensive, spacious”. Latin maior was also borrowed directly into English in its original sense of “bigger, greater, more important” as major.

Alliterative/Endless Knot

@AllEndlessKnot@toot.community · 2 months ago

The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is MAYOR/MAJOR #wotd #mayor #major #ZohranForNYC #Mamdani

Alex, the Hearth Fire boosted

Alliterative/Endless Knot

@AllEndlessKnot@toot.community · 2 months ago

The surprisingly connected origins of "energy" and "work". #etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language #words #lingcomm #energy #work

https://youtube.com/shorts/4fUIqcScQWo

Alliterative/Endless Knot

@AllEndlessKnot@toot.community · 2 months ago

The surprisingly connected origins of "energy" and "work". #etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language #words #lingcomm #energy #work

https://youtube.com/shorts/4fUIqcScQWo

Jess Mahler boosted

Naomi P

@gannet@sunny.garden · 2 months ago

I was thinking about the word holdfast this morning, so I looked it up to find its various meanings. There’s a bunch of them, often having to do with holding on tightly to something. (See next post re: fast).

I was particularly intrigued to learn that the nautical term “avast” comes from the Dutch “houd fast”!

#etymology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holdfast

Naomi P

@gannet@sunny.garden · 2 months ago

I was particularly intrigued to learn that the nautical term “avast” comes from the Dutch “houd fast”!

#etymology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holdfast

Alex, the Hearth Fire boosted

Alliterative/Endless Knot

@AllEndlessKnot@toot.community · 2 months ago

The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is NUCLEAR/TEST/NUT/TESTICLES #wotd #nuclear #test #nut #testicle #NuclearTesting

2 media

Trump’s plan for the US to restart testing of nuclear weapons is nuts and shows that he’s thinking with his testicles rather than his brains. Nuclear, formed from nucleus in reference to the splitting of the nucleus of the atom, comes from Latin nucleus “kernel” from nucula “little nut”, the diminutive of nux “nut”, which can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European *knuk-, an extended zero-grade form of the root *kneu- “nut”, which also had the extended zero-grade form *knud- which produced the Proto-Germanic root *hnut- leading to Old English hnutu “nut” and Modern English nut. Since nuts were considered a special treat the plural nuts gained the sense “any source of pleasure or delight” in the 17th c., and in the 18th c. the expression be nuts on meant “be very fond of”, and by the 19th c. nuts came to mean “crazy”. The slang sense of nuts meaning “testicles” first appears by 1915.

As for the word testicle itself, it comes from Latin testiculus, a diminutive of testis “testicle”, whose origin is debated, either from another Latin word testis meaning “witness” (source of the English word testify), from the notion that testicles bear witness to male virility, or it might instead be a figurative sense coming from the Latin word testa “pot, shell” — compare for instance French tête “head” which also comes from Latin testa. In Medieval Latin, testum “earthen pot” referred to an earthen vessel, also known as a cupel, in which the purity of a metal was ascertained by exposing it to high temperatures, and by analogy came the English word test by which a teacher may ascertain a student’s knowledge.

Alliterative/Endless Knot

@AllEndlessKnot@toot.community · 2 months ago

The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is NUCLEAR/TEST/NUT/TESTICLES #wotd #nuclear #test #nut #testicle #NuclearTesting

2 media

Mre. Dartigen [maker mode] and 1 other boosted

Court Cantrell prefers not to

@courtcan@mastodon.social · 3 months ago

Typed "I'm delighted" in a text to a friend -- and stopped short, looking at the word "delighted."

I used "delighted" to mean that I am pleased, joyful, content, happy.

But delighted. De-lighted.
Wouldn't that mean "darkened"? Illumination removed?

If "de-" indicates that "light" is removed, how does that jive with the emotions of pleased, happy, or content?

Looked up the #etymology.

And voilà.

"light" <-- leoht ( #MiddleEnglish) <-- lēoht ( #OldEnglish) <-- *leuhtą ( #ProtoGermanic)

Anke boosted

Jon

@jkirkendall@wandering.shop · 3 months ago

This week in etymology I learned that the original Old English meaning of our word 'with' meant...against or opposed to! We still have this in words like withstand, withdraw, and withhold.

The word meaning together was 'mid' which we still see in words like midwife and middle.

The Viking invaders were the ones who changed that - their usage of 'with' suggested proximity (as in 'fighting with') and that eventually replaced the Old English 'mid.'

#etymology #OldEnglish

Jon

@jkirkendall@wandering.shop · 3 months ago

This week in etymology I learned that the original Old English meaning of our word 'with' meant...against or opposed to! We still have this in words like withstand, withdraw, and withhold.

The word meaning together was 'mid' which we still see in words like midwife and middle.

The Viking invaders were the ones who changed that - their usage of 'with' suggested proximity (as in 'fighting with') and that eventually replaced the Old English 'mid.'

#etymology #OldEnglish