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Naomi P
Naomi P
@gannet@sunny.garden  ·  activity timestamp 4 weeks 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

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