Word Origins

BubbleGumTiger · Post by **BubbleGumTiger** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 11:42 am

aardvark

1833, from Afrikaans Du., lit. "earth-pig" (the animal burrows), from aard "earth" (see earth) + vark "pig," cognate with O.H.G. farah (cf. Ger. Ferkel "young pig, sucking pig," a dim. form), O.E. fearh (see farrow).

ItownHosscat · Post by **ItownHosscat** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 11:42 am

jello...a cheap form of posting

BubbleGumTiger · Post by **BubbleGumTiger** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 3:19 pm

A&P

U.S. grocery chain, originally The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, founded 1859 by George Huntington Hartford and George Gilman

ItownHosscat · Post by **ItownHosscat** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 4:28 pm

jello...a cheap form of posting

BubbleGumTiger · Post by **BubbleGumTiger** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 7:13 am

at sixes and sevens

At sixes and sevens is a very old catchphrase and relates to gambling. It first appears c. 1374 in Chaucerâ€™s Troylus. The original phrasing was set upon six and seven. It originally referred to betting oneâ€™s entire fortune on one throw of the dice. It connoted carelessness, and over time the phrase came to mean confusion, disorder, and disagreement. The plural form sixes and sevens became standard in the 18th century.

BubbleGumTiger · Post by **BubbleGumTiger** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:58 am

widowâ€™s peak

A widowâ€™s peak is the sharp angle of the hairline on the forehead of some people. Itâ€™s so called because it resembles the peak of a hood traditionally worn by women in mourning. The use of peak to refer to a point in the cloth covering the forehead dates to at least 1509 when it appears in Alexander Barclayâ€™s The Shyp of Folys:

And ye Jentyl wymen whome this lewde vice doth blynde Lased on the backe: your peakes set a loft.

BubbleGumTiger · Post by **BubbleGumTiger** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 8:35 am

abaft

O.E. on bÃ¦ftan "backwards," the second component itself a compound of be "by" + Ã¦ftan "aft" (see aft). Since M.E. used exclusively of ships, the stern being the "after" part of a vessel.

BubbleGumTiger · Post by **BubbleGumTiger** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 9:09 am

B'nai B'rith

Jewish fraternal organization founded in New York City in 1843, from Heb., lit. "Sons of the Covenant," from bene, state construct of banim, pl. of ben "son" + brith "covenant."

BubbleGumTiger · Post by **BubbleGumTiger** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 7:36 am

Baath

pan-Arab socialist party, founded by intellectuals in Syria in 1943, from Arabic ba't "resurrection, renaissance."

BubbleGumTiger · Post by **BubbleGumTiger** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 4:30 am

cabaret

1655, from Fr., lit. "tavern," probably from M.Du. cambret, from O.Fr. (Picard dialect) camberete, dim. of cambre "chamber." Came to mean "a restaurant/night club" 1912; extension of meaning to "entertainment, floor show" is 1922.

BubbleGumTiger · Post by **BubbleGumTiger** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 6:53 pm

dame
c.1225, from O.Fr. dame, from L.L. domna, from L. domina "lady, mistress of the house," from L. domus "house" (see domestic). Legal title for the wife of a knight or baronet. Slang sense of "woman" first attested 1902 in Amer.Eng.

BubbleGumTiger · Post by **BubbleGumTiger** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 12:07 pm

D.D.T.

1943, from dichlorodiphenyltrichlorethane; first made in U.S. by Geigey & Co.

BubbleGumTiger · Post by **BubbleGumTiger** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:49 am

earring

O.E. earhring, from ear + hring (see ring (n.)). Now including any sort of ornament in the ear; the pendants were originally ear-drops (1720).
"The two groups which had formerly a near monopoly on male earrings were Gypsies and sailors. Both has the usual traditions about eyesight [see ear (1)], but it was also said that sailors' earrings would save them from drowning, while others argued that should a sailor be drowned and washed up on some foreign shore, his gold earrings would pay for a proper Christian burial." ["Dictionary of English Folklore"]

BubbleGumTiger · Post by **BubbleGumTiger** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 4:15 pm

facetious

1592, from Fr. facÃ©tieux, from facÃ©tie "a joke," from L. facetia, from facetus "witty, elegant," of unknown origin, perhaps related to facis "torch." It implies a desire to be amusing, often intrusive or ill-timed. "FacetiÃ¦ in booksellers' catalogues, is, like curious, a euphemism for erotica." [Fowler]

BubbleGumTiger · Post by **BubbleGumTiger** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 9:04 am

G-string

1878, geestring, "loincloth worn by American Indian," originally the string that holds it up, etymology unknown. The spelling with G (1891) is perhaps from influence of violin string tuned to a G (in this sense G string is first recorded 1831). First used of women's attire 1936, with reference to strip-teasers.

BubbleGumTiger · Post by **BubbleGumTiger** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 8:36 am

haggis

c.1420, now chiefly Scot., but common in M.E., perhaps from O.Fr. agace "magpie," on analogy of the odds and ends the bird collects. The other theory traces it to O.E. haggen "to chop"

BubbleGumTiger · Post by **BubbleGumTiger** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 6:46 am

Fabian

"socialist," from Fabian Society, founded in Britain 1884, named for Quintus Fabius Maximus (surnamed Cunctator "the Delayer"), the cautious tactician who opposed Hannibal in the Second Punic War. The Fabians sought to draw a distinction between their slow-going tactics and those of anarchists and communists. The Latin gens name is possibly from faba "a bean."

BubbleGumTiger · Post by **BubbleGumTiger** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 7:19 am

iconoclast

"breaker or destroyer of images," 1596, from Fr. iconoclaste, from M.L. iconoclastes, from Late Gk. eikonoklastes, from eikon (gen. eikonos) "image" + klastes "breaker," from klas- pt. stem of klan "to break." Originally those in the Eastern Church in 8c. and 9c. whose mobs of followers destroyed icons and other religious objects on the grounds that they were idols. Applied to 16c.-17c. Protestants in Netherlands who vandalized former Catholic churches on similar grounds. Extended sense of "one who attacks orthodox beliefs or institutions" is first attested 1842. Iconoclasm in this sense is from 1858.

BubbleGumTiger · Post by **BubbleGumTiger** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 5:36 am

kahuna

1886, "Hawaiian priest or minister, expert or wise man," from Hawaiian, where it was applied to priests, doctors, sorcerers, and navigators. In surfer slang, for "a god of surfing," it is attested from 1962 (but big kahuna in same sense is said to date from 1950s).

BubbleGumTiger · Post by **BubbleGumTiger** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 7:32 am

lacquer

1673, from Fr. lacre "a kind of sealing wax," from Port. lacre, unexplained variant of lacca "resinous substance," from Arabic lakk, from Pers. lak (see lac). The verb meaning "to cover or coat with laqueur" is from 1688.