What's in a word? (Part 2)

Previously, I introduced you to my fascination with etymology in part 1 of this ongoing series of word history posts. This week, I’m going to continue with ten more words with really interesting stories behind them! As before, information is taken from the Online Etymology Dictionary.

Toilet

Source: French | First recorded: 1530s

In a far cry from the white throne we associate the word with today, “toilet” originally meant, in the 16th century, a cloth. Early on, the word referred to a cloth covering a dressing table where one would keep one’s brushes and bottles and such. It adapted to encompass the process of dressing, then the location where one would dress. As indoor plumbing gained popularity, and dressing rooms began to include lavatories, “toilet” developed as a euphemism for them and has now become the standard term.

Beach

Source: Proto-Indo-European? > Proto-Germanic > Old English | First recorded: 1530s

The word “beach” originally referred to worn pebbles along the seashore, rather than sand. It was derived from the Proto-Germanic word for stream, and may be related to an even older word for flowing water. It’s not had to see how “beaches” expanded from rocky shores to sandy ones, but clearly our distant forebears spent more time with the former.

Debunk

Source: Toponymous | First recorded: 1923

Some of you cleverer clogs may notice that “debunk” is a work with two parts: “de-”, which is a very old prefix indeed, and “bunk”. And the word “bunk”, meaning nonsense, is what we call a toponym (it’s dervied from the name of a place); it comes from Buncombe County, North Carolina. Legend has it that in 1820, a congressman named Felix Walker insisted on giving a particularly long and pointless speech with the excuse that he was doing it so that his home county of Buncombe could see he was doing his job. Shortly thereafter, “bunkum” began to be used to refer to people talking rubbish, which then got shortened to “bunk”.

Party

Source: Proto-Indo-European > Latin > Old French | First recorded: c. 1300

Much of the original meaning of “party” in English was essentially how we use “part” now: a section, piece, or portion. It comes via French from the Latin word “partire/partiri”, meaning to share or divide.

At the same time, it also developed the meaning of individuals or groups involved in some sort of legal or political activity. This quickly adapted to include any group or class of people, but it wasn’t until sometime near 1700 that the gathering of people for fun became a common definition of “party”. The verb form came about in the 1920s.

Jewel

Source: Latin > Old French > Anglo-French | First recorded: late 13th century

Before the meaning of “jewel” was limited to gems and precious stones, it referred to all kinds of decorative ornaments, with the definition remaining fairly consistent from Old French to English. The Latin root, however, is a bit more mysterious. It might be related to “jocus”, which is something that causes joy—the root of our English word “joke”. Or, it could come from “gaudium”, which is connected to the idea of rejoicing and the English word “gaudy”. In either case, it seems that jewels are items that make people joyful!

Auspicious

Source: Latin | First recorded: 1590s

The modern English meaning of “auspicious” is related to the concept of favourable omens, which is consistent with the Latin word it came from. This root, “auspicium”, has a more literal definition of divining through noting the flight patterns of birds, which is something the Romans paid a lot of attention to. Of course, birds could provide auspices by more than just their flight patterns—reading the entrails of birds and other creatures was another important method of divining the future.

Fight

Source: Proto-Indo-European (or Latin) > Proto-Germanic > Old English | First recorded: c. 1200

The English definition of “fight” relating to combat, attacks, and competition developed without much change from its Proto-Germanic forerunner. Beyond that, things get a little murky. One likely source is a Proto-Indo-European word meaning to comb or pluck hair or wool—presumably related to the idea of pulling roughly at your combatant and their hair? Alternatively, it could come from the Latin for “fist”, which is a bit more straightforward.

Compound

Sources: Latin > Old French, and Malay > Dutch or Portuguese | First recorded: late 14th century, and 1670s

The word “compound” is, rather satisfyingly, one of those rare ones that has two completely separate etymological journeys for different meanings. The more common definition relating to mixing, combining, or joining things together comes to us (via French) from the Latin “componere”, meaning to put together.

There is, however, a completely separate definition of “compound” as an enclosed facility or residence. This definition arose in the 17th century with the increase of European trade and colonisation in Asia. The Malay word describing a village, “kampong”, was co-opted by Europeans to refer to their own separate settlements, and when English eventually picked it up the word was similar enough to our pre-existing “compound” that it was adopted as a homonym.

Abandon

Source: Proto-Germanic > Latin > Old French | First recorded: late 14th century

Our English word “abandon”, by which we refer to the surrender or total relinquishing of control or ownership, comes from the Old French word “abandonner”, which has a similar meaning. That word is derived from the phrase (also in Old French) “à bandon”, which indicates an action being done at one’s discretion or will. The larger part of the phrase, “bandon”, is derived from the Latin word “bannum”, which means proclamation and is itself based on a Proto-Germanic term indicating a variety of actions performed by official proclamation.

Pedigree

Source: Latin > Old French > Anglo-French

We associate this word with animals, particularly dogs and cats, but a much older usage of “pedigree” is in relation to human genealogy; originally, it was applied specifically to a written family tree. The Old French term that the word is based on, as well as the Latin it is derived from, translate literally as “the foot of a crane”. If you’ve spent much time looking at diagrams of family trees, you’ll recognise the splayed angles reminiscient of a bird’s footprint.