Posts in Origin of the word
-
Origin of the word "Ancestor"
Someone further back than a grandparent In everyday English an ancestor is a person you descend from, usually more remote than a parent or a grandparent. The same noun also names an earlier plant or a
Read more -
Origin of the word "Sphyrna"
A learned name for a coastal shark Sphyrna is the English zoological name for the principal genus of hammerhead sharks. In ordinary speech the same animals are hammerheads, bonnetheads, or scoopheads.
Read more -
Origin of the word "Chandler"
What the word names now In current English a chandler is usually a specialist dealer, most often a ship's chandler who sells rope, fittings, paint, and other stores for boats. Dictionaries still keep
Read more -
Origin of the word "Bodkin"
A tool first, a weapon in the older books In present-day English a bodkin is almost always a household or workshop implement. Dressmakers keep a blunt, large-eyed needle of that name to run ribbon, el
Read more -
Origin of the word "Anklet"
What the word names now An anklet is, in the first place, something worn around the ankle. In everyday English that usually means a chain, cord, or circlet of jewelry, the lower-limb counterpart of a
Read more -
Origin of the word "Standby"
What it names now Standby is the English name for whatever is kept close enough to act at once. It can be a person: an understudy in the wings, a reserve officer, a traveler hoping a cancelled seat wi
Read more -
Origin of the word "Newsdealer"
A stall, a shop, a trade A newsdealer is a retailer of newspapers and other periodicals. In American English the word still names the person at a newsstand, and the stock list has often grown to inclu
Read more -
Origin of the word "Windage"
What the word does now Windage is a specialist English noun for the way air, or sometimes another fluid, acts on a body in motion. In ballistics it is the sideways correction a shooter builds into a s
Read more -
Origin of the word "Amberjack"
Amberjack is the ordinary English name for several large, fork-tailed game fishes in the genus Seriola. Anglers usually meet it as greater amberjack, lesser amberjack, or one of the Pacific yellowtail
Read more -
Origin of the word "Dumbwaiter"
What the word names now In current American English a dumbwaiter is almost always a small service elevator: a boxed cage with shelves that hauls food, plates, or rubbish between floors. Hotels and res
Read more -
Origin of the word "Tonic"
Stretch, tone, and a word that branched English speakers now use tonic for several things that barely seem related. It can name a restorative drink or medicine, or anything that perks a person up afte
Read more -
Origin of the word "Untapped"
What speakers mean by it now In current English, untapped almost always names something valuable that has not yet been used: a market, a workforce, a mineral deposit, a stretch of countryside, a priva
Read more -
Origin of the word "Pack"
A load, a group, and an action In current English, pack covers more than one kind of thing. It can be the bundle on a walker's back, a sealed set of cards or cigarettes, a troop of wolves, a mass of s
Read more -
Origin of the word "Stiff"
What it names now Stiff is the ordinary English word for matter that resists a bend: a board, a collar, a frozen sail, a neck after a bad night. From that core it spreads. A person can be stiff in com
Read more -
Origin of the word "Graceful"
What speakers mean now Call a person, a line, or a gesture graceful and the picture is almost always physical: motion that does not jar, proportion that does not shout, speech that turns without strai
Read more