Etymology is the history of the origin of words and phrases.
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What were nightmares called before “nightmare” was used in that sense?
Apparently the word "nightmare" has only been used in the sense of "bad dream" since c. 1829. Before then the term referred to the agent causing the dreams—a mare < mera, mære 'goblin, ...
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Where did the “trick” in the phrase “turning tricks” come from?
Or in other words, can anyone make clear the etymology and the history behind the coinage of the word trick in the phrase turning tricks?
(Why am I interested you may ask? Well, turning tricks is a ...
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Why is a restaurant bill called a “check”?
Why is a restaurant bill called a "check" (as in "Check, please!")?
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“Go, Yankees!”, “Go, Tigers!”, etc. — go where?
It's common to hear cheers of the form "“Go X!” where X is the name of a team or individual. I understand that its meaning is, as nohat said in another thread,
“Go ___!” is a common exclamation ...
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Why is news said to be “breaking”?
I was just wondering what the origins of "breaking news" or "we broke the story" are.
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I'm British, so should I take a rain cheque?
I want to write the phrase "take a rain cheque" and am British.
Should I therefore use the British spelling of the word cheque, or respect the baseball origin of the phrase "rain check" and use the ...
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Why “shrink” (of a psychiatrist)?
I know it originates from "head shrinking", but it doesn't help me a lot to understand the etymology. Why are psychiatrists called that? Is it like "my head is swollen [from anguish, misery, stress, ...
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Can the word Gentoo be used in a derogatory way?
I was reading a Wikipedia article on Gentoo Penguin and came across the following Paragraph.
The application of Gentoo to the penguin is unclear. The Oxford
English Dictionary notes that Gentoo ...
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Why do words like “expectorate” sound more posh than words like “spit”?
I think English is unique in having a set of "bad words" each which has its "more refined" equivalent, e.g.:
spit -> expectorate
piss -> urinate
shit -> defecate
f*ck -> ...
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If I invent a word, what language is it?
I invented a word using medical terminology, Latin and maybe a bit of Greek. (I'm not honestly sure of the etymology of all the morphemes.) Considering that this word is primarily not of English ...
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Does the phrase “The hills have eyes” predate the movie?
I'm under the impression that the phrase "the hills have eyes" predates the movie (including the 1977 one), but I can't find any use of it on Google. How can I find out if the phrase existed first?
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“Hear hear” or “here here”
Which one is it really: hear hear or here here? Where does the saying really come from?
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Why did Old Testament scholars choose to employ “to know” in a sexual sense?
For those of us not familiar, the verb to know once had an archaic sexual sense, often found in the Old Testament, and as illustrated in the following story found in Genesis 19:
4 But before they ...
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Why does Germany's English name differ from its German name?
Germany in German is Deutschland and the language is Deutsch. I'm used to words being anglicized, but why is there a complete replacement in this case?
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Is 'Safari' really an English word, and what are its origins?
We are all used to this word safari. I think most people will agree that its usage is ubiquitous when referring to going for holiday (esp. overland travel in Africa).
So is this word a true English ...
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Where does the word “totient” come from?
In math we learn about the "totient function". It rhymes with "quotient" when math teachers pronounce it.
But I cannot find the definition or etymology of this word in any dictionary, nor on any ...
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Origin of “ballpark estimate” to mean a very rough estimate?
I'm wondering where the term "ballpark estimate" comes from? Sometimes "ballpark" is said stand-alone to mean a rough estimate, as in "these numbers are a ballpark". I understand it must come from ...
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Where's 'in-law' in mother-in-law from?
I've read that it's somehow connected with the Canon Law, but I'm not sure. I'm really interested in finding the answer.
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How broad is the definition of sodomy?
In this article, a top French official is in trouble for sodomizing a maid. Yet, the article says that he forced her to perform oral sex. I always understood sodomy as involving anal as that seemed to ...
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What is the origin of the phrase “turns out”?
What is the origin of "turns out" as it appears in the phrases below:
It turns out
As it turns out
Let me know how it turns out
What is turning, what is coming out, and from where?
I can't find ...
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Was “terror” ever a positive thing?
A friend has just told me that "terror" used to be a good thing, as opposed to the negative thing it is today:
ter·ror (trr) n.
Intense, overpowering fear. See Synonyms at fear.
One ...
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Why does a good gardener have a green thumb and not a green finger or hand?
Why is a gardener's thumb singled out for especial greenness?
Where did that idiom come from?
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What is the etymology of “cornhole”?
Since being introduced to the bean bag-toss game of the same name, I've wondered about this word. The old farm game, similar to horseshoes, has recently gained such popularity that Googling cornhole ...
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Origin of the phrase “under your belt”?
Today, I found myself discussing what students should have "under their belts" during a lecture, and I wondered to myself if there was some inappropriate undertone here that I might be unaware of.
...
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Why is “dingbat” used to refer to characters like “☺”?
Why is dingbat used to refer to characters such as "☺"?
(See for instance those at the Mozilla Web Developer FAQ.)
Doesn't dingbat mean a stupid person or something?
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Why is “guinea pig” used as the colloquial term for test subjects?
Why do we refer to people as guinea pigs when discussing the subjects of an informal experiment? Surely mice, rabbits and rats are much more common experimental subjects. Indeed, it's rare that you'll ...
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Why is a bathroom sometimes called a “john”?
"John" is sometimes used as slang for a bathroom or a toilet.
I'm curious, what is the origin of this usage?
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Why is “Saturday” Romanic?
Sunday and Monday are named after the sun and moon (English < Germanic), and Tuesday through Friday are named after Anglo-Saxon/Germanic gods. This seems consistent enough so far, but then we come ...
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The history of “softcore”
Over lunch recently, my colleagues and I were discussing the term "hardcore," and speculating on its origin. Our speculations evolved into "What has either a hard or soft core, where the hard cored ...
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What is the origin of the phrase “cut the mustard”?
What is the origin of the phrase "cut the mustard"?
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Why doesn't “wish” have the letter “n” in it?
The English word "wish" is akin to the German word "wünschen", the reconstructed Proto-Germanic word being "wunskijanan" (according to Wiktionary). What happened to the letter n in the middle of the ...
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Etymology of the word “stoolpigeon”
"Stoolpigeon" and "stool pigeon" seem to be interchangeable, though the former's definition is usually that of a police informant (synonymous with "stoolie") and the latter a dummy or decoy pigeon.
...
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What is the early recorded use of “white trash” and has its meaning changed over time?
I am reading The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, written in 1885, and came across a passage describing poor white Southerners who had no property or slaves but who were nevertheless coerced or ...
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Origin of “quarters” in the sense of living area
I was explaining to my son that HQ stood for "headquarters," when he surprised me by dividing the word into "head" and "quarters." I had never considered this word thusly before, but it's obvious to ...
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“Insofar” or “in so far”
A quick search suggests that insofar is the American variant of the British in so far. I always assumed it belonged to the set of expressions like hitherto, heretofore, therefore and albeit. Is there ...
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Why does the common meaning of “impertinent” have nothing to do with “pertinent”?
Every time I want to use an antonym to "pertinent", I think of "impertinent", which I don't like to use because of its more common meaning. How did "impertinent" come to mean "intrusive or ...
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Where did the word “umpteenth” come from?
Where did the word "umpteenth" come from, and why is it a "teen", if it is supposed to represent a very large number?
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Origin of the usage of “Man” as a word of exclamation
What is the origin of the usage of the word "Man" as a word of exclamation?
Man this curry is delicious!
Man my feet hurt!
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How (and when) was it that the verb 'go' began to mean 'say' in common usage?
i.e. "So then she goes, 'Hey!' and I go, 'What?' because I was on my way out..."
I was musing about this the other day, so I decided to try to find out. Unfortunately, my skills lie in different ...
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Etymology of 'teaching grandma to suck eggs'?
This is such a strange idiom, all I could find with a Google search was the meaning of it, but not where it came from. When you're telling somebody something they already know well, it's sometimes ...
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Logical meaning of the word “understand”
To understand something means to be aquainted with it, to know it very well, know how it "ticks". This is one of the basic words that has a direct "meaning" in mind.
However, if we "dissect" it, is ...
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Does the use of “port” for one side of ship relate to the word “port” meaning harbour?
In this travel.se question, the words port and starboard are mentioned, and one answer says:
I would say it is convention that ships dock such that the Port is on the left, from which the term for ...
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Meaning of “magazine” from 1845
My wife and I were reading Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin, translated into English in 1845 by Henry Beveridge, and we came across this phrase in the first book, chapter 5, section ...
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What's the difference between “Collaborate” and “Cooperate”?
Both of these words seem to mean much the same thing: working together to achieve some goal. I can instinctively feel a difference between them, but I can't easily put it into words.
Can you help me? ...
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Etymological relationship between “to” and “too”
The words to and too have rather different meanings but from what little information I can gather (from their Dictionary.com references) they seem to potentially be from the same old-English root.
If ...
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“Dieing” vs “dying”
Which is the formally correct spelling, dieing or dying? Is there any history of the alternative spelling? I type dieing naturally, but my spellchecker marks it wrong. This is largely an etymology ...
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What are the origins of the word “nice”?
The word "nice" tends to be used in rather a wishy-washy sense these days. In general use it tends to mean anything that is satisfactory.
But what are the origins of this word? What did it originally ...
