Language

The French word roue (no accent) means “a wheel.” A roulette, of course, is “a little wheel.” And all those who have played the game of chance of the same name are well aware that it is a little wheel that governs the destinies of the players.

Whether it be straw hat or chicken is all the same. The original of either was produced at Legorno, Italy, or, as the English had previously misnamed it, Leghorn. Even yet, though the Italians have renamed it Livorno, it remains Leghorn on British and American maps.

As an essential of a soldier’s field equipment, both knapsack and haversack are now obsolete. Whereas the latter carried his field rations, the knapsack was for personal items, such as changes of clothing. However, such were not in accord with the original German military usage. The haversack, as stated elsewhere, carried grain for a cavalryman’s … Read more

There’s no evidence that we have found of the actual hanging of any dog nor of the actual appearance of any person who had committed such an act. So the only inference that can be drawn is that someone gifted with high imaginative powers, about three centuries ago, figured that a dog, if hung, would … Read more

Jerry, whoever he was, was a bad egg, or at least one held in contempt. He first appeared on the literary scene in the early eighteenth century as jerrymumble or jerrycummumble in some such sense as a tumbler or one who is knocked about. Scott, gruesomely, has a jerry-come-tumble dancing at the end of a … Read more

We picked the word chaparajos up from our Mexican neighbors and have abbreviated it to chaps. Rightly, we should say chaparreras, a term used by Mexicans for a kind of leather breeches worn over the trousers to protect the legs when riding through chaparral, a dense tangle of dwarf oak and thorny shrub common in … Read more

The word “whippersnapper” itself is merely a balanced extension of whip-snapper, “one who cracks a whip.” Its use is most often in the sense of “one who cracks a whip loudly to make a fearsome noise because he himself would have no attention paid to him otherwise.” In other words, “an insignificant, impudent nobody.”

It is generally conceded that the first part of the word tatterdemalion (which dates to the early seventeenth century) is nothing more than tatter, or, more probably, tattered, “ragged.” With respect to the second element, it has been suggested that it may have come from the French maillot, from Old French maillon, “swaddling clothes,” also, … Read more

Our remote forebears went all out at a burial, and this is just one of the reminders. The lich (rhymes with rich) was the corpse, borne from house to churchyard. It was carried over a lich way or path to the solemn sound of a lich bell, and at the lich gate, or roofed entrance … Read more

An Argonaut is an adventurer, especially one who sails the seas in search of fortune or adventure. This present-day interpretation arose from those so called who, in 1849, lured by reports of vast gold fields in California, endured great hardship to reach that land of promise, especially those who went by sea first to Central … Read more

The ancient gambling game Teetotum was played by spinning a top-like device having four sides or segments which were marked, respectively, with the letters A, T, N, D. The players spun the device one after another, and their fate was established by that face of the toy that lay upward at the end of the … Read more

A frequent name in America for this insect is granddaddy longlegs, as any reader of Mark Twain knows. In England it is sometimes called father-long-legs or Harry-long-legs, the latter possibly in allusion to a fancied resemblance to his Satanic majesty, the Lord Harry. But the paternal or patriarchal name, applied without any regard whatever to … Read more

One rarely knows through what influence a word has been created. Possibly some little Alfrida of the fifteenth century at her mother’s knee could not rightly say “linen,” and the mother and father, thereafter humoring the child, also said linsey. No one knows. But, if we add to the fanciful story, we may then also … Read more

Darby and Joan is typification of marital contentment. Names and allusion are assumed to be from a set of verses appearing in The Gentleman’s Magazine in 1735 under the title, “The Joys of Love Never Forgot: a song.” The author was presumably Henry Woodfall, though that is not certain. The third stanza reads: Old Darby, … Read more

The term itself is merely repetition, as, six centuries ago, a hobby was a horse, a small horse, probably a nickname for Robin. But hobbyhorse comes to us from the sixteenth-century morris dance, commonly held throughout England at Whitsuntide, mid-May. Although the characters in these festivals chiefly represented Robin Hood and others of his company, … Read more

Ancient Greeks had some of the most peculiar and original notions. Heaven knows wherein anything in the nocturnal skies to warrant the names they gave to many of the constellations, and here again they seem to have let imagination run riot. This small lizard-like reptile, for reasons one can’t even guess, rejoices in the Greek … Read more

We are all impressed by those, like the “private eyes” of television and whodunits, who remain calm, cool, and collected amid the greatest stress. This time it was the French who had a word for it, actually, two words telescoped by frequent use into one. Sangfroid is a direct lift into English from the French, … Read more

If the term “hardtack” were not already available it is possible that today’s mariner would invent a term of similar import, such as “hard grub,” as all that was intended by tack, a hundred years ago, was food of any sort. Hard tack was literally hard food, or, that is, biscuit of more than ordinary … Read more

So similar in appearance, so similar in etymology (both are derived from the Latin sanguis, “blood”), these words are quite different in meaning, and care must be exercised not to use one when the occasion requires the use of the other. Sanguine, literally “bloody,” has been used to describe something that was actually bloody or … Read more

Bambino is Italian for “infant, baby,” and applied specifically to images of the infant Jesus in swaddling clothes now exhibited generally at Christmas. The term has the same root as Greek bambaino, “to stutter,” and was probably suggested by the prattle of an infant.

The word “tattletale” is an American colloquialism, but its antecedents are well established in English The first part, tattle, dates back to 1481 with the publication of Caxton’s translation of Reynard the Fox from the Flemish. As then used, the word had the meaning “to speak hesitatingly, to stammer,” being Caxton’s rendering of tatelen (“tattling”), … Read more

There are a few words native to the Teutonic languages which, in these, are spelled with w, but which, on having been adopted into the Romance group, were spelled with a g, or, perhaps, with gu. One of the latter is represented by our word guard. This started in Old Teutonic as warda and was … Read more

Nowadays used contemptuously or at least disrespectfully of a person or thing as useless or needless as an extra wheel for the support of a vehicle ordinarily running on four. But in original use the term “fifth wheel” was applied to a metal wheel or circular plate (sometimes a segment of one) having an important … Read more

The third edition (1737) of Nathan Bailey’s Universal Etymological English Dictionary, first published in 1721, contains “A Collection of the Canting Words . . . used by Beggars, Gypsies, Cheats, House-Breakers, Shop-Lifters, Foot-Pads, Highway-men, etc.,” and carries this entry: “A BAM, a Sham or Cheat; a knavish Contrivance to amuse or deceive.” Bamboozle, a verb … Read more

The chapbook still circulated when we were kids, though it was begun in the early nineteenth century. It and its kind were, in a way, the forerunners of the modern “comic” books, though the reading matter in any that came our way, at least, could never be called lurid. The contents, short stories, poems, tales … Read more

For the past six or seven hundred years, the common name in England for any of the flatfish, skate, flounder, plaice, turbot, or whatever, has been butt. The most highly prized of all, the one formerly reserved for eating upon holy days, was the largest of the flatfish, so large that some run up to … Read more

Historically, Sanhedrin is the correct spelling for this ancient Jewish council, but the spelling Sanhedrim is often seen. The word comes from the Greek synhedrion, “council,” which is made up of syn, “together,” and hedra, “seat,” hence, literally, “seat together.”

Strongly divergent views appeared in 1945 in relating the origin of the term jerkwater. James L. Marshall in Santa Fe, the Railroad That Built an Empire says that that railroad was so named because the crews “jerked water” by bucket from wayside streams to fill the locomotive tender. But the Engineman’s Magazine in September of … Read more

To treat a man with soft sawder is to flatter him, to “butter him up.” But why? Well, sawder is an obsolete spelling of solder, and is still a phonetic spelling of a dialectal pronunciation of the word. And solder, a low-melting alloy used for uniting certain metals, is derived from the Latin solidus, “solid.” … Read more

Probably the best and, according to the Dictionary of Americanisms, the first printed description of the word “hillbilly” appeared in the New York Journal, April 23, 1900: “A Hill-Billie is a free and untrammelled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as … Read more

There are various accounts of the origin of the word teetotal, all more or less well documented, and the evidence indicates that it probably came into being both in America and in England, independently, within the space of a few years, early in the nineteenth century. The earliest use, though, seems to have been American, … Read more

In the old, old tales of the exploits of Reynard the Fox, fragments of which have been traced to the tenth century, chanticleer was the proper name of the cock, “So sawe they comen doun the hylle to hem chauntecler the cock,” in the first printed edition by William Caxton in 1481. The name, taken … Read more

The gremlin was born during the early stages of World War II, sired by British aviators, but otherwise of uncertain parentage, though possibly from the womb of the Irish term gruaimin, “an ill-natured runt.” He was very small, though wholly invisible. And it was his delight to ride in anyone’s airplane and perform mischievous tricks … Read more

True sarcasm wounds the one against whom it is directed as deeply as though it were the flesh rather than the spirit receiving the attack. The Greeks recognized this, and invented an appropriate metaphor. From the word sarx, “flesh,” they had already coined sarkazein, “to tear the flesh in the manner of a dog.” And … Read more

The wain, four-wheeled wagon, of Charles the Great, and this is the name applied by some, even back around the year 1000, to the constellation, the Great Bear, Ursa Major, the Big Dipper. To some eyes, that is, the bowl of the Dipper had the appearance of the huge wagons of old, the stars in … Read more

Fifty-fifty means: In equal amounts. It is an Americanism which, since early in the twentieth century, has had the contracted meaning of 50 per cent for you (or one person) and 50 per cent for me (or another person).

The word Arctic relates, of course, to the region around the North Pole, but the ancient Greek astrologers and mariners called it by this name from the constellation that circumscribes the area of the heavens above it, the Bear, which in Greek is arktos. That about the South Pole then became antarktos, from anti, “opposite,” … Read more

Many years ago there existed, in Old English, a verb that was the negative of will, “to desire, to be in an acceptable or purposeful frame of mind.” This verb of negation was nill, “to be unwilling, not to will.” It is known to have existed as early as the ninth century in Anglo-Saxon, and … Read more

Charterhouse is the name of one of the great public schools of London. But whether or not the institution has a charter, the fact has no bearing on its name. Its site was originally that of a Carthusian monastery, an order which derives its name from that of the French village where it first arose. … Read more

Literally, a sucker is “one who or that which sucks.” In this sense, one application is to the not-yet-weaned young of any animal, and it is this application that has led to the figurative meaning of “dupe, simpleton.” For the greenhorns, those “not yet dry behind the ears,” are by this term endowed with the … Read more

Prudery is always with us, only the subjects about which we are prudish vary. Often it is difficult, even impossible, for a later generation to understand the reason for some particular prudery of its ancestors. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, for example, it became impolite to mention the words trousers or breeches. Since … Read more

It was mumbly-peg in our childhood, probably contracted from mumblety-peg from an earlier mumble-the-peg. But the game mumble-peg seems to have disappeared from the American scene entirely. We don’t know why, unless it may be that mothers are more fearful lest their young roughnecks cut themselves with a sharp knife. The name derives from the … Read more

The bandbox had nothing to do with a company of musicians, and is a common misconception. But, back in the seventeenth century, it was a box of thin wood, chip, it was called, in which lords and ladies kept the very wide collars or “bands” of lace or plain linen that were then in vogue. … Read more

Dictionaries hazard merely the guess that the wild hyacinths known as harebell, so common in England and Scotland, were “perhaps” so named because they grow in places frequented by hares, but we prefer to think the ancient Saxons had a more poetic notion. “Yes,” they may have said, “they are plentiful where hares abide, and … Read more

An old pun has it that there are three ways to spread news rapidly: telegraph, telephone, or tell a woman. But the French inventor Chappe had no pun in mind when he gave this name to the instrument which he had devised in 1793, for transmitting messages by means of a sort of semaphore. It … Read more

Actually an aromatic liquid having the odor of a ripe banana, chiefly employed as a solvent for lacquers. Chemically it is isoamyl acetate, if you know what that is. But when your young son says, “Aw, that’s just banana oil,” in terms of derision or of praise, his slang usage is that he regards the … Read more

A “daredevil” is one so reckless as to be willing to dare the devil himself. Curiously enough, though we’ve had all sorts of foolhardy, devil-may-care, harebrained madcaps throughout history, it was less than two hundred years ago that the term daredevil was pinned upon such an individual. And, as is so disheartening to the researcher, … Read more

It may surprise many of the younger generation, those who grew up in this age of mechanization, to learn that the term roughrider was not coined specifically as a name for Teddy Roosevelt’s cavalry regiment of the Spanish-American War. Instead, the word originally was used to describe a man who specialized in breaking horses to … Read more

Often, because of the similar pronunciation, misspelled “straightlaced.” The first element was streit in Middle English, having been introduced in about the fourteenth century. It came from the Old French estreit, “tight, close, narrow,” and similar words (Spanish estrecho, Portuguese estreito, Italian stretto) are to be found in the other Romance languages. All are derived … Read more

The pocket as an ordinary adjunct of man’s outer attire is not very old, dating back only a few centuries. Before that time anything that a man carried with him had to be in his hands or hung about his person. And money was just as necessary an evil then as it is now. And, … Read more

As “dauphin” is French for “dolphin,” one may be excused for the thought that its use (from 1349-1830) as the title of the eldest son of the King of France was in playful jest. That was not so. It was originally the title of the lords of the province of Dauphine, the last of whom, … Read more

Not too long ago, an inept actor or group of actors might have been driven off the stage by being pelted with an assortment of fruits and vegetables thrown by the disgruntled audience. If the play were a satirical one, the object of the satire would, figuratively, also have been the recipient of the barrage, … Read more

Known in our language for some four hundred years, the term “Quacksalver” nevertheless was soon felt to be unmanageably long and was reduced to quack, with which we are more familiar today. The quacksalver was originally an unscrupulous or false physician, one who quacked (hawked, or bragged of) his salves (ointments). Today, the quack is … Read more

When cloth is fabricated, it is necessary or desirable to stretch the piece in order to even out the threads and to make the material straight. Before the development of modern machine methods, whereby this is accomplished in the mill as a part of the routine of manufacture, it was the practice to stretch the … Read more

Travelers in England must have, at least, known of the confection we know as the Lollipop, for it has been familiar to English children, and perhaps their parents, for more than a hundred and fifty years. But to the best of our knowledge and belief it remained unknown to American children until the early twentieth … Read more

Although Noah Webster tried hard to determine the sources of words included in his dictionary of the English language, a hundred-odd years ago, he went far astray at times. And the term galligaskins, rarely used in America but formerly common in England, was an instance. It is the name of the wide, very loose breeches … Read more

Obviously, lodestar indicates the star or other force or attraction that points the “lode.” But if that isn’t clear, perhaps it should be explained that, early in our language, lode carried the meaning “way” or “course.” Similarly, a lodestone, now more frequently spelled loadstone, was originally a piece of stone containing strongly magnetized iron which … Read more

The Hedgehog is one of the European members of the porcupine family. Or rather, it is the English name of that member, as its French name is herisson, which might be translated “bristler,” and its German name is Igel. But despite the hog part of the name, neither it nor the porcupine is remotely related … Read more

Tell and tale are closely related in an etymological sense, one being the verb form and the other the noun form of the same word. The original sense was in the concept of counting, and related parallel terms are found in the Anglo-Saxon tellan, talu; Dutch tellen, taal; German zahlen, Zahl (number); Old Norse telja, … Read more

As far as has yet been ascertained, no Jew had anything to do with the introduction of this so-called musical instrument into England, with its naming, or with its previous invention, or with the slightly earlier name, jew’s-trump. Both names date from the sixteenth century, and both are peculiar to the English language, the latter … Read more

Now political slang expressing exchange of support upon favored legislation, the word “logrolling” found its birth in an honorable custom among neighboring American frontiersmen establishing a new settlement. A house of some sort was, of necessity, the first consideration. It might be temporary and of rude construction. But as soon as opportunity permitted, a site … Read more

The 1864 edition of Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language (G. & C. Merriam) offers the following etymology for the word “wigwam”, and most other authorities are in general agreement: From Algonquin or Massachusetts wek, “his house,” or “dwelling place”; with possessive and locative affixes, wekou-om-ut, “in his (or their) house”; contracted by the English … Read more

Even if you know your French, but have never actually seen this vehicle, the name “char-a-bane”, “car with bench,” will not give you much of a picture of it. Actually this “benched carriage” strongly resembled the motor bus that has replaced it. It was long and narrow, and the transverse “benches” or seats faced forward.

Authorities disagree here. Some have it that, of Old French origin, the expression “pell-mell” was a combination of pesle, a “shovel,” and mesle, “to mix.” Hence, “mixed as with a shovel.” But others, though agreeing with the source of the second element, take it that pell was never more than a reduplication. The French coiners, … Read more

First appeared in the literal sense of “having tender feet,” as applied to horses, and recorded in this sense in the late seventeenth century, in England, as the adjective tenderfooted. The use of the word as applied to a person is conceded to be an Americanism, and probably arose also in the literal sense, referring … Read more

An old dictionary in our possession, Thomas Blount’s Glossographia (1656), has this to say of the origin of the word “harlot”: “Metonymically”, a word used as a substitute for another, “from Arlotta and Harlotha, Concubine to Robert Duke of Normandy, on whom he begat William the Bastard, Conqueror, and King of England; in spight to … Read more

Let me say at the outset that the reason one or the other of the term “G string” was given to the type of breechclout worn by some Native Americans has never been definitely determined. The early plainsmen who, apparently, were first to use it did not leave explanatory notes. But I shall offer a … Read more

The legendary gentleman John Barleycorn, sometimes styled Sir John Barleycorn, was apparently conceived about the year 1620. That we gather from the use of the name as a title to “A pleasant new ballad of the bloody murther of Sir John Barleycorn,” of that period. And the gentleman, if so he was, was even then … Read more

The little innocent game was probably known to Shakespeare, that where two people break the fork-shaped breastbone of a fowl while making a wish. And, of course, it was the act of wishing upon a bone that resulted in this name for, in technical language, the bone known as the furcula. But the name wishbone … Read more

The final syllable rhymes with the second syllable of marshal. Seneschal has had an odd history. It comes into English in its present form from the French word of the same spelling, but it originated with the Old Teutonic seniscak, “senior servant,” from the roots seni-, “old,” and skalk, “servant” (the pronunciation of the sk … Read more

“Chowderheaded” is a curious bit of slang traceable back more than four hundred years, though, like much current slang, the earliest term cannot be explained. Chowder here does not denote a stew; it’s just a mispronunciation of cholter, for cholter-headed was the form that began to appear in the early nineteenth century. But that, which … Read more

One of the earlier descriptive names of that form of a hoop-skirted dress known as a farthingale (which see), roundabout was obviously coined with particular reference to the encircling lower part of that garment. Later, in extension of the same sense, it became applied to garments which encircled the body completely, such as a greatcoat, … Read more

Legend hath it that this common tall weed of New England, blossoming with purple flowers in late summer, was so named “from an Indian of that name, who cured typhus fever with it, by copious perspiration,” in the phrasing of the botanist Constantine S. Rafinesque in 1828. Though that legend has been repeated over and … Read more

A figurehead was ornamental only, usually carved (from wood) into the figure or bust of a person, sometimes quite imposing, and it was placed beneath the bowsprit at the very bow of a ship, directly above the cutwater. Thus, most grandly, it led the vessel. Whatever the country, wherever the port, it was in the … Read more

We wish it were possible to tell with certainty why the New England corn pone “Johnnycake” is so named, but all accounts are tinged with speculation. The present name was in use early in the eighteenth century, and, though some folks did speak of the same rather durable ration as journey-cake, it is much more … Read more

Bottom, in Midsummer Night’s Dream, has suggested that he play the part of Pyramus in a “French-crowne colour’d beard, your perfect yellow,” and Quince replies, “Some of your French Crownes haue no haire at all, and then you will play bare-fac’d.” The meaning is thus clear, “having no hair upon the face, beardless.” Because it … Read more

“Sedan” is a curious example of a word for which the true etymology is not known with certainty, yet for which many authorities have proposed almost as many possible derivations. The only item upon which there is relative unanimity is that the sedan, an enclosed chair seating one person and carried by bearers, was introduced … Read more

Now the “forecastle” is merely the forward and, usually, raised part of a ship; the part, below the deck, where the sailors live. That still explains fore, but the castle section has become so completely obsolete that, indeed, anyone pronouncing the entire word other than “fo’ksl” labels himself immediately as a landlubber. But in the … Read more

Nothing to do either with worms or with wood, the word “wormwood” is an alteration, adopted beginning in the fifteenth century, of the earlier wermod, which is found in eighth-century Anglo-Saxon. It is known that the Teutonic wer, in other applications, means “man,” and that mod is an ancestor of mood with the meaning of … Read more

Perhaps the best definition that we’ve heard for this is that “Serendipity is the art of finding what you’re not looking for.” This agrees pretty well with the explanation of Horace Walpole, who coined the word in 1754 after reading the old fairytale The Three Princes of Serendip. Walpole wrote that these princes “were always … Read more

The word “hellgrammite” must have started as an Indian name, though if so no one as yet has succeeded in figuring it out. Undoubtedly the name was in wide use long before his time, but present records indicate its first appearance in print in a July, 1866, issue of the publication Wilkes’ Spirit of the … Read more

Though the names of different parts of animal anatomy, the terms may have, in part, a common explanation. That is, the dewclaw is that rudimentary inner claw, sometimes present in dogs, which hangs loosely in the skin above the other toes and which brushes, not the soil, but only against the “dew” on the grass. … Read more

Chances are that the members of the crew handling a “jolly boat” rarely were, if ever, rollicking or gayhearted. It is, or was, a work-boat, one used formerly around sailing vessels, chiefly in harbors, in carrying out errands in small duties about the ship. It was, in fact, a yawl of small size, the source … Read more

Chaucer and other early writers called a frivolous or giddy girl a gig, and such was indeed slang usage even to the eighteenth century. So, presumably because she seemed to fizz or sputter as she ran gadding about, such a girl or woman became a fysgygge, as it appeared in sixteenth-century spelling. Since then varied … Read more

In the United States a charwoman would be called a Martha-by-the-day; a general houseworker; cleaning woman; mother’s helper; or, perhaps, housemaid or maid. We’re not familiar, that is, with char or chare as a synonym for chore, “a piece of work, an odd job,” applied especially to any of the multitudinous small tasks involved in … Read more

He did not take barns by storm, as a soldier might; he merely did his storming in barns, his furious dramatic declamations. He was an actor, that is, or one who would be. He was one of the large number of second-rate itinerant players who roamed the countryside in bands, giving a play wherever they … Read more

Dictionaries for the collegiate trade, slavishly following one another, continue to carry the term bandog, though, except in the works of Sir Walter Scott, a student might never run across it. It simply means a dog, usually a large one such as a mastiff, that is kept tied, band here being used in the sense … Read more

In 1818, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, wife of the poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, published her first novel. It dealt with the supernatural, though bearing the noncommittal title Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. It was a story telling about a young Swiss student, Victor Frankenstein, who found a way to create life artificially and who, eventually, constructed … Read more

The term penny-a-liner was always used contemptuously of writers who write to fill space, who use many words but say little. It was applied originally to journalists of the early nineteenth century who, paid at space rates, padded their copy with all the bombast it would bear. With all due respect to the lovers of … Read more

Hunting dogs are used for different purposes, according to their several natures, and the peculiar property that distinguishes the class of terriers is their ability to dig out burrowing animals from their lairs. It is this earth moving attribute that has given the class its name. An old name was terrier dog, which is a … Read more