Search found 2528 matches
- Thu Feb 18, 1999 8:00 am
- Forum: Ask the Wordwizard Archive
- Topic: Self-esteem
- Replies: 1
- Views: 18564
Self-esteem
The first OED citation is 1657. The 'origin' is no more than a blend of the two words 'self' and 'esteem'.
- Thu Feb 18, 1999 8:00 am
- Forum: Ask the Wordwizard Archive
- Topic: knowledge
- Replies: 1
- Views: 15616
knowledge
knowledge comes from the northern English dialect word knaulage or knowleche and is first cited sometime before 1300. The first element is identical with the SE word know; the problem lies in the second part, the 'ledge'. The OED offers a lengthy and complex note, the burden of which is that the ver...
- Thu Feb 18, 1999 8:00 am
- Forum: Ask the Wordwizard Archive
- Topic: wag the tail
- Replies: 1
- Views: 15570
wag the tail
The image is of tail, which should be wagged by a dog, taking control of the animal.
- Thu Feb 18, 1999 8:00 am
- Forum: Ask the Wordwizard Archive
- Topic: ruminate
- Replies: 1
- Views: 17257
ruminate
Your friend is, I have to say, talking nonsense. Where do they get these ideas? The word comes from Latin 'rumen', the throast, the gullet, and was originally applied to cows chewing the cud.
- Thu Feb 18, 1999 8:00 am
- Forum: Ask the Wordwizard Archive
- Topic: smack dab craw
- Replies: 1
- Views: 16134
smack dab craw
'smack', used advervbially, with, or as with, a smack; suddenly and violently; slap plus 'dab', adv. With a dab, or sudden contact.
craw comes from a Teutonic root and is cognate with such words as Dutch 'kraag', the neck.
craw comes from a Teutonic root and is cognate with such words as Dutch 'kraag', the neck.
- Thu Feb 18, 1999 8:00 am
- Forum: Ask the Wordwizard Archive
- Topic: pound
- Replies: 1
- Views: 16193
pound
Pound is something of a problem. It is not found till near the end of the Middle English period, i.e. c. 1450. A possible root, Anglo-Saxon 'pund', is known only in comb. 'pund-fold' and an early ME. 'pundbreche' or 'pound-breach' (found in the laws of Henry I). It is supported by the derivatives '(...
- Thu Feb 18, 1999 8:00 am
- Forum: Ask the Wordwizard Archive
- Topic: penicillin
- Replies: 1
- Views: 16298
penicillin
The antibiotic agent obtained from cultures of the mould Penicillium notatum ( a genus of ascetomycetous fungi, including several of the common moulds); hence, any of a group of antibiotics that are all derivatives of 6-amino-penicillanic acid in which a radical replaces one of the amino hydrogen at...
- Thu Feb 18, 1999 8:00 am
- Forum: Ask the Wordwizard Archive
- Topic: would it be an anagram?
- Replies: 1
- Views: 15515
would it be an anagram?
No, a palindrome, from Greek 'palindromos', running backwards.
- Thu Feb 18, 1999 8:00 am
- Forum: Ask the Wordwizard Archive
- Topic: Grandparent and other names for them
- Replies: 1
- Views: 17732
Grandparent and other names for them
Both forms are noted in the Dict. of American Regional English, which defines 'oma' as grandmother, with the label 'esp. in German settlement areas'; 'opi' and 'opa' are grandfather, and similarly labelled. The latter seems to be an elision of 'grosspapa' (? or 'grosspapi'); presumably oma is 'gross...
- Thu Feb 18, 1999 8:00 am
- Forum: Ask the Wordwizard Archive
- Topic: spirit
- Replies: 1
- Views: 15322
spirit
Latin 'spiritus', breath, breathing. The earlier English uses of the word are mainly derived from passages in the Vulgate, in which spiritus is employed to render Gr. 'pneuma' and Heb. 'ruah'. The translation of these words by 'spirit' (or one of its variant forms) is common to all versions of the B...
- Thu Feb 18, 1999 8:00 am
- Forum: Ask the Wordwizard Archive
- Topic: fireplug
- Replies: 1
- Views: 15648
fireplug
The words blends fire and plug, a tap or stopcock.
- Thu Feb 18, 1999 8:00 am
- Forum: Ask the Wordwizard Archive
- Topic: Pathological
- Replies: 1
- Views: 16332
Pathological
The 'liar' version is a weak use of the technical pathological, meaming grossly abnormal in properties or behaviour
- Thu Feb 18, 1999 8:00 am
- Forum: Ask the Wordwizard Archive
- Topic: jamboree
- Replies: 1
- Views: 15487
jamboree
I can find no origin, merely an attribution to US slang, and a first citation of 1868.
- Thu Feb 18, 1999 8:00 am
- Forum: Ask the Wordwizard Archive
- Topic: best seller
- Replies: 1
- Views: 15557
best seller
The term is first cited in 1889 and seems to have been a US coinage.
- Thu Feb 18, 1999 8:00 am
- Forum: Word Origins and Meanings
- Topic: non-English words absorbed into English
- Replies: 4
- Views: 8843
non-English words absorbed into English
How long is a piece of string ... there are thousands, maybe tens of thousands, given the etymology of so much English. What I suggest, however, is that you get a copy of the Oxford Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases (OUP 19970. This boasts '8000 entries' from '40 languages'. Good luck.