 Most all our word meaning confused come from verbs, but not all those original verbs mean to confuse.
The words confound & confuse both come from Latin — to pour together. confound made its way to English in the 1300s, meaning to condemn, curse, disconcert or perplex. Confused appeared in English in Middle English, but it wasn’t until the 1500s that we dropped the final -d to create the verb confuse. Addled , addle-pated, & addle-headed made their way into English in the 1600s from an Old English verb which meant become putrid. The word was often applied to bad eggs, which are sometimes stinky, & sometimes empty, & it’s the empty meaning that moved addled toward its modern meaning of idle, confused, muddled or unsound. Bewildered came from the verb bewilder, which came from Old English and appeared in the 1600s. Its literal meaning was to be led into the wilderness, though the figurative meaning confounded or confused almost immediately eclipsed the literal meaning. We didn’t have the words flummox & flummoxed until 1837, & nobody’s sure where they came from. In the 1720s the word muzzy appeared, mostly likely a form of the word mossy. The year 1759 brought us the word muddle-headed, from an old Germanic verb that meant to destroy the clarity of. That same root also gave us mud. Baffle appears to have come from a French verb which meant to abuse or hoodwink. This word traveled through Scottish, where it meant to disgrace. By the 1540s, English speakers appear to have associated confusion with disgrace, and the words baffle, baffled, & bafflement were born. An Old French word & an Old English word were slapped together in 1735 to come up with the verb bemuse, to stupefy, & so we have bemused. In the early 1800s, some Americans amused themselves by making fun of Latin by creating ridiculous, Latin-sounding words. Discombobulate & confusticate came about because of this practice. And in 1703 bamboozle showed up in English, most likely from a Scottish verb meaning to confound or perplex. Bamboozled or inspired by any of this? Please say so in the comments. Big thanks to ANNE LORENZEN for inspiring this post, & to this week’s sources: Merriam Webster, Paintingvalley.com, Wordnik, Collins Dictionary, & Etymonline.
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 The word deep comes from an old word meaning deep & hollow. Though the people who used this ancient root never wrote it down, etymologists write it *dheub-. Like our modern word, deep, the original root also carried the figurative meanings profound, inspiring, solemn, mysterious, awful.
Of course, *dheub- was far too deep a word to give us only the word deep. About the year 1200, it gave us dive, to descend or plunge headfirst into water. I’m compelled to note that the idiom dive bar was born in the 1800s. It appears to have come from the fact that many low-end drinking establishments could only be accessed by walking downstairs from street level, thus diving into the bar. Quarrelsome as they are, etymologists are still duking it out over the etymology of typhus & typhoon. They may have come from Arabic, Mandarin, Cantonese, or Greek. They may also have come from *dheu-, a form of *dheub that meant smoke. Or they may have come directly from *dheub-. I suppose both typhoon & typhus can be seen to embrace the concept of depth. Python also inspires fistfights among the more pugnacious etymologists. One camp hangs its hat on the story of Apollo slaying the serpent near Delphi, which was originally called Pythein, a word meaning to rot. The alternative camp finds our ancient root *dheub- responsible for python, as monsters such as serpents were often believed to inhabit the depths. Interestingly, the name Donald also comes from this same root that gave us dive, deep, typhus, typhoon, & python. Donald showed up in English in the 1200s from Scottish (though the name in Scottish was either Dofnald or Dufenald). It entered Scottish from Proto-Celtic, where it was something more like Dubno-valos, & meant ruler of the world, valos meaning to be strong & dubno (from the root *dheub-) meaning world. Hmmm. One must wonder. So this one root has something to do with hollow, deep, storm, plunging headfirst, disease, foundation, world, even monster habitat. Yikes. Some etymologies offer those combative etymologists more grist than others, eh? Big thanks to this week’s sources: Merriam Webster, Phrases.org, Lexico, PaintingValley.com, Collins Dictionary, Wordnik, & Etymonline.  It seems I can’t read the news these days without being flummoxed by how many toadies there are out in the world. So here’s a post on toady & its synonyms.
In the 1600s, the assistants of performing charlatans were sometimes forced to eat a “poisonous” toad so the charlatan could amaze the crowd by expelling the “poison”. Not surprisingly, these assistants were known as toad-eaters. In time, the term got shortened to toady & the meaning morphed to a servile parasite or fawning flatterer. Our modern meaning of flunky came about in 1855 (flatterer or toady). Flunky came from a Scottish word meaning footman or servant. It’s believed the pejorative shift was influenced by the requirement that footmen run through the mud & mire alongside a noble’s carriage. In 1846 the term bootlicker (or boot-licker) was born. It came from the 1600s term footlicker, & means a servile follower. An adulator is one who engages in excessive or slavish admiration. This word comes through Old French from Latin, & initially meant to fawn, as a dog after its owner. The etymological jury is still out, but it is likely adulator came from words meaning to wag the tail. An Old Norse word meaning prone gave us the word grovel, which gave us the word groveler some time in the 1500s. The meanings of groveler include one who creeps with the face on the ground, & one who abases him/herself. Flatterer came form the word flatter which appeared in the 1200s, meaning, to praise insincerely. It came from Proto-Germanic through Old French, & initially meant one who throws or flings him/herself to the ground. Though we might expect the word sycophant to be the more academic & classy of these words, its roots are crude & sexist. Sycophant came through Latin and Middle French from a Greek word that translates literally to one who shows the fig. This refers to a crass, misogynist gesture ancient Greek men used to taunt one another. From the Things Never Change Department, Etymonline.org notes that, “…politicians in ancient Greece held aloof from such inflammatory gestures, but privately urged their followers to taunt their opponents.” Initially, sycophant meant informer or slanderer, but by the 1570s, the meaning shifted to mean, servile flatterer. Toadies abound! Anything to comment on in all this toadiness? Comment away. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Merriam Webster, Lexico, Collins Dictionary, Wordnik, & Etymonline.  It makes sense that an ancient word meaning to cover would give us words like kerchief, garment, & garnish, but it takes a bit of imagination to connect an ancient verb meaning to cover to some of its other progeny.
These days, the word garret conjures images of Paris, painters, & poets, but garret originally meant a turret or small watchtower — a place that might offer a spying soldier some cover. We also see this military sense of cover in the word garrison. And because we can’t have cover without having uncover, we have the word apperture, meaning an uncovering or opening. And apperture gave birth to something that might uncover one’s appetite, the aperitif, & to the opening to a musical event, the overture. And because we used to turn off the gas lights to signal the end of the night’s revelries, & doing so involved covering those flames, the word curfew was born of this same root meaning to cover. Want to be sure you’re covered when buying something? You can rely on your warranty, (also warrantee), or guarantee (also guaranty). Need a cover under which you might park your car? Try a garage. And they all come from one little Proto-Indo-European root. Linguists write it today as *wer-. This little root also managed to populate languages other than English. Sanskrit, Latin, German, Old Irish, Gothic, Old Persian, Old Church Slavonic, & Lithuanian all have words having to do with covering, all from this one little root, *wer-. Who woulda thunk? I'd love to hear which of these words offered the biggest surprise. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Merriam Webster, Lexico, Collins Dictionary, Wordnik, & Etymonline.  In modern America it seems awfully easy to confuse what one wants with what one needs. And so…
To want is to feel need, to crave. Want came to English in 1200 as a noun, meaning insufficiency, shortage, deficiency. Some near-synonyms include: To desire — to long for something with intensity or ardor. To wish for -- weaker than desire, sometimes referring to an unrealizable longing. To crave -- the strong desire to gratify a physical appetite or urgent need. To covet — to ardently desire. Though all the above words involve feeling a need, the need isn’t necessarily essential. I may want, desire, wish for, crave, or covet a $5000 guitar, but when it comes down to it, the three guitars I've already got are already taking good care of me. To need something is to experience an urgent requirement of something essential. Need appeared in English about the same time as want. It came from early Germanic sources originally meaning violence or force. Need broadened on its way from Old English to Middle English to mean distress, peril, hardship, necessity. Some near-synonyms include: To require -- to experience need of something that is indispensable to a particular end or goal. To lack -- to experience an absence or insufficiency of something essential. Dear readers, do you ever struggle with the delineation between want & need? Big thanks to this week’s sources: Merriam Webster, Etymonline, Collins Dictionary, Webster’s 1959 New World Dictionary of the American Language, & Wordnik.  The word kiss has been with English speakers since we were speaking Old English, except that it was spelled cyssan. Even back then it meant to touch with the lips. Though most etymologists are guessing kiss is a word imitative of the sound of a kiss, they haven’t landed on a common root for kiss. Still, these forms of the word exist in these languages:
kysse — Norwegian & Danish kyssa — Old Norse kessa — Old Frisian kussian — Old Saxon cussen — Middle Dutch kyssa — Swedish kuwash-anzi — Hittite Interestingly, English is a language that gives us the same word for both a kiss of mild affection & an erotic kiss, whereas in Latin, an erotic kiss was called saviari, while a kiss of affection was known as osculum (which translates to little mouth). Might the saviari variety kiss — by comparison — involve a larger mouth? The idiom kiss & tell appeared in the 1690s. Kiss my arse has been around since at least 1705. Since 1825 a bit of chocolate or candy has been referred to as a kiss. Since 1911 the acronym SWAK has meant sealed with a kiss To kiss something goodbye appeared in 1935, as did to kiss someone off. Since 1937, we’ve had the term kiss-proof to refer to lipstick. Give me some sugar (a kiss) showed up in the 1940s. The kiss of death has been around since 1944. And we’ve got some kiss synonyms, with buss showing up in 1560, smack (a loud kiss) appearing in the 1600s, neck made its way to English as a verb meaning to kiss in 1825, & smooch arrived in 1932. This week, in lieu of leaving a comment, offer someone a kiss (your choice whether saviari or osculum). Big thanks to this week’s sources: Urban Dictionary, Merriam Webster, Etymonline, Collins Dictionary, & Wordnik.  Say these words aloud (really. It’ll be fun):
bellows - belly - bilge - billow - bolster - bloat - bulge It’s easy to imagine these words all come from an ancient root meaning to swell. But wait, there’s more. Another branch of that same root gave us: ball - balloon - bole - bollocks - bull - bulk - boulder - bowl And another gave us: full - fool - follicle - folly At some point in history, that same root added the meaning to overflow, which gives you the opportunity to say another list aloud: fluid - flux - effluent - flume - confluence - influx - fluvial - influenza - reflux - mellifluous And it takes little imagination to reconstruct why these words all came from a root meaning to swell or overflow. Pretty swell, eh? If you’ve got swell comments, please leave them. And may your week be swell. Big thanks to Sioux Thompson for inspiring this post & to this week’s sources, Merriam Webster, Etymonline, Collins Dictionary, & Wordnik.  An ancient word for quiet led to a steaming heap of words — not all of them sounding all that quiet.
Words in Old Persian,Old Church Slavonic, Avestan, & Old Norse led etymologists to construct the Proto-Indo-European word *kwyeə-, meaning to rest or be quiet. The big idea is that Proto-Indo-European was an unwritten mother-tongue that led these disparate groups to use similar-sounding words that all meant about the same thing. *Kwyeə- gave us the English word quiet in about 1300. A couple centuries later it also gave us acquiesce, quiescent & quietude. It also gave us a word roughly meaning super-quiet — the word requiem. Apparently being free & clear gives one a sense of quiet, so those who were free & clear of debt, discharged, at liberty, or unmarried, were said in the 1200s to be quit. Hmmm. A legal form of being free & clear is to be acquitted. In time, the freeing sense of quit took over in popular usage: to release, let go or abandon. This free & clear meaning also gave birth to the word quite, (someone who is quite intelligent could also be labelled clearly intelligent). And because getting some rest & quiet takes a little time, *kwyeə- also gave us the words while & awhile. Last but not least, *kwyeə- gave us the word coy. Coy’s original meaning (in the 1300s), was quiet. It only took a hundred years for its meaning to ooze from quiet through placid & gentle to shy & bashful. All that from quiet. Any thoughts? Please let me know in the comments section. Big thanks to Sioux Thompson for inspiring this post & to this week’s sources, Merriam Webster, Collins Dictionary, Etymonline, Oxford Dictionaries, & Wordnik.  The word stream, a course of water, came to Old English from Germanic languages. Its Proto-Indo-European root meant to flow. Another Proto-Indo-European root meaning to flow gave us the word runnel, a small stream.
But wait…there are more! The word creek most likely came from an Old Norse word meaning corner or nook. Etymologists believe the word is related to the word crook, originally meaning full of bends & turns. By the 1500s, creek (also pronounced crick) came to mean a small stream or brook. An Old Norse word meaning stream gave Middle English speakers the word beck. Interestingly, these days we use beck to refer to streams that flow ruggedly over gravel and stones — as many northern European streams do. Most modern English speakers would label a contest of speed with the word race. This meaning kicked in about 1510. Previous to that, race meant the act of running. Race came from an Old Norse word meaning a rush of water, & that meaning has hung around all these years, which is why in some regions, a stream or creek is referred to as a race. The word brook, a stream or creek, came to Middle English from an Old English word meaning to use or enjoy. A stream can also be called a rindle, which came into Old English from Germanic sources used to refer to a brook, stream, runner, or messenger. About 1300 the word branch appeared in English, meaning division of a stem of a tree or bush. Branch’s meaning almost immediately broadened to mean division or contributing member of anything, including a river or stream. So as long as it merges downstream with another creek or river we can call a creek a branch. Some English speakers refer to a stream as a burn. This words comes from an Anglo-Saxon word that meant brook or stream, & is the reason many towns or cities near streams end in something like burn, for instance Melbourne, Gisborne, & Blackburn. A rill is a small brook or stream. This word came to English in the 1530s from one of the Germanic languages, likely coming from a Proto-Indo European word meaning to run or flow. And last but not least, Northeastern Americans got the word kill (meaning stream), from a Dutch word meaning riverbed or channel, which is why so many streams and creeks in Pennsylvania, New York, & New Jersey are referred to as kills. I’d love to know which of these surprised you. Comment away. Big thanks to Sioux Thompson for inspiring this post & to this week’s sources, Merriam Webster, Collins Dictionary, Etymonline, Say Why Do I?, Oxford Dictionaries, & Wordnik.  Here are some more Algonquian words that made their way into English.
An Algonquian word meaning powder, dust, or ashes came to English in 1896 meaning worthless. That word is punk. Though the West Indian island Jamaica got its name from the Taino-speaking folks who lived there, the Jamaica of Jamaica Plains in New York is Algonquian. It comes from the Delaware branch of Algonquian & meant beaver pond. In 1937, United States Rubber Products Inc. trademarked the name Naugahyde, a word that patched together the Old English word hide with Naugatuk, the name of the Connecticut town in which the product was made. Naugatuk is an Algonquian word which meant one tree. An Algonquian village near a Connecticut river was situated in a boggy place, so the natives called it Potunck (which meant something like to sink in). In 1846, the word Podunk was born — the name of a mythical & “typical” town featured in a recurring column in the Buffalo Daily National Pilot newspaper. Years later, the meaning oozed toward meaning an insignificant, isolated place. Since 1763, English speakers have used the word caucus — a private meeting of leaders or voters. Though the research isn’t definitive, caucus’s source is most likely an Algonquian word meaning counselor, elder, or advisor. Some Algonquian speakers were impressed by the size of the canoes of another native group (the Chiwere), & called them people of the big canoes. Their name for this group turned into the word Missouri. Though etymologists are still arguing about the origin of the word tuxedo, one of the likely sources is Algonquian. They called a Delaware town P’tuck-sepo, after its crooked river. That town name got applied to Tuxedo Park, New York, which became a “rural resort for wealthy New Yorkers,” & the attire worn by the visiting gentlemen likely picked up the name, tuxedo. Modern English speakers have a richer language thanks to hundreds of contributing languages, including all the various branches of Algonquian. Though English has benefitted from them, not all those languages have survived. It seems to me we should be appreciating them all the more. My thanks go out to this week’s sources, Merriam Webster, Collins Dictionary, Etymonline, & Wordnik. |
I write for teens & tweens, bake bread, play music, and ponder the wonder of words in a foggy little town on California's central coast.
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