Where did that word come from?

Ruth Griffiths

Every word has a story to tell. Take the word “companion”. It comes from a Latin word that has the literal sense of “one who breaks bread with another.” How about the word “silly”. Its original sense was “blessed.”

Etymology is the study of words and how their meanings have changed over time. I am fascinated by the history of modern English words, but was astonished to discover that some common words have no known origin.

The word dog comes from the rare Old English word docga. The more usual word for dog back then was hund which became hound. But where did the word dog come from? Theories have been offered, but etymologists have been left scratching their heads.

The word rabbit is also obscure. In Middle English, rabbit originally meant young rabbit or bunny and was probably borrow from the French word robbet. Where did it go from there? Down the rabbit hole!

The word girl, meaning a female child, originally meant any child or young person regardless of gender. The word girl meaning “child” is recorded around 1250-1300. The deeper roots of the word are uncertain.

The word boy is also obscure. Like girl, boy also dates to 1250-1300. The roots of the word boy might be based on the Old English boia, a male given name. “Boy” might be related to the Frisian boi or young man.

The origin of “stubborn” is in itself fittingly stubborn or “unnecessarily obstinate”. Stubborn is recorded around 1350-1400 and took such forms as stibborn, stybborne or stuborn.

Many of the English words that have unknown origins are slang, defined as “very informal usage in vocabulary; idiom that is characteristically more metaphorical, playful, elliptical, vivid, and emphatic than ordinary language.” The word slang is first recorded around 1750 and was used early on for the special secret language of the underground (thieves’ can’t).

Some informal words of unknown origin are flabbergasted, traipse, gawk, nudge, nincompoop. They add punch to our conversations.

If you are still frustrated by searching for the origins of a word, you might be tempted to curse… a word that is also of unknown origin!

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