Serendipity, gobbledygook, scrumptious… the English language is a full of weird and wonderful words. Create a list of curious words to look up and build your vocabulary.
Serendipity… gobbledygook… scrumptious… the English language is a treasure trove of weird and wonderful words. No doubt you have some favourites, while others might make you cringe.
Thousands of them are spoken every day, but do you ever stop to think about why we use certain ones and how things got their name? If so, you might enjoy etymology: the study of word origins. The language we use comes from different places, events, and periods of time, as well as other languages, and many words have fascinating, strange and surprising backgrounds. Once you start looking up the meanings, you’ll soon find yourself going down a rabbit hole of word exploration, uncovering their origins and showing off your knowledge of everything from nincompoop (see right) to flibbertigibbet.
For example, the word ‘etymology’ is believed to come from the Greek etymologia, meaning ‘the study of the true sense of a word’. And -ology means ‘to study the subject of’ – how many other words do you know that end this way?
BIOLOGY: bio- means ‘life’, so the ‘study of life’.
PSYCHOLOGY: psych- means ‘mind’. Now consider how many words start with bio- and psych[1]and see if you can understand the links to life or the mind.
WHY IS IT A GOOD IDEA TO EXPLORE WORD MEANINGS?
Not only is delving into the origins of words fun and interesting, plus a way to impress your family and friends with some fascinating facts, but it will also boost your reading and writing skills, without you even realising it. This is because it will help you develop your vocabulary and give you a wider knowledge of the language. You’ll also have more options and effective terms in your personal word bank when expressing yourself, which will be useful in everyday discussions, and in your education and career.
If you develop an understanding of some common roots, prefixes, and suffixes, it can also help you work out the meaning of words you’re not familiar with. Some students might already know that root words are those which can be transformed by a prefix (letters added to the start, such as dis-, mal-, sub- or micro-) or suffix (those added to the end, such as -ist and -ic). For example, the prefixes im-, in- and il- mean ‘not’, and can change root words. Impossible, invisible, and illegal are just a few examples. Can you think of any others?
HOW CAN I START?
Make a list of your favourite words or ones that you’re curious about. Then look them up in a good dictionary. You can also use a search engine – type in the word you want to explore, then ‘etymology’ after it. If you can, use a notebook to record what you find so that you don’t forget interesting snippets. You’ll discover unexpected origins and suddenly start questioning lots of words and how they came to mean what they do. See right for some wacky words and their origins.
WORDS THAT WOW
SANDWICH
You’re not alone if you’ve ever wondered where the sand is in this lunchtime fixture. Some suggest it got its name when John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, allegedly asked for his food to be served between two pieces of bread, so he could eat with his hands and be able to stay at his gambling table.
SHAMPOO
The word comes from the Hindi, chāmpo, meaning ‘to massage’. It originally referred to pressing or soothing, and in the 1800s developed to mean ‘to wash the hair’.
DISASTER
Ancient Greeks blamed their misfortunes on the stars and the planets being in the wrong position, and so the original meaning was ‘an unfavourable aspect of a planet or star’. The word itself also has roots in the Latin, astro, meaning ‘star’
MUSCLE
Strangely enough, this derives from the Latin musculus, which translates to ‘little mouse’. It was thought that the movement and shape of many muscles looked like mice running underneath the skin.
SARCASM
This derives from the Greek verb sarkazein, which means ‘to tear flesh like a dog’. Eventually, it also came to mean ‘to gnash the teeth’ and ‘to speak bitterly’.
NINCOMPOOP
Have you heard this word used to call someone silly? The 18th-century writer Samuel Johnson, who also compiled England’s first proper dictionary, claimed the first part of the word came from the Latin phrase non compos mentis, meaning ‘not of right mind’, and was originally a legal term.
COLLYWOBBLES
You might know this word to describe a nervous or weird feeling in your stomach. It might sound cute, but it’s actually derived from the Latin phrase cholera morbus, referring to severe tummy troubles!
HIPPOPOTAMUS
Many animal names have interesting origins, including this one, which means ‘river horse’ in Greek.
