History of a Word: Etymology

Objective

Familiarize yourself with concepts essential to etymology

Let’s take a closer look at the history of several English words.

Rooting Out Meaning

Learning the origins of words is both helpful and fun. Many seemingly ordinary words have extraordinary meanings that reveal much about the people who speak them. Here are some examples:

• bead: from the Anglo-Saxon word for prayer, since people prayed on telling beads similar to Catholic rosaries. This is an example of a semantic shift.
• cockney: from the phrase cock’s egg. The phrase was originally a negative term used by strong countrymen when referring to weaker townsmen. Through popular usage, the word cockney has come to mean a person from London. This is an example of an ethnonym.
• holiday: from the compound holy-day, originally used to designate special religious days. This is an example of generalization.
• hound : from the word for dog. This is an example of narrowing.
• lord: from a compound meaning loaf keeper. This is an example of loss of motivation, in that the connection between the root and the meaning became too wide to maintain.
• sharp (as in clever): from the concrete meaning as in sharp knife. This is an example of metaphor and is the principal means by which a word gains new definitions.

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