{"id":11,"date":"2017-09-04T05:48:03","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T05:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/?page_id=11"},"modified":"2018-06-11T14:28:14","modified_gmt":"2018-06-11T14:28:14","slug":"history-of-a-word-etymology","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/history-of-a-word-etymology\/","title":{"rendered":"History of a Word: Etymology"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"twelve columns\" style=\"margin-top: 10%;\">\n<div class=\"advance\"><a class=\"button button-primary\" href=\"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/vocabulary-from-the-beginning\">\u2b05 Previous Lesson<\/a>\u00a0<a class=\"button\" href=\"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/vocabulary\">Workshop Index<\/a>\u00a0<a class=\"button button-primary\" href=\"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/sea-changes-transformations-in-english-words\">Next Lesson \u27a1<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- CONTENT BEGINS HERE --><\/p>\n<h1 id=\"title\">History of a Word: Etymology<\/h1>\n<h3>Objective<\/h3>\n<p>Familiarize yourself with concepts essential to etymology<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s take a closer look at the history of several English words.<\/p>\n<p class=\"lesson_subhead\"><strong> Rooting Out Meaning<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em> bead:<\/em> from the Anglo-Saxon word for <em>prayer,<\/em> since people prayed on telling beads similar to Catholic rosaries. This is an example of a <abbr title=\"A language change process by which the meaning of one word supplants another word\">semantic shift<\/abbr>.<\/li>\n<li><em> cockney:<\/em> from the phrase <em>cock\u2019s egg.<\/em> The phrase was originally a negative term used by strong countrymen when referring to weaker townsmen. Through popular usage, the word <em>cockney<\/em> has come to mean a person from London. This is an example of an <abbr title=\"A language change process in which a word that identifies a group or a nation to others becomes the word by which they are called\">ethnonym<\/abbr>.<\/li>\n<li><em>holiday:<\/em> from the compound <em>holy-day<\/em>, originally used to designate special religious days. This is an example of <abbr title=\"Linguistics: A language change process in which a very specific word gains a more general meaning\">generalization<\/abbr>.<\/li>\n<li><em>hound<\/em> : from the word for <em>dog<\/em>. This is an example of <abbr title=\"A language change process by which a word with a general meaning becomes very specific\">narrowing<\/abbr>.<\/li>\n<li><em>lord:<\/em> from a compound meaning <em>loaf keeper<\/em>. This is an example of <abbr title=\" A language change process by which the original words lose their form because speakers no longer remember the significance of them\">loss of motivation<\/abbr>, in that the connection between the root and the meaning became too wide to maintain.<\/li>\n<li><em> sharp<\/em> (as in <em>clever<\/em>): from the concrete meaning as in <em>sharp knife.<\/em> This is an example of <abbr title=\"1. A figure of speech that compares two unlike things without using 'like' or 'as' 2. Linguistics: the principal language change process; occurs when a word with a concrete meaning gains abstract meaning; from the Greek roots meta 'beyond' and phor 'to bear'\">metaphor<\/abbr> and is the principal means by which a word gains new definitions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<section class=\"question\">\n<h4>Question<\/h4>\n<div>\n<p>Which of the following ethnonyms originally meant <em>foreigner<\/em>?<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Scottish<\/li>\n<li>Irish<\/li>\n<li>German<\/li>\n<li>French<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<p><a class=\"button button-primary q-answer\"> Reveal Answer <\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"q-reveal\" style=\"display: none;\">\n<p><span class=\"lesson_text\">The correct answer is C. The Anglo-Saxons used this word to designate the natives whom they supplanted in England.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p><!-- CONTENT ENDS HERE --><\/p>\n<div class=\"advance\"><a class=\"button button-primary\" href=\"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/vocabulary-from-the-beginning\">\u2b05 Previous Lesson<\/a>\u00a0<a class=\"button\" href=\"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/vocabulary\">Workshop Index<\/a>\u00a0<a class=\"button button-primary\" href=\"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/sea-changes-transformations-in-english-words\">Next Lesson \u27a1<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a class=\"backtotop\" href=\"#title\">Back to Top<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2b05 Previous Lesson\u00a0Workshop Index\u00a0Next Lesson \u27a1 History of a Word: Etymology Objective Familiarize yourself with concepts essential to etymology Let\u2019s 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-11","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":601,"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11\/revisions\/601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}