When several words in the same language share an origin, they are called “doublets”.Because English has words from so many different Indo-European sources, it is full of examples like these.
Surprising Doublets: Wheel, Cycle, and Chakra
The English words “wheel” and “cycle” are related, as is the word “chakra” (a centre of spiritual energy within the body, in Hinduism). When two words have a shared etymology within a language, we call them “doublets”. Another surprising doublet of these is “Ku Klux Klan”. The “Ku Klux” bit comes from the Greek “Kuklos”. […]
Surprising doublets: Horse, Chariots, and Car
There are several pairs of doublets (related words) in English where one is from Norman and has a ‘c’, and the the other is from Old French and has a ‘ch’.‘car’ vs ‘chariot’ is a example, and they have the bonus of also being related to “horse”.Others include ‘castle’ vs ‘chateau’, ‘cattle’ vs ‘chattel’, ‘canal’ […]
The Etymology of English Weekdays
The idea of the 7 day week was introduced to Germanic peoples by the Romans, and so Germanic speakers mostly just replaced the Latin names of these days with Germanic gods or words that seemed like the best translations of the Roman words. The 7 names the Romans gave to their weekdays coincided with the […]
The Etymology of Planets and Dwarf Planets in English
The etymologies of the English names of the planets and dwarf planets of our solar system All the planet names come from Greek and Roman gods, except Earth. The dwarf planet names are also from gods, but from much more varied languages: in the 21st century it has become increasingly common for astronomers name solar […]
Surprising Doublets: Grime, Christ, and Ghee
Grime, Christ, and ghee share the same Indo-European root! The word “grimace” is also cognate, coming from French “grimace”, from Frankish *grima (mask), from the Proto-Germanic *grīmô. Greek Khristos is a calque of the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ (māšīaḥ), also meaning “anointed”. Māšīaḥ was also borrowed into Greek and Latin, eventually reaching English as the word “messiah”. […]
Surprising Doublets: Cow, Beef, and Bovine
Yet another surprising etymology graphic:“Cow” and “beef” are related words.After the Norman invasion of England in 1066, the country came under the rule of a Norman French speaking nobility.This lead to a situation where the live animals were handled by Middle English speakers, while the cooked animal was eaten by theirNormal French speaking lords.The result: […]
Etymological Tree of Sker
I started making an image showing how “skirt” and “shirt” are from the same origin, but got a bit carried away with all the other words also related. So here are 23 English words all from the Proto-Indo-European word “*(s)ker-” (‘to cut’). As a general rule: if a PIE word started with “sk”, and it […]
English has two unrelated -ing suffixes
Surprising etymology fact:The “-ing” suffix in phrases like “I like running” is etymological unrelated to the “-ing” suffix in phrases like “I am running”.“-ing” is actuall two unrelated suffixes in English, spelled the same. Quick grammar background:Gerunds are nouns that are made from verbs, formed by adding “-ing”, e.g. in sentences like “Reading is fun”, […]
Surprising Doublets: Hound-Canine and Wolf-Lupine
“Hound” is distantly related to “canine”, and “wolf” is similarly related to “lupus”. This makes these words two pairs of doublets. I enjoy the symmetry of this one, with the scientific species name of the grey wolf (which includes dogs), “Canis lupus”, being from the same origins as hound+wolf in English respectively. Another word related […]