the study of the origin of words and phrases.
Questions tagged [etymology]
19 questions
77
votes
3 answers
Is there a relationship between the words "night" and "eight"?
I have seen on Facebook, a post (in French) claiming that many words for the night are based on a n+respective number for the number 8. For example on this website,
Language
Number…
clem steredenn
- 832
- 1
- 6
- 10
48
votes
2 answers
Is "tag" named for "touch and go"?
A Facebook meme (with 146 thousand shares) asks:
How old were you when you learned that the game TAG stands for "Touch and Go"
I was today years old...
Is the etymology of the game tag an acronym of "touch and go"?
Oddthinking
- 142,615
- 46
- 558
- 646
23
votes
4 answers
Does the word "butterfly" stem from an erroneous transcription of "flutterby"?
I've heard it said on multiple occasions that the word Butterfly was originally Flutterby, but that it was either misread or mispronounced and somehow ended up being recorded as Butterfly instead.
I did a quick google and found the following for the…
quant
- 1,954
- 2
- 16
- 26
1
vote
3 answers
Was "Yankee" originally a derisive term for smugglers?
Johan Norberg in Open: The Story of Human Progress (2020) claims:
‘Yankee’, after all, was originally a derisive term for smugglers.
Is this true?
user55016
1
vote
1 answer
Is the etymology of quack from quicksilver?
Does the work "quack" to describe a charlatan or medical kook, come from the word quicksilver (mercury)?
I heard doctors would inject mercury in sick patients to destroy malignant cells, and as a result, the patients would get even more sick, their…
Geremia
- 361
- 1
- 11