If you look up silly in the dictionary today, you come across a couple definitions.

Those all match the uses I know I’ve seen for the word, right? And it’s a word I’ve used a lot when my kids were younger for when they were acting goofy. Silly is a word we often said with laughter, with joy. It’s a fun word.

And I had no idea that it began life meaning something rather different.

In Middle English, the word was spelled seely, and it was taken from the Old English equivalent that meant “happy, fortuitous, prosperous.” The Old English came in turn from the Old German selig, which means “blessed, happy, blissful.”

The fact that the pronunciation, and hence the spelling, changed is no great surprise–that long double E was shortened and changed to an I in either speech or spelling or both in all sorts of words. But the progression of the meaning is fascinating.

The journey went something like this. From “happy” it moved into “blessed.” But “blessed” was used primarily of religious giftings, so silly began to mean “pious” or “innocent” around 1200. As with many other words that had something to do with “innocent,” by the end of the century, it could mean “harmless”…and from there, it shifted to “pitiable” and “weak.” Throughout the 1400s and 1500s, it evolved into “feeble in mind, foolish, lacking reason.”

Of course, we know that innocence does not mean foolish…but all too often, we equate the two.

By the mid-to-late 1800s, the idea of being knocked silly, as in “dazed or stunned by a blow” entered the picture. But just a bit before that, in 1858, we also a see that connection to childhood things that I associate the word with–“a silly person” was one who wrote for or entertained children (how fun is that?).

Word Nerds Merch!

With Valentine’s Day upon us, I thought it would be fun to pick a “romantic” word to examine today…and flirt wins because it’s a rather hilarious evolution. Because it didn’t always mean what it does now!

In fact, flirt began life in English around 1550 as the very opposite of what we think of today. It means “to turn your nose up or sneer at someone.”

Say whaaaaaat?

Not long after that, flirt and flick were used interchangeably…and then flirt and flit would be used interchangeably. This is a word that just didn’t know what it wanted to mean!

So how did it come to land on its current meaning? Etymologists have several theories. It could be because flit was used frequently to describe the actions of “giddy girls.” Or it could have been influenced by the French fleureter, which was “to speak sweet nonsense,” a word that was used to describe bees flitting from pretty flower to pretty flower and was borrowed to describe people who did the same, especially in conversation.

At any rate, our current meaning had evolved by the 1770s…and this flitting, flicking, flirting word finally settled on a meaning. And it hasn’t looked back since.

Word Nerds Merch!

If I were to ask you what spinster means, what would you say? My answer would be the typical one: “an unmarried woman who’s older than the perceived prime age for marriage.” And that’s what the word has come to mean, yes.

But did you know that originally it referred to any unmarried daughter, no matter how young?

Let’s look at the word itself. As soon as we pause to consider it, we see that its original meaning of “a woman who spins yarn” makes perfect sense, right? Spin is right there in it, and that -ster ending just means “one who does.” So…why is this applied to unmarried women? Well, the word dates from the 1300s, and from that time forward into nearly-modern ages, girls who weren’t yet married were expected to fill their time with something useful and productive, especially the family’s spinning.

What’s fascinating is that from the 1600s until the 1900s, spinster was actually a legal definition in England of “all unmarried women, from a viscount’s daughter downward.”

So if you were nobility, you weren’t expected to spin, hence wouldn’t be a spinster if you were unwed. But all us commoners? We were all spinsters as long as we were single! It wasn’t until 1719 that the “past her prime” connotation began to arise.

We can also note that in its technical sense of “one who spins,” it was a word that could be applied to either gender. In the 1640s, the feminine variation of spinstress also arose…and also meant “maiden lady.”

Makes you wonder what the modern equivalent would be, doesn’t it?

Word Nerds Merch!