by Roseanna White | Dec 17, 2018 | Word of the Week
‘Tis the season to look up any Christmas-related words I haven’t already done. 😉 Knowing that noel is French, I suppose I figured there wasn’t much more to know about it, so I hadn’t looked into this one before. But I decided it was time!
For starters, I had no idea noel has been part of the English language for so long! Originally spelled nowel, this word has meant “the feast of Christmas” since the late 1300s. It does, of course, come from Old French noel, which meant “the Christmas season.” It, however, was a variant of nael, from the the Latin natalis, which means simply “birth.” In Church Latin, of course, “the birth” can only speak to one thing… 😀
Wondering what other Christmas words I’ve featured? Here’s the list!
by Roseanna White | Dec 10, 2018 | Word of the Week
This is another word that my daughter came running out to show me in her history book. And one I found even more intriguing when I looked it up on my own, as etymonline doesn’t, in fact, agree with said history book!
So, according to A History of Us, the phrase brand-new was once bran-new. This because imported items were shipped in barrels that used bran as a packing material. So if something was fresh from the crates, just taken from the bran…
Other sources, however, say that the original was brand-new, dating from the 1500s…though the idea is actually rather parallel, in that it came from the notion of being straight from the forge (brand at the time meant “fire). Shakespeare actually used fire-new.
So whether it has a D or not, it certainly carries the same meaning–something freshly made.
by Roseanna White | Dec 3, 2018 | Word of the Week
We’ve been studying medieval history in our homeschool right now, which of course means learning about knights and the process they go through to become knights. Which naturally led to a question of where in the world the word dub came from.
Dub has been around since the days of Old English–its exact origins are unknown, but the theory is that it was borrowed from the Old French aduber, which meant “equip with arms, adorn.” That, in turn, may have originally been a Germanic word, though etymologists aren’t certain. At any rate, this borrowed word meant “to knight by ceremonially striking with a sword” as early as the 11th century.
By the late 1500s it had been extended to the less-specific meaning of “to provide with a name.”
by Roseanna White | Nov 12, 2018 | Word of the Week
I love learning things through my kids’ school! A week or two ago, my daughter came out with her vocabulary book in hand to ask if I knew about the history of the word vignette. I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard this before, but it’s a fun progression!
So back in the day, book pages that contained pictures were often decorated with a border–and one of the most popular images to use for a border was a vine. (French vigne.) By 1751, this vine border had become known as a vignette, which is just a diminutive of the French. But over the years, the word began to be used for the picture on the page, not just the border. By 1853, vignette was used for a type of small photographic portrait.
Toward the end of the 19th century, this idea of a small image or sketch expanded into the literary world and began to be used for a short work of writing too–which is the meaning I’m most familiar with. I had no idea it had come originally from a vine used as a decorative border!
Do you have any books in your house with a vignette border on any pages?
by Roseanna White | Nov 5, 2018 | Word of the Week
Ever wonder why, when we’re stymied and/or confused, we say we’re stumped? I’d never really paused to wonder about this one, but my daughter learned this etymology in her history class and had to share, and it made me go, “Oh, of course!”
As early as the 13th century, this word was used to literally mean “to stumble over a tree stump.” It was in the early 1800s that Americans began using it in a metaphorical sense, and it’s believed to be because the literal use became so common as wagons ventured west–often getting stuck on stumps that hadn’t been cleared fully from the trail–and when clearing a field for plowing that it became a part of the everyday vernacular and so took on a broader meaning.
Etymologists also point out, though, that it probably stuck because it also called upon an earlier meaning of “to challenge or dare” that was used in the 1760s.
by Roseanna White | Oct 29, 2018 | Word of the Week
This one also comes courtesy of my daughter and her history book, which includes fun little snippets about what words got their origins in the time she’s studying (a history book after my own heart!). I think I’d heard this one before, but I’d forgotten.
Ever wonder why Americans call their dollar a buck sometimes? Unlike the English quid, which is probably directly from Latin, meaning “that which is, essence” (talk about a highfaluting nickname, LOL), the American buck has a more down-to-earth history.
Around the time when our money was being established, there was still quite a frontier. This was the age of trappers and hunters bringing hides from the wilds in to sell. And a deer hide was one of the standards–with it, one could barter, trade, or get hard currency. Want to take a guess at how much a buck’s hide was worth?
That’s right. One dollar. So buck and dollar were equivalent. If something was worth a dollar, it was worth a buck, so the two began to be used interchangeably–both in speech and in practice.
What could you get for a buck when you were a kid? (I’m guessing not an entire hide, LOL)
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.