An Etymological Excursion

I find it comical how often preachers refer to dead languages. Don’t get me wrong, dead languages or great, and I plan to learn as many of them as I can before I die, but preachers like to use them unnecessarily. Once, for instance, I heard a sermon about abundant life, and the preacher decided to whip out the Greek:

“Abundant – in Greek the word literally means ‘abundant’”

Fascinating. This sort of thing happens all the time, unfortunately. While I love old languages, I think it would really be better of preachers avoided them, except on especially useful occasions.

Last night I was in Borders and decided it would be a good time to peruse the good ole etymological dictionary, just for fun. There were a few words I had been meaning to look up anyway. While I am not attempting to explain abundant life, I hope you enjoy some of the nuggets I found:

Wold – open country
This word, while rare in America, is common in England and has an interesting history. It ultimately comes from German wald, forest. England used to be covered in forests, so many places have the word wold in them to denote a forest. But the forests didn’t last forever. As England was deforested, the names for places did not always change, so many places that are labeled wold were previously forests but are now open country. This process occurred so many times that the meaning of wold now only retains the meaning of ‘open country.’

Naughty – disobedient, mischievous; older – evil, wicked
The word originates in Middle English from naught, that is, nothingness, void. Naughti originally meant needy or having nothing. The current meaning of disobedient or of ill repute probably came from the view that the poor were improper and mischievous.

As an interesting side note, medieval Christian thought was influenced strongly by theologians like St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Boethius, all of whom espoused the view that evil was essentially the absence of good. Then perhaps naught had a connotation of evil in the medieval mind since nothingness contains nothing, including anything good. So obviously nothingness would have a conspicuous absence of goodness and would therefore be evil. But I have no evidence for this meaning, just speculation of a potential influence.

Villain – a scoundrel
Villain is ultimately from Latin villanus, farmhand, someone who worked on a villa. Villein denoted someone belonging to a half-free group of peasants in the Middle Ages. Both meanings did connote roguery, probably because of class differences again.

Flavor – taste
From Latin flator, odor, aroma. I just found that interesting.

Ambrosia – food of the gods
Originally from ambrotos, immortal [a – not + brotos (from mrotos – mortal)]. This is a good example of semantic narrowing. Instead of just meaning immortal, ambrosia came to mean something more specific that was associated with the immortals. Another good example is meat, which used to mean simply ‘food’ but now means, well, ‘meat.’

Flamingo – pink bird that stands on one leg all the time
Stems from flamenco which comes from Dutch Vlaming, a native of Flanders. The bird is so called because its coloring was associated with the pinkish complexion of the Flemish or Dutch.

Fornicate – have sex outside of marriage
This one shows just how disparate original meanings can be. It comes from Latin fornix, arch, vault. It gained its current meaning because prostitutes in Rome often solicited under the arches of certain buildings.

Fiasco - complete failure
Again, strange things on this one. It comes from the Latin flasco, flask, and derives its meaning from an obscure allusion in Italian drama.

Fascist (apparently I like 'f' words) - an extremist right-wing psycho
Comes from Latin fascis, a bundle (of twigs or straw). In Roman days, a bundle of rods attached to an axe head was carried before magistrates as a symbol of authority and power. How that came to mean authority or power, I have no idea. Strange thing, culture.

I think that’s enough for now. I hope you have enjoyed our etymological excursion!