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Etymology scriptorium

Welcome to the Etymology scriptorium. This is the place to cogitate on etymological aspects of the Wiktionary entries.

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November 2025

δῖος

This turned up in a text search for double words. The part in question was added by @Glésan, and doesn't make sense as written:

The Indo-Iranian and Greek terms (which are formally identical) may alternatively be independently formed to to the root *dyew-.

Now that the EWAia is no longer available online, it's impossible for me to check the reference to figure out what was really meant, and whether it makes any sense in the context of the rest of the etymology. Can someone fix this? Thanks! Chuck Entz (talk) 01:13, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

Mayrhofer's idea is that δῖος and दिव्य don't really derive from the same PIE ancestor, but are later creations ("Urverwandschaft mit gr. δῖος besteht nicht"). Ringe reconstructs *diwyós though. Exarchus (talk) 09:42, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

Lubotsky at {{R:inc:IAIL|divyá-|176}} also indicates that δῖος "can be an independent formation". Exarchus (talk) 09:48, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

Related to this, I think the Proto-Hellenic reconstruction *díyyos can't be correct, as we have Mycenaean 𐀇𐀹𐀍 (di-wi-jo). Pinging originator @Erutuon Exarchus (talk) 10:07, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

You can see the entry divyá- in the EWAia here on pp. 726 & 727.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:38, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

Senhaja de Srair ameḥjur

Almost certainly ultimately derived from Arabic مَحْجور (maḥjūr), as suggested by the presence of the Arabic definite article in the plural form. It was probably borrowed through Moroccan Arabic, though I have not been able to find this word with the sense “orphan”. Can anyone confirm its use with that meaning? Lankdadank (talk) 21:11, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

Moroccan Arabic محجور (maḥjūr) means ward (“person under guardianship”). — Fenakhay ^{(حيطي · مساهماتي)} 20:56, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Dutch word schijnheilige

In the etymology, the gloss of heilige as "holy man" seems to me to have the wrong connotation in English; it brings to mind monks, ascetics, priests, etc. Would it still have the correct meaning if the gloss was changed to "saint" (a word that is already frequently used metaphorically in English for exactly this type of thing)? TooManyFingers (talk) 16:33, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

@TooManyFingers: It looks to me like a simple nominalization of the adjective: someone who is schijnheilig. No need to assume that the second part was nominalized separately before being combined with the first part. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:19, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Dutch happily forms noun–noun compounds, and so schijn +‎ heilige is theoretically possible, and perhaps even found in the wild, similar to schijnhuwelijk (“sham marriage”), schijnoffer (“fake sacrifice”) and schijnproces (“show process”). However, this (theoretically possible) noun–noun compound can be distinguished from the nominalization of the compound adjective schijn +‎ heilig (“hypocritical”) by an audible difference in stress. Dutch compound nouns have word stress on the first component: schijnhuwelijk, schijnoffer, schijnproces, beschermheilige (“patron saint”), patroonheilige (“patron saint”), pilaarheilige (“stylite”). Dutch compound adjectives are stressed on the second component: schijnheilig, and this stress pattern is conserved in the nominalizations.  ​‑‑Lambiam 18:33, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

The compound schijn +‎ heilige, meaning as much as “fake saint”, can be found in the wild here (in a book, in the phrase de schijnheilige Sint Magher van Gecxhuysen) and also here (in a blog). I suppose these uses are too rare to meet our CFI. I’ve fixed the etymology.  ​‑‑Lambiam 12:07, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

concensus

Sirs/Madams:

Consider the influence of the word census. 87.218.84.97 22:28, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Misspelling of consensus. No relation. Wakuran (talk) 00:32, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

This particular misspelling is, however, probably influenced by the spelling of the word census, just like the misspelling abstenance (for abstinence) is probably influenced by the orthography of abstention and maintenance.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:13, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

It does have an indirect connection to another familiar word, but that indirectly related word is "consent". TooManyFingers (talk) 08:07, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Arabic entry [لَذَّ]

Is there a reason why this isn't listed under the the root [ل ذ ذ]? I'm pretty sure it should be there but I'm not certain so I don't want to put it there. 2001:56A:7C0D:1700:FEE6:5775:C5EA:BC91 18:27, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I added the rootbox Exarchus (talk) 19:19, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

着ぐるみ

A bit late since it’s already FWOTD, but the etymology seems to be wrong. Japanese wikipedia has an extensive section on the history of the word in the tokusatsu genre, which makes it clear that it was originally a wearable (着 ki-) puppet (縫いぐるみ nuigurumi). I don’t think any Japanese speaker understands ぐるみ as being literally “to wrap up” in this word. 209.35.66.50 19:03, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Agreed that JA sources clarify this as basically "a kind of 縫い包み (nuigurumi) that you wear (着る (kiru))":

• Digital Daijisen: https://kotobank.jp/word/着包み-473077
• Nihon Kokugo Daijiten: https://kotobank.jp/word/着包-2027222
• Nihon Kokugo Daijiten entry for 縫い包み: https://kotobank.jp/word/縫包-2071588#E7.B2.BE.E9.81.B8.E7.89.88.20.E6.97.A5.E6.9C.AC.E5.9B.BD.E8.AA.9E.E5.A4.A7.E8.BE.9E.E5.85.B8

There isn't any attestation date given for this "wearable" sense for kigurumi, but FWIW the same "wearable" sense for nuigurumi is dated to at least 1703 in kabuki contexts, so this concept has been around a while.

That said, these sources also list a sense for kigurumi of "what someone is wearing and their whole appearance", based on verb 着る (kiru, “to wear”) and suffix ぐるみ (-gurumi, “including [suffixed word], [suffixed word] and all, [suffixed word] and everything”), which latter entry we don't yet have. Our entry at 着ぐるみ could do with some updating. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 01:28, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the research. To clarify, any changes need to be made under both 着ぐるみ and kigurumi. 209.35.66.50 14:56, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Indonesian "remis" etymology

Hello, Is Indonesian word remis ("remittance (of money)") a Portuguese loanword remessa (“transfer, remittance (of money)”)? Please Yuliadhi (talk) 06:12, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Seems plausible, unless there's a Dutch cognate that means the same thing. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:02, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

WNT gives the meanings "Overgemaakt bedrag" and "Het overmaken van geld of geldswaarden" for remise. Exarchus (talk) 09:18, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

I’ve added this sense to Dutch remise, and set the Indonesian Etymology 1 to “Borrowed from Dutch remise.” I‘ve also changed Etymology 2 to borrowing from Dutch instead of directly from French, which is unlikely.  ​‑‑Lambiam 12:12, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

@Lambiam The meaning "remittance" is probably outdated though Exarchus (talk) 13:57, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

It has never been a term used colloquially, which makes it hard to assess its current status. I suspect it is still used in such texts as contracts and commercial correspondence, provided they are drawn up in Dutch, which seems to be increasingly rare. Here is a use from 1942, and here one from 2012 – although it refers to a historical situation, the text itself is recent.  ​‑‑Lambiam 23:12, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Gujarati "પોતે" etymology

Means self, similar to the old meaning for Lithuanian "pats". Could the etymology for પોતે be similar? 50.236.138.78 18:54, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

The Gujarati cognate of Lithuanian pats is પતિ (pati), but it's still a good question where પોતે (pote) came from. I can't find it in Turner's CDIAL. Exarchus (talk) 07:44, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

Make yourself at home

I have moved the question to Wiktionary:Tea room/2025/November § Make yourself at home.  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:56, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

prepositive ready

Wiktionary:Tea room/2025/October#Does ready need an Adverb section? Nobody has responded to me since I last sent a reply. Bottom line is: is ready in ready-made, ready-cooked, etc. an adjective ("ready") or an adverb ("already")? Saumache (talk) 13:49, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

I don’t think there is an easy test – the same modifier can be adverbial in some hyphenated compounds (half-baked) and adjectival in others (half-brained). Cases like above-mentioned, far-gone and well-done are easy, because they clearly correspond to the qualified participle constructions mentioned above, gone far and done well, in which the second term is an adverb. Perhaps ready-made can be compared to full-made, in which I tend to analyze full as an (archaic) adverb, just like in full-grown. An argument against classifying ready in ready-cooked as an adverb is that it is hard to find examples in which ready as an isolated word clearly functions as an adverb modifying a verb or an adjective – we don’t say *“it is ready available” or *“it worked ready for more than an hour”.  ​‑‑Lambiam 13:52, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

On historical grounds: I pointed at the fact that 'ready' as "already" dies out or had already died out when prepositive 'ready' seems to have started appearing (around 1600), see quotes. In these early attestation I also found it hard to translate them as "already-". I don't know if these two "facts" prove anything anyway.

Your tests (which work because 'ready' alone is obviously no longer an adverb, the whole point I think is that the obsolete sense "already" for some would have been crystalized in these prepositive formation) also go that way; as I already said, I think 'ready' is mostly like 'hard' in hard-boiled, proleptic, "boiled to be hard" (or "boiled (as to be) hard") not "boiled hardly".

Should we keep 'ready' as an adverb, make it an adjective or even remove the thing and treat each case separately? I see that half only mentions this use in the usage notes, above the adverb doesn't bother but the adjective does.

Also, I asked Benwing2 about this but got no response: we have a label and gloss at the glossary for 'postpositive', but neither of them for 'prepositive', would you do that please? Making a category would be nice as well, postpositives like galore have one. Saumache (talk) 09:14, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Prepositive ready seems to carry the sense of already, which may explain how it could be considered an adverb.

On the other hand, made seems to be super-flexible about what can be prepended: tailor-made, hand-made, custom-made. Agreed: It's hard to say whether ready is an adverb or adjective. Latvvot (talk) 08:14, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

howdy

Sirs/Madams:

Consider the intermediate step of howdy-do for the etymological clipping? 87.218.84.97 09:44, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Seems to be mentioned already, albeit somewhat differently spelled. Wakuran (talk) 12:52, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Added. J3133 (talk) 14:00, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

debar

Sirs:

In the metalurgy field, an acronym for deformed bars, presumably variedly spelling. 87.218.84.97 10:03, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

It appears rather to be a portmanteau than an acronym. Or prefixed de+ bar. Wakuran (talk) 12:50, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

We call “rebar” a blend of reinforcing + bar. We do not have an entry for a noun sense of debar, which appears to be synonymous with deformed rebar. The deformations are ribs, as can be seen in the images here. I have a hard time finding sources in durably archived sources in which the sense of the term is clear.  ​‑‑Lambiam 18:32, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Indonesian/Malay "sesal" etymology

Hello, Is Indonesian/Malay word sesal ("to regret") a Sanskrit loanword? Please Yuliadhi (talk) 08:04, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

ctenocyst

Needs proper Greek etymology. Vealhurl (talk) 13:06, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

The word didn't exist in Ancient Greek, but I've listed the English elements of Greek origin that it's formed from. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:33, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

linearis

RFV for this comment: "The post-Classical sense of 'having the form of a line' is likely a back-formation from the adverbial form līneāriter (literally 'using a line or lines')"

Can we get a citation for:

(1) That the sense of linearis of 'having the form of a line' is post-Classical? Wasn't that already one of the senses in Classical Latin?

(2) That this sense is a backformation from līneāriter? I find this hard to believe.

Thank you.

Latvvot (talk) 07:59, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

@Latvvot I will have a look in more depth, but none of the major dictionaries have that as a Classical sense. The back-formation argument is as follows:

1. The Classical meaning is closer to "line-based", so pictura linearis (“line-based drawing”), probatio linearis (“line-based [geometric] proof”), and so on.
2. The adverb līneāriter was regularly derived from this with the meaning "using a line" or "in the manner of a line".
3. As it was commonly used with verbs of motion (e.g. see two cites in the DMLBS here), the original sense of "[moving] using a line" was reanalysed as "[moving] like a line", as they're essentially indistinguishable in that context.
4. The adjectival sense of "like a line; having the form of a line" was then back-formed from that reanalysis.

Theknightwho (talk) 23:06, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

OK, thank you for reply. Maybe we could reword this distinction a bit, to make clear what sense 4 allows, but sense 1 does not allow?

Suggestion: Maybe mention the sorts of nouns that might be modified? I'm guessing that there must be one or more genres of nouns (iter? via?) that cannot be modified by linearis in sense 1 but that can be modified in sense 4.

To state the matter in another way: It's hard to imagine (for me, anyway) that classical Latin had sense 1 but not sense 4. Maybe some specific examples might make this clear.

For example: Is it true that linearis ratio was allowed in Classical Latin, but that lineare iter was not? I'm not sure I understand. Thank you very much. Latvvot (talk) 23:59, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

kelpie

It is from Arabic kalb كلب which mean dog. Husam albitar (talk) 18:43, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

The Celtic mythological creature? It seems extremely improbable to me. Wikipedia mentions Gaelic cailpa or cailpeach, which might have one meaning of colt (young male horse). Wakuran (talk) 19:58, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

rematchmaker

From Talk:rematchmaker:

@J3133 Even if rematch can have that sense, I would argue that speakers might casually just stick re- onto matchmaker, rather than explicitly thinking "this person is the maker of a rematch!". I think you are overly optimistic in your etymology. Oh well. 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:7082:78C2:9876:E5CA 22:09, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

By the same analogy, e.g., bookshopkeeper might also be from shopkeeper (and was listed as a blend before being changed). The current etymology is “From rematch +‎ maker, after matchmaker.” Should it be changed to re- + matchmaker (or a blend with rematch)? J3133 (talk) 22:16, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Even re- +‎ matchmake +‎ -er might be considered! 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:7082:78C2:9876:E5CA 22:21, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Note: the etymology I reverted after adding a sense to rematch was not re- + matchmaker but re- + match + maker, which is another alternative. J3133 (talk) 22:55, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Quote 1980 seems to be rematch + marker, modelled after "matchmaker". I could see it being re- + matchmaker, however. CitationsFreak (talk) 01:44, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

karaburan

I suspect the first part of this word is قارا (qara), presumably because the wind is so dust-laden it blackens in the sky, and the second part is the Uyghur cognate of буран (buran). Can anyone confirm or correct? - -sche (discuss) 22:08, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm sure you're right that it's from those Turkic roots, but proving that it's Uyghur as opposed to another Turkic language might be difficult. —Mahāgaja · talk 22:52, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Ἱερουσαλήμ

Theknightwho insists that the Greek borrowing from Hebrew involves phono-semantic matching rather than a simple folk-etymological re-interpretation of the beginning of the Hebrew name. But calling this adaptation phono-semantic matching would only work if the adapted name looked fully Greek, both the first and the second part, but the second part (ending in mu) still looks very obviously foreign. I already gave my rationale in an edit summary but the user keeps ignoring it and insists on their understanding of phono-semantic matching as correct. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:51, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke

1. The entry currently states "partial phono-semantic matching". How is that incompatible with your argument that the word is only partially affected?
2. The only "rationale" you gave was an edit summary where you said w:Phono-semantic matching has a meaning in linguistics; it's not this. Not good enough, quite frankly.

Theknightwho (talk) 15:12, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

If it's partial, it's not PSM, because the foreign origin isn't hidden. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:04, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke What is that supposed to mean? How could a partial PSM ever be hidden? Theknightwho (talk) 00:47, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

@Theknightwho: You've also given no argument why you don't consider it folk-etymological re-interpretation. You haven't given any argument at all. That's the problem. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:06, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

This does not look like phonosemantic matching to me at all. PSM in my understanding is an instrument of language policy that is quite consciously applied. It is especially prevalent in languages like Icelandic and Chinese that hold a language ideology of linguistic purism. The above word shows the effect of folk-etymology. I think the fact the h-less variants exist is an extra testament to that. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 02:24, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

I agree. This is definitely just folk etymology, not PSM. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:01, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps a phoney semantic matching, given that Hebrew ירו does not have a sense of “holy”.  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:00, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

@Caoimhin ceallach @Mahagaja @Lambiam @Florian Blaschke That would require there to be no intentionality behind this, which there clearly was, given that יְרוּשָׁלַיִם would not yield Ἱερουσαλήμ (Hierousalḗm) as a mere borrowing. Theknightwho (talk) 19:11, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

(1) The Greek word was probably borrowed directly from Aramaic יְרוּשְׁלֶם (yərūšəlem) (ending in /em/), not from Hebrew יְרוּשָׁלַיִם (yerushaláyim) (ending in /ajim/). (2) By the time of the borrowing, Greek was in the process of losing /h/ anyway. (3) In loanwords, /j/ was rendered with ι and /ʃ/ with σ, so /ierusaˈle̝m/ is pretty much exactly what Aramaic יְרוּשְׁלֶם would yield as a "mere borrowing". What's folk etymology is spelling it with the rough breathing instead of the smooth breathing to make it look like ἱερός (hierós). There's absolutely no PSM happening, and even the folk etymology is purely orthographic. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:34, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

@Mahagaja So you're saying it was intentionally changed to match a pre-existing Greek word for its meaning? Yes, I agree. That would be a PSM. Theknightwho (talk) 22:17, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Nope, that's not what PSM is. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:48, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

@Mahagaja If you're going to claim it requires actual phonetic changes in the realisation (which very arguably are the case here anyway), I advise you take that up with the Japanese editors, as there are going to be quite a few issues. Stop being awkward. Theknightwho (talk) 21:32, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia, PSM means "the word's non-native quality is hidden by replacing it with phonetically and semantically similar words or roots from the adopting language. Thus the approximate sound and meaning of the original expression in the source language are preserved, though the new expression (the PSM – the phono-semantic match) in the target language may sound native" and is "camouflaged borrowing ... [as] 'simultaneous substitution and importation'". Simply changing the spelling of a loanword because one mistakenly thinks it's related to a native word is not what PSM is. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:39, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

The difference isn't in what is done, but in why. In some ways, it's like the difference between a minced oath and a malapropism. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:57, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Precisely. Theknightwho (talk) 02:29, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

There's a passage in the Christian Epistle to the Hebrews that might have at least influenced something:

Hebrews 7:1:

Οὗτος γὰρ ὁ Μελχισέδεκ, βασιλεὺς Σαλήμ, ἱερεὺς τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ὑψίστου, ὁ συναντήσας Ἀβραὰμ ὑποστρέφοντι ἀπὸ τῆς κοπῆς τῶν βασιλέων καὶ εὐλογήσας αὐτόν

Hoûtos gàr ho Melkhisédek, basileùs Salḗm, hiereùs toû theoû toû hupsístou, ho sunantḗsas Abraàm hupostréphonti apò tês kopês tôn basiléōn kaì eulogḗsas autón

this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him;

You'll notice that it has both Ancient Greek ἱερεὺς (hiereùs, “priest”) and Ancient Greek Σαλήμ (Salḗm) right next to each other. This is an allusion to

Genesis 14:18:

וּמַלְכִּי־צֶ֙דֶק֙ מֶלֶךְ שָׁלֵ֔ם הוֹצִ֖יא לֶ֣חֶם וָיָ֑יִן וְה֥וּא כֹהֵ֖ן לְאֵ֥ל עֶלְיֽוֹן

And Melchizedek, king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.

In the Septuagint Ancient Greek translation:

καὶ Μελχισεδεκ βασιλεὺς Σαλημ ἐξήνεγκεν ἄρτους καὶ οἶνον· ἦν δὲ ἱερεὺς τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ὑψίστου.

kaì Melkhisedek basileùs Salēm exḗnenken ártous kaì oînon; ên dè hiereùs toû theoû toû hupsístou.

Salem was traditionally identified with Jerusalem, primarily as a way of claiming a positive connection between Jerusalem and the people of Abraham going back to the days of the Abraham himself. It would be perfectly normal for early Jews or Christians to associate "Yerushalayim" with "Hiereus" + "Shalem", especially since early written Greek didn't have diacritics to show the "h" sound.

As for phonosemantic matching: I always understood it to be a way of "language-washing" foreign words to seem less foreign by replacing pieces of the foreign term with the phonetically-closest thing that could be found in the borrowing language which sort of meant something like the meaning of the foreign term. It's entirely possible for the same borrowing to be interpreted either as PSM or folk etymology. This one seems to me just Christians thinking that ἱερεὺς (hiereùs) and Σαλήμ (Salḗm) are in the same semantic neighborhood, so it would just be natural for them to go together in forming the word for a synonym of Salem that's associated with priests. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

If indeed it should be difficult to distinguish phono-semantic matching from folk etymology, for the sake of accesibility we should avoid the former term in favour of the more common latter term.

You may well be right about the influence of those Bible passages. I'd argue however that this is a clear-cut case of PSM:

1. To echo FB, a partial disguise of a foreign word is not a disguise at all. Ἱερουσαλήμ (Hierousalḗm) is still obviously foreign. Kind of like a meat dish with added vegetables is still a meat dish.
2. PSM can't apply to names because they are normally understood to not have a meaning. You could disguise the loan, but it wouldn't be PSM.
3. Even if you accept the 'partial' part and considered element-by-element PSM, as Lambiam said, ירו (yərū) didn't mean ‘holy’. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 21:01, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

@Caoimhin ceallach PSM's don't require the meaning be retained one-to-one, though; it was clearly motivated by the association between Jerusalem and holiness. Theknightwho (talk) 02:30, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

By definition, a PSM is intended to hide the foreignness of the word by making it look like a native word. Ἱερουσαλήμ (Hierousalḗm), being an indeclinable proper noun ending in μ, still looks very, very foreign, and the -υσαλήμ portion doesn't mean anything in Greek. Spelling it with a rough breathing instead of a smooth is in no way hiding its foreignness. The alternative name Ἱεροσόλυμα (Hierosóluma) comes a little bit closer because at least it looks like it could be a Greek word, though the Σόλυμα (Sóluma) portion still doesn't carry any meaning beyond being a different foreign place name. But in that case you can at least imagine people thinking "there's regular Solyma in Lycia, and Holy Solyma in Judaea", which is a weak case for PSM. But in the case of Ἱερουσαλήμ (Hierousalḗm) there's simply no plausible argument for PSM whatsoever. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:06, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

@Mahagaja My issue with the argument that it's intended to hide the foreignness of the word is that that would undermine the concept of partial PSMs altogether, so it cannot be a requirement. Theknightwho (talk) 16:17, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't see how it would do that. None of the etymologies on wiktionary mentioning "partial phono-semantic matching" are comparable. As far as I can tell (the glossing in these etymologies is poor) it's the semantic match which is partial. None of them only partially hide the foreignness. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 19:35, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

شخشیدن

The entry currently claims that it might be derived from the root *skek-, though I can't find any actual source for this etymology and all of the other resources discussing this root do not mention the term. In fact, the root is generally considered to be confined to Celtic, Germanic, and Balto-Slavic. Graearms (talk) 16:27, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

That was added by User:Irman, a permanently banned, retarded user. You can safely remove his etymologies. Vahag (talk) 20:42, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure which sense of "retarded" is meant here, but it comes across a bit harsh. Wakuran (talk) 16:36, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Having dealt with Irman, I will say that the wording is unfortunate- but more for its affect on innocent third parties than what it says about this person. They were willing to make up all kinds of lame nonsense in order to pretend that everything important came from Persian, and resorted to all kinds of block evasion, sockpuppetry and other dishonesty to sneak it into every etymology they could think of. Fortunately, they were too incompetent to pull it off for long. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:32, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

I've gone and removed the current etymology from the page. That still does leave the problem of what the actual etymology is.

It turned out there was a pretty obvious source I've missed. I found this article which, in the abstract, seems to claim that it derives from Old Persian *fraxsa, itself from some root raxsa- (“to slip”). This same abstract provides etymologies for serval other words, including سریدن (soridan), which also seems to currently have an etymology added by Irman. I can't actually read the source as it is in Persian. Otherwise, there is this paper, which purports to analyze certain Classical Persian words in the Quran. It also apparently describes saxsidan on page 5, though I can't read it because it is also in Persian. Graearms (talk) 04:10, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

Added the etymology according to the first study; the second study doesn't list an etymology. Saam-andar (talk) 10:06, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

rollick

Sirs/Madams:

Consider: romp as a potential source of the blend too? 87.218.84.97 18:18, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

See Occam’s razor.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:11, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

Tarifit: uccen

I do believe it ultimately either comes from the proposed KʷeHn- meaning canid/wolf. Or alternatively (what I think to be more likely) ʔušən which also carries this root definition of canid/wolf, but also lines up better to the tʃ sound of [cce] in uccen. However I cannot at this moment find a decent source for either term, I have tried. 2601:603:600:FE10:B91C:2949:4965:96F5 18:47, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

घेर etymology

Clearly seems related to PIE ǵʰer-. Right? ~2025-33629-36 (talk) 21:07, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

From what I can see, *ǵʰ- should produce Sanskrit h-, and if so, the exception must be explained. Wakuran (talk) 22:47, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

There's nothing in the Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰer- entry to explain why it's *ǵʰ and not *gʰ. Even the linked-to entry for Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰórtos and the linked-to Category:Terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *ǵʰer- (enclose) have only centum descendants. You have to go to the Pokorny reference to see anything to support it. Then there's the link to Proto-Indo-European *gʰerdʰ-, which looks suspiciously like a form of the same root. It's been almost four decades since my last class in Indo-European studies, so I don't feel comfortable working on the entry myself. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:53, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

The 'e' would be unexpected. Turner suggests a Dravidian source, referencing this article, p.742. Exarchus (talk) 20:21, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

Have there been other etymologies proposed? How about a phrasing like "A connection to PIE *ǵʰer- (enclose) is tempting, but hard to fit on phonetic grounds." ? Wakuran (talk) 14:01, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

It's not just "hard to fit", it's impossible. Not only does *ǵʰ not match the gh, but the vowel of ghera has to go back to PII *ay < PIE *ey or *oy, and *ǵʰer- doesn't have a y in it. The two forms have nothing in common but the r. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:45, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

tonus

I think Latin tonus needs to be split into two etymologies. Let me explain:

Checking three major dictionaries (Lewis & Short, Gaffiot and Georges), they all say more-or-less the same thing: that it's a borrowing of Ancient Greek τόνος (tónos) (from Proto-Indo-European *ten- (“stretch”)) with the following senses:

1. tension in a string/cord/rope etc [the literal meaning].
2. the tone produced by an instrument [i.e. the sound with a specific pitch; a transferred sense from the use of tension in stringed instruments].
3. the tone of colour [presumably by analogy with the previous sense, but in the domain of light rather than sound].

Despite what seem like fairly drastic differences on the surface, it's fairly clear that these senses do indeed share one etymology. However, L&S and Georges also mention another sense, which they both treat as a figurative development of the second sense:

4. the sound of thunder

Both cite Seneca Quaestiones Naturales 2, 56, 1, in which he says

Tonitrua nos pluraliter dicimus ; antiqui autem tonitruum dixerunt aut tonum.

We say tonitrua ["thunder"] in the plural, but the ancients said [singular] tonitruum, or tonum.

tonitruum (and tonitrus) both derive from tonō (“to thunder”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tenh₂- (“thunder”) (i.e. a different PIE root). Does it not seem more likely that this was the origin of ancient tonus instead (perhaps a fourth-declension noun?), as opposed to some doubly-figurative use of a Greek borrowing? Pinging @Urszag, who will likely be interested. Theknightwho (talk) 00:00, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

Gaffiot also gives the sense tonnerre,^[4] citing Caecin. d. Sen. Nat 2, 56, 1, where Seneca writes further:

Hoc apud Caecinam invenio, facundum virum et qui habuisset aliquando in eloquentia nomen, nisi illum Ciceronis umbra pressisset.

I find this in Caecina, an eloquent man, who would even have been renowned for his eloquence, had not Cicero overshadowed him.

“Caecina” refers to Aulus Caecina, a contemporary of Cicero, just one century before Seneca, so hardly an “ancient”. So does Seneca mean to say that he has, on the authority of Caecina, that the term tonus was used by “the ancients”? It seems that in this sense it is a hapax, and, at that, not a use but a mention of a mention. If Seneca was correct in his interpretation of Caecina, and Caecina was also right (although we do not know his sources), it appears indeed unlikely that this “ancient” Latin term was borrowed from Ancient Greek. However, deriving tonus from tonō, with a stem tona-, is IMO implausible. Something I found at the entry “tonō, tonāre” in de Vaan is of interest in this connection:

The origin of tonāre is disputed: an original causative *(s)tonh₂eie- (Eichner 1974: 58; but the meaning of tonāre is not causative), a derivative from the noun tonus (Schrijver 1991: 396, as one of the possibilities; but tonus does not mean ‘thunder’, and is attested too recently), or an iterative *(s)tonh₂eie/o-, as Skt. stanáya- would suggest.

(“Schrijver 1991” is the monograph: Schrijver, Peter. The reflexes of the PIE laryngeals in Latin. Amsterdam – Atlanta: Rodopi.) I can’t check what Schrijver wrote, but de Vaan is apparently unaware of this passage by Seneca.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:27, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

@Lambiam It's not completely implausible, if we accept what is stated on the entry that it used to be in the third conjugation and underwent a sound shift. There's potentially some kind of parallel with domō and domus (though I appreciate that the question of how - or whether - they're related is not fully worked out). Theknightwho (talk) 20:29, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

I misinterpreted the antecedent of “this” in your question, “Does it not seem more likely that this was the origin of ancient tonus ... ?” – I read this as referring to the earlier “tonō”, but now I understand you meant to refer to “*(s)tenh₂-”. I agree that it is far more plausible that the verb and the noun in this sense derive from the same PIE root, reconstructed as *(s)tenh₂-, than that the noun has a very stretched sense of a Greek loan (which, according to de Vaan, is attested “too recently” – perhaps also too recently for Caecina’s antiqui). The shortest path through which they are genetically linked remains unclear; Schrijver 1991 actually suggests a rather short path, raising the question whether PIE (or some later ancestor of Latin) may have had a noun with the sense “thunder” from which tonus is descended.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:07, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

average

This word has a very interesting etymology, which is the subject of tons of popular science articles, youtube videos, and reddit posts. Most etymological dictionaries give a derivation from Arabic عَوَارِيَّة (ʕawāriyya, “damaged goods”), but the OED disagrees, calling the latter “a modern Arabic translation and adaptation of the western term in its latest sense”. Can anyone with knowledge of Arabic chime in? In particular was عَوَارِيَّة (ʕawāriyya) actually used before the 12th century and if so in what sense? —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 01:49, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

It wasn't, I never found it anywhere; even for Modern Standard Arabic it is difficult, so it must be an occasional phono-semantic matching. In sum I don't know the origin of the nautical term Havarie and must oppose the majority references, but was not emboldened to voice it earlier. Is it formally and semantically logical to derive (Old) Italian avaria from avere? Fay Freak (talk) 13:36, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Is it possible that Italian avaria was formed from Arabic عَوَار (ʕawār) + Italian -ia? Consider also the stress on the penult.  ​‑‑Lambiam 14:32, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Interesting. I thought that etymology was fishy but it's literally everywhere. The derivation in Old Italian is also problematic though. But the OED says Spanish and Catalan averia (from 13th century) with e works better, but I don't know the details. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 16:28, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

lambswool

what language is la maes abhal? welsh? gaelic? in either case, our one cite is so old that the source language may have been different then. Lollipop ^{(an alt account of Soap)} — talk 04:34, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Well in Irish, "the day of the produce of the apple tree" could be rendered lá measa abhla, and it would probably be something similar in Scottish Gaelic. But whether that's actually the etymology of this word, I couldn't tell you. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:24, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

The first mention I can find is in Charles Vallancey's Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis which contains a lot of his crackpot theories about how the Irish were somehow connected to all of ancient history, but also says that

"The first day of November was dedicated to the angel presiding over fruits, seeds, &c. and was therefore named la mas ubhal, that is, the day of the apple fruit, and being pronounced lamasool, the English have corrupted the name to lambswool, a name they give to a composition made on this eve of roasted apples sugar and ale. This festival of the fruit was also of oriental origin as will be explained hereafter."

Later, this changed to "Saxon" Lamas ubal (1828), and eventually la maes abhal 1851

Somehow this ended up in the Chambers Encyclopaedia with the wording paraphrased in our etymology. Oddly enough, ubhal is Scottish Gaelic. In Irish Gaelic, the words quoted would be lá (“day”) meas (“fruit”) abhaill (“apple tree”) / abhall. It looks like somewhere between Vallancey and Century, the Irish was (sort of) corrected, and someone realized that there were no Irish in ancient England, so they changed "Irish" to "British"Chuck Entz (talk) 08:30, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Interesting. Thanks to everyone for the surprisingly quick and thorough research. I was actually thinking it might have been Welsh, and that Welsh might have been spelled with -bh- and similar digraphs at the time. I didnt think to look up meas for maes though. —Soap— 14:01, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Maes threw me off too, because ae is a rather rare digraph in Irish (occurring in Gael and its derivatives like Gaeilge but only in a handful of other words) and (to the best of my knowledge) not occurring in Scottish Gaelic at all. I only got there by searching the Foclóir Gailge-Béarla for the English word "fruit". As for the "apple" word, it's spelled úll in Irish today, but up until the spelling reforms of the mid-20th century it was spelled ubhall, so Vallancey wasn't that far off in his spelling ubhal. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:28, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

baker's chocolate

Our entry claims this is called baker's chocolate because it's used in baking. My understanding (cf. Wikipedia) is that it's actually called that because it was produced by people with the surname Baker who operated Baker's Chocolate company. - -sche (discuss) 21:50, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

I've always heard that too. It's similar to why German chocolate cake isn't German. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:38, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

The high relative frequency at Google NGrams of both Baker's chocolate and Baker's Chocolate over baker's chocolate and bakers' chocolate strongly suggests that Backer's is the original orthography and the etymon. OTOH, baking chocolate has since 1960 become the most common spelling. Moreover it seems to have always been more common than baker's chocolate and bakers' chocolate. DCDuring (talk) 16:17, 20 November 2025 (UTC) DCDuring (talk) 16:34, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

At this point, it's probably really both. There is a brand called Baker's Chocolate, which produces chocolate for baking, i.e. baking chocolate. Genericization of the trademark would certainly have been facilitated by reinterpretation of Baker's Chocolate as baker's chocolate (chocolate used by bakers, much as brewer's yeast is yeast used by brewers, not a brand of yeast produced by a family named Brewer). —Mahāgaja · talk 16:37, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Pretty much what I would think. — mellohi! (Goodbye!) 19:57, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

enkel#Dutch, particularly etym 1, "single"

The etym currently just states "From Middle Dutch enkel." But we have no Middle Dutch entry.

Could someone help fill in the blanks there? How does this derive from Dutch een (“one”)? Or maybe it doesn't? Etc. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:12, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

There's some further etymology in the related Swedish cognate. Wakuran (talk) 01:44, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

If the Swedish derivation is shared with the Dutch, could someone add that, ideally with references?

And where does that medial /-k-/ come from? That suggests a possible cognacy with, or influence from, Latin -culus, rather than any straightforward use of Dutch -el. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:20, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

It seems as if there has been suggested a connection to Latin singulus and thus, PIE *gʰe (intensifying/ distributing particle). Then, I guess it might also just be some kind of phonetic assimilation. Wakuran (talk) 21:45, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

De Vaan dismisses the "older etymology as *sem-ǵno- to the root *ǵenh₁- ‘to be born’" without explanation. His alternative involving *gʰe precludes connection with non-Italic cognates (it would require PG *ainagulaz or similar). I would like to know why he considers *sem-ǵno- so unlikely. I actually like it. It would allow connecting Proto-Germanic *ainakulaz (“single”), Latin singulī (“one apiece”), Sanskrit अकज (ekajá-, “born alone, not a twin”), and Ancient Greek ἵγγια (híngia, “one(?)”), with various dissimilations and substitutions of language-specific words for “one”. Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 18:40, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't understand why EWN states there are no Germanic cognates when there are Frisian and Low German cognates. Or are they from Dutch? Gothic 𐌰𐌹𐌽𐌰𐌺𐌻𐍃 (ainakls) and Old Norse ekkill have slightly different suffixes, but I wonder if they could be argued to be cognate anyway. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 22:02, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

I could find no source indicating that the Middle Low German word is borrowed. Leasnam (talk) 23:21, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Doris#English

Etymology is given as the "feminine form of Doric". But English doesn't know a process that would turn "-ic" into a feminine "-is". Can it be corrected? ~2025-35385-23 (talk) 13:16, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

I've changed it to: “From Ancient Greek Δωρίς (Dōrís, “female Dorian”).”  ​‑‑Lambiam 13:42, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

desguazar#Spanish

Apparently this term means "to destroy, to cut into pieces", by extension "to scrap" as one would cut up an old car for parts and materials.

The etymology currently just says "From esguazar." Presumably then these should be antonyms, considering Spanish des- being cognate and largely synonymous with English dis-.

However, as I just added to the {{rfe}} at desguazar#Spanish:

Any details on sense development? Rather that Spanish esguazar means "to ford / cross a river" and etymon Italian sguazzare means "to splash about", the semantic connection to "to destroy, to cut into pieces" is far from obvious.

Hoping someone here can fill in the missing details. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:15, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

Apparently, it's from Italian, where initial s- often corresponds to English dis-. According to Real Academia Española, sguazzare apparently originally had a meaning of dissipate, waste, squander. Wakuran (talk) 21:51, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

I also wonder if the similarity to squassare (shake, jolt) might have played a part. Wakuran (talk) 14:18, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

It is not a prefix des- but a variant of esguazar with epenthesis d-. According to Corominas&Pascual, it is akin to the old Italian sense. The Spanish obsolete sense "to smooth a piece of wood with an axe" was used by the navy as "to dismantle a ship", then "to dismantle something, to undo into pieces". Vriullop (talk) 09:22, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Ancient Greek IPA

Not sure if this is the right place, but I couldn't find a more suitable one. If anyone is aware of a more suitable one, my comment can just be moved there.

I see that the template for IPA of Ancient Greek now allows the restriction to only certain periods, making it possible for names unattested before a certain time to be left without a pronunciation according to the norms of earlier periods. And this option is indeed used, so that, for instance, names first borrowed from Latin or Aramaic in the Hellenistic period are not given a Classical Attic pronunciation. I would like to object to the very idea of such a restriction. The point of giving a pronunciation for an ancient language is not only to give an idea of how it probably sounded in reality, but also of how it should be pronounced within a certain convention. Many, if not most, people use the pronunciation of only one period on a regular basis, regardless of the period of the text they are reading, for reasons of practicality: it is difficult to constantly think of the period of a text and to juggle between multiple different phonological systems; indeed, it is impossible to consistently reflect each and every change that may have occurred within a given century or region, so even the use of several separate systems, regardless of how many they are, will always be an abstraction. Therefore, people should be informed of how the word ought to sound in the system of pronunciation of Ancient Greek that they do use. ~2025-33239-81 (talk) 11:37, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

I think it's very rare for people to read a text in an older pronunciation than the text itself. I can easily imagine reading Homer or Aristophanes using Koine pronunciation, but reading the New Testament using Homeric pronunciation would just be weird, and I can't imagine it actually happens very often. Also, from early Koine on, vowel length is no longer significant, and for a lot of loanwords in Koine and Medieval Greek, it's difficult to know what the vowel length would have been in an earlier stage of Greek. It's much easier to just write |period=koi1 or |period=byz2 or whatever rather than trying to reconstruct a hypothetical vowel length for a word that didn't even exist in Greek at the time when vowel length was contrastive. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:48, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Old Norse merja

Currently, the page merja claims that it is derived from Proto-Germanic *marzijaną, a claim which is supported by Kroonen and Oryol. However, the entry for the Icelandic term merja contradicts this information, instead deriving the term from Proto-Germanic *marjaną. Moreover, there appears to be third etymology present in the literature—it is described as a derivative of a causative formation to the root *merh₂- in the LIV. Graearms (talk) 02:22, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Graearms (talk) 02:22, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

I've pointed Old Norse merja to Proto-Germanic *marjaną, as I believe *marzijaną would show a geminate (> *merra ?; compare þerra from *þarzijaną). Plus, the sense aligns better with *marjaną. Leasnam (talk) 19:39, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

What was your source for *mer- “rub, grab, steal”? It's not in Pokorny. Surely LIV's *merh₂- “grab, squash” makes more sense. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 03:07, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

I got it from Koebler: *marjan, germ., sw. V.: nhd. zerstoßen (V.), zerreiben; ne. grind (V.), pound (V.); RB.: an., ae., mnd., mhd.; E.: s. idg. *mer- (5), *merə-, *merh₂-, V., reiben, packen, zerdrücken, rauben, Pokorny 735?; W.: an. merja, sw. V. (1), schlagen, zerschlagen (V.); W.: ae. mėrian, sw. V. (1), läutern, reinigen, prüfen; W.: mnd. meren, sw. V., Brot in Wein tunken; W.: mhd. meren*, mern, sw. V., Brot in Wein oder Wasser tauchen und einweichen, umrühren, mischen, eintunken; L. Falk/Torp 312 Leasnam (talk) 03:50, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

@Leasnam@Caoimhin ceallach It may be worth noting that the EIEC reconstructs a root *mer- (“to crush”) and De Vaan suggests that *merh₂- could be an extension to *mer- (“to die”), whence perhaps Latin mortarium. Graearms (talk) 21:09, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

^ Mallory, J. P., Adams, D. Q., editors (1997), Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, London, Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, page 142

^ De Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 390

Graearms (talk) 21:09, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

-에게

Found the Korean word seemingly sharing the word's meaning in several early translations of Korean Bible chapters and several pages of The Independentment. ~2025-35981-93 (talk) ~2025-35981-93 (talk) 00:55, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Also 월인석보 vol. 25 (1459) used 의〮게 as a seemingly dative particle. ~2025-35981-93 (talk) 02:25, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

ᄇᆡᆨ셩의게 was used in 텬로력뎡, 주교요지, 셩경젼셔, The Independentment, and 어제유원춘도영동영서대소사민윤음. Since ᄇᆡᆨ셩 is an outdated word for 백성, I think "의게" is an archaic form of 에게. ~2025-35981-93 (talk)

Pannonian Rusyn горебздом (horebzdom, “upside down”)

We have adverbs like гореводом (horevodom, “upstream”) where, even with the "wrong" instrumental suffix, we can figure out that the root word for *водом (*vodom) is вода (voda). I have absolutely no idea what native Slavic word starts with bzd- and is followed by a vowel of some sort. There certainly aren't any such words still attested in Pannonian Rusyn.

There also exists an synonymous adverb, that being горездном (horezdnom). No idea what the root word for this would be either. Feel free to check out the Old Slovak dictionary at {{R:sk:HSSJ}}, if you think you can find it there. I certainly couldn't. Dijacz (talk) 21:03, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

The first one probably from an "ass" word related to бздеть (bzdetʹ). The second one from з дном (z dnom, “with bottom”). Vahag (talk) 21:52, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

pie

Is ʽpieʼ really related to the Old English word for an ‘insect/bug’ or are we missing the relevant senses at our Old English pīe and pēo entries? Overlordnat1 (talk) 09:33, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

There are no sources given, and the online dictionareis I find don't seem to trace it further back than the 1300s (piehus). The connection to the similar Latin word is unclear, as both the English and Latin word aren't attested until the medieval period. Wakuran (talk) 12:35, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Please have a look now. Leasnam (talk) 05:07, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

I wonder if the relation to magpie might have been an ironic usage that caught on, similar to hot dog. Wakuran (talk) 12:17, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

That's possible. However, relation to magpie (the bird) could be merely coincidental or indirect. The parallel example of chewet really doesn't make a lot of sense, since the "meat dish" sense is probably derived from chew is unknown, and the "chough, jackdaw" sense is derived from a different word altogether (French chouette). I'm debating whether to even keep it in the etymology. And the correspondence between haggess "magpie" and haggis "haggis" is not reliable either, since, as in the case with chewet the dish is older than the name of the bird. On the other hand, pie "magpie as a name" is attested earlier than pie "pastry" if we consider surnames (1177 for Radulfus Pie; 1199 for Henricus Piehus). Maybe the pastry dish was named after a creator whose last name was Pie and it caught on (?). At the time the name Piehus was formed, pie was not used for "magpie" - the word at that time for a magpie was aguster ("haggister"). Leasnam (talk) 16:22, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

The speculative portion of the etymology consumes 2 inches of vertical space on my screen. It needs to be hidden beneath a show-hide box. DCDuring (talk) 17:28, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I actually saved any space, but I've updated the etymology a bit. Please check Leasnam (talk) 17:40, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for all the hard work. We now have ‘pie’ possibly connected to magpies rather than insects (insect pie doesn’t sound very tasty but magpies might be) and an entry for what is essentially the Old English word for a bee. Much betterǃ Overlordnat1 (talk) 20:24, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Just a guess: it might have something to do with the well-known magpie behavior of picking up small shiny/colorful objects and sticking them in their nests, with the crust representing the nest and the filling representing the assortment of objects. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:15, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

It sounds somewhat strained. On a side note, apparently ornithologists have noticed that the idea is incorrect. Magpies are very intelligent birds, and they would be wary of small, shiny objects instead of being attracted to them. Wakuran (talk) 00:30, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

thataway

The OED must have been all ears when they wrote the etymology that + away. It is clearly anaptyctic for 'that way'. Any other such English formation? Also, this 'pronominal adverbs' is very ugly without a header. Saumache (talk) 14:14, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Does the content belong in the associated entries rather than a linked-to appendix? DCDuring (talk) 17:24, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps, I would have just put it under a 'See also' as a regular collapsible table, like {{en-personal pronouns}}, but all this blank space and horizontality is rather silly. Saumache (talk) 17:54, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

It doesn't seem likely to be useful to a passive user rather than an active contributor obsessed with such words and morphology. DCDuring (talk) 18:42, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Did you purpose to build the appendix yourself? Saumache (talk) 20:22, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/þursuz

Currently, the page says its derived from Proto-Indo-European *térs-u-s. However, this is explicitly contradicted by Kroonen, who claims that it derives from Proto-Indo-European *tr̥s-ú-. This claim is support by the NIL, which also claims that Old Irish tur, Avestan taršu, and Sanskrit [script needed] (*tṛṣú-) derive from the same PIE word. Graearms (talk) 23:41, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Also, regarding *þurstuz, the page claims that it derives from *térs-tu-s. Again, Kroonen and the NIL posit a zero-grade form *tr̥s-tu-. Matasović also suggests a zero-grade from *trs-tu- as the ancestor of Proto-Celtic *tartus. Graearms (talk) 23:51, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

If the aforementioned terms are instead actually derived from zero-grade terms, then I assume the same would hold true for *þurstiz. Graearms (talk) 23:53, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Both are true. PIE *térs-u-s ~ *tr̥s-éw-s can level to either *tr̥sus or *tersus. --{{victar|talk}} 08:21, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

-뇨

I assume -뇨 is possibly inherited from Middle Korean suffix -뇨/-료 and related to -냐, which is still used in Modern Korean. --~2025-35981-93 (talk) 03:29, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Khunjerab Pass

Verificiation of etymology requested by @Geographyinitiative. J3133 (talk) 08:44, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Pannonian Rusyn їж (již)

With due respect to our good friend Thadh, I have looked in a handful of places and cannot find any indication of a dialectal Old Slovak variant of jež being *již. Inherited Proto-Slavic word-initial *e- and *ě- usually result in є- (je-) in Pannonian Rusyn, such as єшень (ješenʹ) and єдло (jedlo). I'm personally more convinced that this is a Carpathian Rusyn borrowing - Carpathian itself has several varieties, and it's not unthinkable that in addition to ї́жо (jížo), there also exists the variant їж (již). In fact, this particular Slovak-Rusyn dictionary gives їж (již) when you look up "jež".

If anyone can find an Old Slovak record of *již, let me know. But for the time being, I'm changing the etymology to a Carpathian borrowing. Dijacz (talk) 18:51, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

under a cloud

So as per sources, e.g. OED, seems to originate c. 1500 straightforwardly from the figurative sense of cloud, which makes sense to me. Our cloud has the closest sense (11.) restricted to aspect of something positive though, is it worth creating subsenses and split the cross references? Does the restriction actually exist?

John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “cloud”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, volumes III (Cham–Creeky), Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN, page 358. Alpha3031 (talk) 01:42, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Sanskrit वाह

Currently, Sanskrit vā́ha is transcribed with accent on the first syllable and derived from Proto-Indo-European *wóǵʰ-o-s. However, as far as I can tell, the Sanskrit term actually should derive from PIE *woǵʰ-ó-s and should place the accent on the second syllable. Compare Proto-Indo-European *bʰóros, another tomos-type noun, which produced Sanskrit भर (bhára). However, *bʰorós produced Sanskrit bhārá. The only sources on the Sanskrit term I could find agree with this interpretation: Laura Grestenberger (page 7) and the work Laws and Rules in Indo-European (page 246) both derive the Sanskrit word from *woǵh-ó-. It may also be worth noting that there is supposedly an Avestan cognate [script needed] (vāza-), which would provide a nice parallel for the Sanskrit term.

Also, whilst doing some searching, I found that the etymology of Sanskrit घन (ghana) is also inaccurately listed on the PIE pages. The actual page for the Sanskrit entry derives it from *gʷʰónos, but it is also listed as a derivative of *gʷʰonós. Graearms (talk) 03:31, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

You're right on both counts. See Grassman (search for vAha) and NWS. According to w:Jochem Schindler's old theory *tómh₁-o-s-type nouns action nouns ‘(act of) cutting’, sometimes particularised into ‘(individual) cut, slice’, while *tomh₁-ó-s-type nouns are "possessive" derivations of the former: ‘possessing cutting’ → ‘sharp’ → ‘cutter’ (active) or ‘possessing cutting’ → ‘(having been) cut’ → ‘hole’ (passive). That's the theory at least. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 00:05, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

@Caoimhin ceallach I've gone and removed the erroneous information from the PIE pages. I am, however, not willing to mess with the Sanskrit inflection or transliteration tables. So, I suppose another user will have to fix that. Graearms (talk) 00:26, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Old Armenian երաշտ and Persian رشت

I was looking through the Indo-European Comparative Dictionary by Stuart Mann, and I found that it implies that Old Armenian երաշտ (erašt) and perhaps Persian رشت might be derived from the word *tr̥stós (on page 1447). Currently, the further etymology of both the Armenian and Persian terms is left somewhat unexplored. Would a connection with at least the root *ters- (“dry”) be possible? Graearms (talk) 00:57, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

You shouldn't look at Mann, an unreliable work. The regular reflex of PIE *tr̥s- is Armenian թառ- (tʻaṙ-). երաշտ (erašt) is borrowed from Middle Iranian *rašt, with prothetic e- added in Armenian because we don't tolerate words starting with r-. The further origin of that Iranian word should be solved by Iranists. Vahag (talk) 09:56, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Armenian, Proto-Indo-European, Basque... I wonder why so many languages have an inviolable constraint against word-initial r. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:24, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

@Mahagaja You've probably googled the phenomenon by now, but I suppose if you haven't then it's called word-initial rhotic avoidance. I found this research paper addressing the issue. Graearms (talk) 17:18, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

@Mahagaja Whether PIE didn't have initial *r is not so clear, see https://www.jstor.org/stable/27285887 Exarchus (talk) 20:40, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/néwos

Bringing TooSimilarT0DaFollowingUsername's question from diff to somewhere it'll be seen: what does it mean to call *new- a "hapax root"? Does it mean *new- has only one derived term, Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/néw(y)os? Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/new- lists a second derived term, Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/nu, and also lists several descendants. But *nu does not appear to list itself as being derived from *new-, and also, as a separate issue, *nu claims that Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/néw(y)os is a derivative of *nu rather than of *new-... - -sche (discuss) 19:20, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm very inclined to do away with this 'root' *new- Exarchus (talk) 20:05, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Well, NIL has it as root on p.524, but the etymological direction seems to be *nu > *néwos (vr̥ddhi derivative) > *new- (back-formed). Exarchus (talk) 21:30, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

December 2025

Reconstruction:Proto-West Germanic/-ggjā

@Leasnam The discussion of dievegge at etymologiebank suggests this suffix was rather borrowed from Vulgar Latin -iga. Are other sources saying something else? Exarchus (talk) 09:40, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

They also suggest (based on prevailing views) that Dutch -ster comes from Latin -istria, which it likely doesn't. Their reasoning is that for a suffix to be borrowed from Latin, it would have to be borrowed in a large enough number of terms containing the suffix before it can be viewed as a morpheme attachable to new words, and we do not find this to be the case for either -ster or -egge. Their explanation that -egge was possibly formed ultimately from a rebracketing of Vulgar Latin -trica, triga (Latin -trix) also doesn't fill me with confidence; seems like a stretch (btw, Old English -iċġe cannot simply come from *-iga). It's easier to postulate a Germanic origin for this suffix, as many PWGmc verbs also contain the ending -igōn and can easily produce such a suffix by adding -jā. Leasnam (talk) 18:26, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

I did a quick search of Old English words containing -icge (in another db) and I wasn't able to find any terms using the suffix that are attached to a Latin base. This tends to speak rather loudly against it originating from a Latin source. Leasnam (talk) 18:31, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

That makes sense. The original proposal is in Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 56 (1932), p.24, but I can't access it. Exarchus (talk) 19:27, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Armenian արոյդ, երոյդ, արուրդ, երուրդ

Currently, these terms are listed simultaneously as descendants of *h₁réwdʰeti and *h₁rudʰrós. So, I suppose one of these etymologies must be inaccurate. Moreover, օրոյդ (ōroyd) and որույդ (oruyd) are also listed as descendants of *h₁réwdʰeti. Fortunately, it appears a certain Hrachia Acharian already attempted to find the etymology of these terms (see here on page 331 and here on page 106). However, Acharian appears to treat them as reconstructed. Graearms (talk) 17:07, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Acharyan conducted a mental experiment of what would a native Armenian word look like if it had survived. A stupid IP took his asterisked forms and spread them all over Wiktionary. Why are IPs like this? I will delete them. --Vahag (talk) 10:17, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Armenian զոքանչ

Currently, the origin is left as unknown. I recently stumbled across the work In-laws and outlaws in Indo-European societies by the linguist Birgit Anette Olsen, who (on pages 327-328) tentatively suggests a possible derivation from *h₂m̥bʰi + *sokʷ-eh₂ + *h₂onk-yo-. The second component of this compound is the source of *sokʷh₂ṓy and perhaps Ancient Greek ὀπάων (opáōn). The third compound is apparently paralleled by the element -ունչ (-unčʻ) in Old Armenian անտերունչ (anterunčʻ, “without master”), which Olsen explains as a derivation from *h₂onk-yo-. Graearms (talk) 22:06, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

I saw that ad hoc etymology. I was not attracted. I did not add it to Wiktionary. --Vahag (talk) 10:23, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Independent metatheses?

Looking at the etymologies given for the following terms, I get this tree:

Late Latin: liquiritia

↳ Catalan: regalèssia

↳ Sicilian: rigulizzia

↳ Old French: licoresse

      ↳ Old French: regulisse, ricolisse

          ↳ Norman: ricolisse

          ↳ French: réglisse

This seems to imply that the non-simple metathesis /r-k-l/ < /l-k-r/ occurred independently in various languages evolving from Vulgar Latin. How plausible is this?  ​‑‑Lambiam 22:25, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Are they independent developments, rather than areal? Wakuran (talk) 03:10, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Russian Кайса (type of dried apricot)

Does this word have Persian or Turkic origin? Can't find anything about it PaleWizardSS (talk) 22:59, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

A dozen languages have similar terms, e.g. Hungarian kajszi (“apricot”), which are from Ottoman Turkish قیصی (kaysi, kayısı). —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 00:28, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Pannonian Rusyn also uses кайса (kajsa) for "apricot", and I reckon it's a back-formation from the plural кайси (kajsi) which comes from the Hungarian term, and so on. Dijacz (talk) 21:40, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Armenian ներկ and ներկանեմ

The linguist Daniel Kölligan implies a possible connection between ներկանեմ this term and Ancient Greek δεύω (deúō), presumably from Proto-Indo-European *dewH-. See this source on pages 691-692. I presumably this would also imply a derivation from the same root for the noun ներկ (nerk). Graearms (talk) 04:27, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

He actually rejects that etymology and accepts De Lamberterie's good inner-Armenian etymology, which I accept too. Vahag (talk) 15:58, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Indonesian/Malay "maka" etymology

Hello, Can Indonesian/Malay word maka ("so", "therefore") etymology traced further back to Sanskrit before Old Javanese? Please Yuliadhi (talk) 06:03, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Polish kilo

Hi! I just added a etymology source from Polish, kilo is just borrowed from Greek κιλό but the problem is, is it direct borrowing or learned borrowing? is it also rfv-etymology フィリピン人 (talk) 09:29, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

It's more likely an internal clipping, possibly under influence of other languages that do this. Either way, formed after kilogram. Vininn126 (talk) 09:33, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

But, I thought it was from Greek or Ancient Greek since the same thing as Russian where театр is from Greek. フィリピン人 (talk) 09:36, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

It ultimately derives from that, probably via the prefix kilo- and internationalisms, but the noun kilo probably doesn't come from Greek directly. Vininn126 (talk) 09:38, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

So, I was wrong about that? フィリピン人 (talk) 09:40, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Wrong about the direct borrowing. Vininn126 (talk) 09:44, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

I suspect the first language to clip its word for kilogram to kilo was French, then everyone else followed suit, but it's probably impossible to prove at this point. Even our entry for Greek κιλό (kiló) says it's borrowed from French kilo. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:26, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised by that. It might make sense to mark it as an internationalism with surface analysis of clipping. Vininn126 (talk) 10:28, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

From w:Kilogram § Name and terminology: In the 19th century the French word kilo, a shortening of kilogramme, was imported into the English language […] , with refs to the OED. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:34, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

The first major dictionary Polish kilo is mentioned is {{R:pl:SJP1900}}. Notably, I could have just checked the dictionaries on my desk; {{R:pl:WSWO}} says it's a borrowing from French, Vininn126 (talk) 10:44, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Proto-Indo-European septḿ̥

It might be a Semitic loanword

In Nardi's video "Mysterious origin of "seven" #linguistics #history #language", he mentions that some linguists like Rasmus G. Bjørn at the Max Plank Institute think that this word might have been a borrowing from an old Semitic language; compare Proto-Semitic *šabʕatum. There's more in the video as I only explained the possible etymology part here. Adamnewwikipedianaccount (talk) 12:09, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Bjørn also believes in the Indo-Uralic hypothesis. I don't think he can be considered a mainstream (non-fringe) Indo-Europeanist. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:12, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

@Mahagaja@Adamnewwikipedianaccount The EIEC suggests that the term may be a Semitic borrowing. Apparently, in one inscription Hurrian [script needed] (šittanna) is used to translate Mitanni satta-wartana (seven laps of a horse (around a track)). This word could be a compound of terms related to Sanskrit saptán and vartana. Moreover, the EIEC notes a comparison with Proto-Kartvelian *šwid-. Based on this evidence, the EIEC postulates that it was a culture word spread throughout Anatolia and Upper Mesopotamia during the 14th-century BCE. Václav Blažek also seemingly suggests that Proto-Uralic *ćäjćemä (or at least the descendants of this term) may be borrowed from Balto-Slavic, that the terms currently derived from Proto-Ugric *säptɜ may actually be borrowed from Tocharian, and that Basque zazpi was probably borrowed from a Semitic source close to Egyptian. There is also Etruscan semφ, which has also been explained as an Indo-European borrowing. But I also found this source which (on page 215) considers the Etruscan to term actually mean "eight." Regardless, his argument is essentially that the term is wanderwort.

The Hurrian borrowings appear a bunch of other similar terms, such as Hurrian aikawartanna, which might parallel Sanskrit ekavartana. This is all related to the Indo-Aryan superstrate in Hurrian. I personally am not convinced that these terms really reflect the borrowing of the numerals themselves into Hurrian. English terms like octogon showcase a component borrowed from the Latin numeral octo, but octo itself is not an English word. I think we maybe should delete Hurrian aika (“one”) unless there is specific attestation of the word functioning as a numeral and not as a component of a compound term. Graearms (talk) 21:22, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

The oldest evidence of septḿ̥ appears to be in Old Assyrian transmission, probably from a Luwian loanword in Hittite, Kanišite Hittite that is. Cuneiform numerals are mostly spelled logographically, leaving rather scant evidence of phonetic spelling. Numeralia from *sḗm instead of *h₁óynos and speculative derivation of *mey vel sim. (missing in Wiktionary) instead of *kʷetwóres do not bolster confidence in the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction of a decimal number system. Borrowing from another language which had developed writing already by 3000 BCE for the specific purpose of accounting is not unrealistic. Wiktionary does not distinguish late core-PIE from early Indo-Anatolian, although there is growing concensus. Anything you could say about it is possibly fringe, because there is no agreement on important details. The loanword hypothesis of *septḿ̥ is one of those problems and I would argue vehemently for it to be included in the entry. Nota Bene: Bjørn (2023) has published in Historische Sprachforschung vol. 135, being one of the leading journals of Indo-European studies, not a sort of self-published hobby horse. Friya Willie (talk) 08:01, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Cf. *šaptama- ‘seventh’ (eDiAna); Proto-Anatolian *mi̯éu̯-/mi̯u-´ (eDiAna); Bjørn (2023 [2022]). Friya Willie (talk) 08:12, 6 December 2025 (UTC) Friya Willie (talk) 08:12, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree that the possibility of a Semitic origin should at least be mentioned, even if just because of how many prominent philologists have supported the theory.

After doing a bit of research I found the idea affirmed by:

• Mate Kapović, on page 90 of The Indo-European Languages
• Stefan Zimmer, on page 87 of the Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics
• Werner Winter, on page 17 of Indo-European Numerals
• Carol F. Justus, on page 76 of Numeral Types and Changes Worldwide
• Jadranka Gvozdanović, on page 106 of Numeral Types and Changes Worldwide
• Bridget Drinka, on page 414 of The dispersion of Indo-European dialects: clues from morphology

Bjørn, on page 125 of his master's thesis, also mentions possible further parallels in Proto-Turkic *yẹt(t)i and Old Chinese sjɛt (perhaps 七 (qī)?).

I found an older source, by a linguist named Nils Holmer which claims that numerals may spread between cultures to facilitate commerce. He notes a possible similar phenomenon amongst Native American languages. Compare Quechua pichqa, Cherokee hisgi, Chibcha hycsa, and Aymara phisqa—all of which mean "five." Graearms (talk) 04:02, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Japanese has both a Chinese-derived and a native set of the lower numerals (see Japanese numerals on Wikipedia.Wikipedia ). Chuck Entz (talk) 04:55, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

template IPA for Sanskrit

I've noticed that the template for pronunciation of Sanskrit used here in etymology section produces automatically two lines with two variants of pronunciation (classical Sanskrit, plus reconstructed Vedic pronunciation). It would be good to find another solution how to list pronunciation of Sanskrit, that would list only classical Sanskrit pronunciation. The Vedic pronunciation is relevant only in rare situations: when comparing across ancient Indo-European languages (though even there we can do without, usually). Otherwise it is irrelevant. What's worse, it'll only be confusing for any reader other than historical linguist. Moreover, in case of words which we know did not exist in the period when pronunciation was such as the "IPA (Vedic)" line gives, it's a misinformation. This situation would be similar to listing Old English pronunciation to English lexemes of French origin.

(compare s.v. Venkata, for instance) Yak-indolog (talk) 18:36, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

That's what the parameter |novedic= is for, to switch of Vedic transcription for words which are first attested after the Vedic period. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 22:13, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

English angel, ME aungel, OE engel

Our etymologies contradict each other and should be brought in line. The Middle English form is from Old English, but the vowel was influenced by Old French ang(e)le as well as directly by Latin angelus. See the Middle English Dictionary.
The reason why I'm putting this up here is that some sources claim that Old English engel actually had a hard /g/. See the Online Etymology Dictionary and the New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. I'm not convinced this is true, but it should be judged by an expert of Old English phonology, which I'm not. ~2025-38199-92 (talk) 13:22, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I'm no expert, but I believe the sources claiming hard 'g' in Old English are inaccurate. It's clear that there must have been palatisation of the 'g' (evidenced by encgel and in derivatives encgelcyn) that would have resulted from the i-mutation that also produced the mutated vowel in the first syllable ('æ' and 'e') from earlier *angil. I-mutation causes Germanic 'ng' to invariably become Old English /nd͡ʒ/. And of course, the French influence is evident in some of the later Middle English variants like aungel (though the spelling au can also be found in words that are clearly not of French origin, like laund (land), haund (hand) [cf. haundmaidis (handmaids)], wraung (wrong), faung (grasp, catch), etc.); yet we're talking about a deeply established term in English. Leasnam (talk) 18:42, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I see that Middle English aungel lists a few alternative forms (engel, ængel, ongel, ennꟑell) that could not have been borrowed from Old Norman angle (as per the etymology) but which are assigned to Old English. I note too that in one of the MED passages [a1325 (c1250) Gen.& Ex.(Corp-C 444)1803-7] it reads: Iacob..ðor wrestelede an engel wið..Get held he wið ðis angel fast., so engel and angel are alternatives of the same word and are interchangeable. The etymology at aungel should either state that engel~angel (from Old English) and angel~aungel (from Old French) are different terms; OR, preferably that the Middle English word is an assemblage of both (likely a French influence on a pre-existing English word). Leasnam (talk) 19:39, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

If you're using the spelling "cg" as proof of a pronunciation with /d͡ʒ/, that doesn't actually follow: we see "cg" occasionally after the letter "n" even in contexts where palatalization was not regular, such as in the ending "ung"/"uncg" in words like þenuncg for þenung, or in ancgmod for angmod. In that kind of context, "cg" probably represented the velar plosive (which it is speculated may have become devoiced for some speakers) as opposed to the voiced velar fricative that "g" usually represented. I agree that the i-mutated vowel indicates that palatalization should have applied: however, I think forms that contained "engl-" after syncope would be expected to have converted the preconsonantal palatal to a velar, and this could have been leveled into the nominative/accusative.--Urszag (talk) 20:29, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Right, the combination 'cg' doesn't universally represent the affricate sound in all positions (docga, picgbrēad, etc.), but under the conditions in encgel, before a front vowel (< 'i'), it does. Whether the velar 'g' of the oblique cases replaces the affricate 'g' in the nom/acc singular is a matter of debate. Personally, I don't find it likely (compare wenċel~wencle~wencles) - though plural forms with 'c'/'k' hung around into Middle English, a hard 'k' was never refitted to the nom/acc singular. Leasnam (talk) 00:09, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

The form ennꟑell is consistently found for "angel" in the mostly phonemic orthography of the Ormulum, where the grapheme ⟨ꟑ⟩ represents /ɡ/. This probably comes from the nominative/accusative singular being levelled out, confirming Urszag's hypothesis. However, this levelling didn't necessarily occur in all Middle English texts that have a direct descendant of enġel, especially since the pronunciation with /d͡ʒ/ would've been supported by Medieval Latin angelus and Old French angel, angele. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 02:29, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Pannonian Rusyn Джуня (Džunja)

A surname borne by Pannonian Rusyns. Absolutely no leads on this, but would it be crazy to suggest that it's related to Russian Женя (Ženja)? Dijacz (talk) 21:38, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Update: a cursory Googling reveals that Slovak Džuňa is also a thing. Not that that brings us any closer to the etymology, but at least we've got a timeframe, i.e. pre-Pannonian settlement (pre-~1800s). Dijacz (talk) 21:45, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

average § Etymology and law of averages § Etymology

The YouTuber called human1011 gives a cogent explanation of the etymology of average via the law of averages as a maritime indemnity concept. I haven't yet spent any time on independently verifying whether what he says is corroborated by secondary sources or tertiary sources (but I doubt that it isn't, and Chambers Dictionary of Etymology (1988/2021) s.v. average sounds accordant with it). The coverage at both average § Etymology and law of averages § Etymology ought to be improved when anyone has time to verify it and cite reliable sources for it. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:08, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian мрвица

Currently, no etymology is mentioned. I think this term might relate to the Serbo-Croatian term mrva that Pokorny mentions on page 736 of the IEW, which is derived from the root now reconstructed as *merh₂-. Graearms (talk) 04:10, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Graearms (talk) 04:10, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

yes. Chihunglu83 (talk) 04:25, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

@Chihunglu83 Does that etymological dictionary provide any information regarding a possible connection with *merh₂- (“to crush, crumble”)? Graearms (talk) 21:30, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Etymology of Italian words from Latin origin

I have noticed several times that the etymology of Italian words (e.g. adiuvare) often includes the phrase "borrowed from Latin," which is even funnier because if you click on the linked article, you will read: "A word that was adopted (borrowed) from another language, rather than formed within the language or inherited from a more ancient form of the same language" – and Latin is precisely the latter case. So there is a serious contradiction here that needs to be resolved somehow. It doesn't make much sense to say that a language "borrowed" words from itself, from an earlier period of itself – or from another variant of the same language.

Whatever we call this relationship between Italian words and their Latin origins, one thing is certain: this relationship cannot be described as borrowing. Bennó (talk) 19:34, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

"It doesn't make much sense to say that a language "borrowed" words from itself, from an earlier period of itself – or from another variant of the same language" is wrong - in fact, it makes perfect sense. Latin was used as a relatively fossilized written language for over a millennium, and the 'vernacular' forms of Latin that developed later, e.g. Italian, could absolutely borrow words and terms from that Latin. — SURJECTION ^{/ T / C / L /} 19:54, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

For an example from Portuguese (another Romance) language, Latin articulus ended up developing into three Portuguese words: artelho (inherited), artículo (learned borrowing), and artigo (somewhere in between). These were definitely not all three inherited from Latin, despite the fact that Portuguese as a language developed from Latin. — SURJECTION ^{/ T / C / L /} 20:00, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

I am a philologist specializing in ecclesiastical Latin, and I am familiar with the linguistic history and with "scholarly borrowing".There are complicated cases. However, as is evident from the example I provided, I am not talking about this, but about words belonging to the core vocabulary, such as the above-mentioned adiuvare, which are clearly not the result of subsequent or scholarly borrowing.It seems to me that someone regularly adds/has added the phrase "borrowed from Latin" to words of Latin origin, but in the vast majority of cases this label is misleading and incorrect. Bennó (talk) 20:17, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

But Italian adiuvare is in fact a learned borrowing. The inherited word is the now archaic form aggiovare. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:10, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Ecclesiastical Latin is only one route of borrowing: Latin was used for laws and other legal communications, and as the international language of philosophers and scholars. It's possible to find Latin writings on just about any subject fit for discussion in formal settings.

Italian came from Latin, but underwent irreversible sound changes that easily distinguish it from Latin. If it hadn't, it would still be Latin and not Italian.

There are a number of levels of borrowing: an Italian phrase might be "dressed up" as Latin by changing the form of the words to imitate Latin, a Latin phrase might be have its words individually replaced by the equivalent Italian words, or whole words or phrases might be borrowed unaltered. Then there are loans from other languages: English baseball traces both parts back through other languages to Latin. Really, I'm just scratching the surface. To be inherited, it would have to have been in use by speakers as their language changed from Latin to Italian- which would have involved all the sound changes. There are exceptions where sacred texts were memorized word for word and taught to future generations to be memorized unaltered in turn, but we're not talking about those. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:44, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: Ball does not derive from Latin (if that is what you meant). J3133 (talk) 21:52, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

@J3133: You're right I was thinking of ballistic/Latin ballista, which was the first similar etymon off the top of my head, and didn't think to check. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:07, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Senhaja de Srair rrbiɛ lḥikka

Can anyone attest something like الربيع الحكة (which literally means "itchy grass") being used in Moroccan Arabic (or any other variety) with the meaning of nettle. If not, it could also be an independent development. Lankdadank (talk) 00:24, 8 December 2025 (UTC)