Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2023/September

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← August 2023 · September 2023 · October 2023 → · (current)

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sound as a roach

What kind of roach would be sound??? Jin and Tonik (talk) 20:52, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Probably the nautical one (etymology 3, sense 1). —Mahāgaja · talk 21:25, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

trit: Blend of tri- + bit

However, its wikipedia page states the blend is actually form trinary + digit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_numeral_system JMGN (talk) 21:59, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

I guess it should be interpreted as the word being an analogy of bit, which is derived from binary + digit. Wakuran (talk) 23:18, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

I've modified the etymology accordingly. 50.196.138.188 19:30, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

roach

We have had five etymology sections for this since 2016. To me there should be at most three. The excess etymologies seem more like sense evolution (eg, figurative use). Am I missing something? DCDuring (talk) 23:38, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

It seems a bit unclear what the origina of the senses "headdress" and "shaving" are, and whether they are related... Wakuran (talk) 19:02, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

The following seem clear to me, but I could be wrong:

1. Ety 6 is related to Ety 3, which is related to Ety 1. It seems to have something to do with appearance somehow like some aspect of the appearance of the fish. Pictures would be a test of the relatedness. It may have to do with the fish roach having red fins.
2. Ety 4 is by its own admission connected to Ety 2 by reason of appearance.
3. Ety 5 is unrelated to the others.

That would make 3 etymology sections rather than 6. DCDuring (talk) 19:16, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

I have merged old Ety 4 into Ety 2 and old Ety 6 into Ety 3. Old Ety 5 is now Ety 4. DCDuring (talk) 20:22, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

As to Ety 1 and Ety 3, the often-red color of the Native American headdresses may have evoked the red fins of the common roach. I'm not sure whether the curve of the sail with a roach has any connection with either the fish or the headdress. Sailing roaches may be relatively new, FWIW. DCDuring (talk) 20:22, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Intoshellina

Intoshellina is the type genus of the family Intoshellinidae. The name could mean "into shell". But this protozoan is a parasite, not of shellfish, but of worms! Thanks for your help. Gerardgiraud (talk) 18:42, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

It was hard tracking this down. The original description of Intoshellina dedicates the new genus to W.C. Macintosh, who published what was later renamed to Intoshella here. Intoshella are worms, but the dedication of Intoshellina says "Je dédie ce genre à W.-C. Mac-Intosh, qui a la premier signalé un Infusoire astome dans ces Vers de la Familia de las Tubificides, cet astome étant vraisembablement celui que nous étudions ici." If I'm translating it correctly, that means Mac-Intosh (whose name is usually spelled William M'Intosh) described organisms (then classified as Astomes in the Infusoria) parasitizing the worms he studied, which the author believed are probably the same as the ones being described in his work. Indeed, works like this one refer to a number of worms parasitized by "Infusoria".

Which brings us to the genus Intoshia originally coined here (at the bottom of the page). It's named after M'Intosh, apparently by discarding the "Mac-" from the surname. I'm guessing that Intoshella was named in the same way, but with a diminutive ending to distinguish it from Intoshia. Likewise, I think Intoshellina added another diminutive ending to Intoshella for the same reason. At any rate, I think it's safe to say that the "Intosh" part of Intoshellina is a reference to William M'Intosh- whatever the origin of the rest. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:34, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Both -ella and -ina are common suffixes in taxonomical naming. Macintosh/McIntosh/M'Intosh comes from Scottish Gaelic Mac an Tòisiche (literally “son of the chieftain”), meaning this could be our first Translingual term derived from Scottish Gaelic. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:25, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Though I think it's a race with Whiskey. --RichardW57m (talk) 13:31, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Thank at all for this very precise and valuable survey. Gerardgiraud (talk) 13:25, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

სკაროსი

How is სკაროსი (sḳarosi, “ray”) a Learned borrowing from Old Georgian სკაროსი (sḳarosi, “parrotfish”); does Old Georgian know ray?

Same problem with skate. How is Old Norse skata (“ray”) possibly related to shad (genus Alosa)? 79.140.115.70 16:19, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Old Georgian translator encountered Ancient Greek σκάρος (skáros) and simply transliterated it as Old Georgian სკაროსი (sḳarosi) without necessarily knowing what it means. Some sloppy modern philologist saw სკაროსი (sḳarosi) and glossed it as "ray" (we do not know what was going on in his head, he probably did not know Greek well; maybe he found it similar to Russian скат (skat)). Modern dictionaries picked up his gloss and happily adopted it as the standard designation of "ray" in the modern literary Georgian. That is how ghost words are born. Vahag (talk) 16:38, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

The relationship between skata and shad doesn't seem that odd to me, considering possible semantic shift between the languages, though. Wakuran (talk) 22:20, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

verwaarloos, verwaarlozen, waardeloos

The Afrikaans from Dutch word for neglected. Etymology mentions older Dutch "verwaerlozen", but nothing about the word "waarde" ("value"). The word "waarde" etymology has nothing. (I think in the Dutch Wiktionary). "Verwaarlozen" seems to be rooted in "waardeloos", so there is no word "verwaar" that gets a "-loos" on the end to make an antonym. (Goog translate has/had that non-existent word confused with Afrikaans "verwar. Which is hilarious, because verwar means confused in Afrikaans.) Mrjjacobs (talk) 19:03, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Could it be connected to German verwahren / Verwahren? To me it sounds strange that waardeloos would get an intensive ver-prefix. Wakuran (talk) 19:57, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Alternatively, Dutch verweren? Wakuran (talk) 20:54, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Dutch waarde is cognate to English worth and German Wert, all inherited from Proto-Germanic *werþaz. The component waar- in verwaarlozen, also found in Dutch waarnemen (“to observe”), bewaren (“to preserve, to keep”) and vrijwaren (“to safeguard”), stems from Proto-West Germanic *warōn (“to watch, protect”) and/or *war (“aware, alert”) (not to be confused with *wār (“true”)), whence also German (ver)wahren and English aware, while French garage is a cognate.  --Lambiam 16:55, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

To add, Dutch verwaarlozen is immediately from Middle Dutch waerloos (“careless”): van der Sijs, Nicoline, editor (2010), “verwaarlozen”, in Etymologiebank, Meertens Institute. (The link also includes Van Wys' etymological dictionary of Afrikaans.) —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 13:29, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Kangshung Face (Mount Everest)

Hey, I made a speculatory etymology for Kangshung Face (Mount Everest) based on my experience on Wiktionary with these words- see Talk:Kangshung Face. Let me know if this seems legit, or how I should qualify this assessment ("probably", etc.). --Geographyinitiative (talk) 00:53, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Since the Chinese Wikipedia calls it 康雄壁 (壁 (bì) means “cliff, steep“) I think you can qualify this as “most certainly” – the alternative theory that this Chinese name is a partial calque of the English name is too farfetched. I wouldn't use a judgemental term like “garbled”; more likely, someone just wrote down what they heard, using an ad hoc transliteration.  --Lambiam 14:46, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

אָוואַ

Wondering if there is an etymology for this. My first thought was Russian ого (ogo), since it can be pronounced like "ova" in words like какого (kakovo). Problem with that of course is that ого (ogo) isn't pronounced with /v/. If anyone knows of some Hebrew or dialectal German interjection that sounds like this, let me know. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 19:14, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Is that pronounced something like [ʊvʊ]? Initially, I wouldn't find it unlikely if it'd be an interjection having originated spontaneously in Yiddish. Wakuran (talk) 20:56, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

bushwah

There was some discussion on its talk page about "bouchois" being a possibilty but this etymology having no attestations. TDHoward (talk) 00:20, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

The OED simply says it's a euphemistic form of bullshit. A lot of sources agree. There are a few more convoluted suggestions. Holt, Phrase and Word Origins (1961), cites Webster deriving it from bodewash, a dialectal US term for dried dung from settler French bois de vache (literally “wood of the cow”), and then comments (maybe with some sarcasm), "It is only a coincidence, perhaps, that the disreputable ejaculation, 'bullshit,' is used in exactly the same way as 'bushwa'." More recently Mark Peters, Bullshit: A Lexicon, offers "bourgeois" as a possible origin or model, though he also agrees it just means "bullshit". I strongly suspect though that any older sources talking about supposed French etyma are just being coy and it's a straightforward mincing of bullshit. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 00:38, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

The bourgeois theory makes sense to me given uses like this 1971 book (may not be visible to all) where someone says bushwa and then is told by another speaker that the word they want is bourgeois. This requires an /ʃ/ pronunciation for the word contrasting with /ʒ/ in bourgeois. It's possible that the author of this book is assuming a folk etymology, but this is what makes most sense to me since someonme hearing the word bourgeois but not knowing how to spell it is likely to come up with something like bushwa(h) as there is no stable way to spell /ʒ/ in English. —Soap— 05:44, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

I've expanded the entry with etymological notes and a separate section for the pronunciation spelling of bourgeois. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 13:48, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Actually derivation from bullshit can't quite work if bullshit itself is only attested from 1914 as the entry there says (which seems to be true), it must have been conflated subsequently... I've just changed it to say it's uncertain and kept these various origins listed. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 14:10, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

龜毛

Any idea what "hollow logic" is supposed to mean in the etymology? ---> Tooironic (talk) 23:04, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

重編國語辭典修訂本: 佛教用語。龜沒有毛，兔沒有角。僅有其名而無其實。佛典常用以譬喻空理。

空 (kōng) may be related to Buddhism (sunyata), but I don't know much about it. --ItMarki (talk) 07:09, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Turtle fur and rabbit horns is a metaphor for a mistaken perception of something nonexistent. The algae on a sea turtle may be mistaken for fur. The pricked-up ears of a rabbit may be mistaken for horns. In various Buddhist writings, this is used as a metaphor for illusions – such as the illusion of a permanent self – that need to be shed to advance on one’s road to release from suffering. The term “hollow logic” is sometimes used to criticize an idea that superficially seems to have merit but on deeper examination lacks substance. This is not a common idiom, though; the sentence should be rewritten to make the intention clear.  --Lambiam 14:17, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

For "hollow logic" I think specious logic is probably the more usual / less ambiguous term. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 14:22, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Logicians might counter that the belief in nonexistent things is not an issue of logic at all.  --Lambiam 10:31, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Unless it's a matter of judging the logic of inferences from perceptions, of course, which is what appears to be understood in this case. I recall reading a monograph advancing a logic without the principle of the excluded middle which wanted to categorise logically correct inferences from perceptions that are then subsequently disproved by further information as in some sense both true and false, and the argument in that case was also vaguely influenced by Eastern philosophy. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 14:03, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Update on "potefal"

I've added פּאָטעפֿאַלנאָסט (potefalnost) and פּאָטעפֿאַלנע (potefalne). I'm still stumped at how four separate Yiddish dictionaries can contain the same word, yet we are none the wiser to its etymology. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 13:57, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

אַפֿענע

Apparently this means "blueberry". I found it in the 2016 CEYD, so this has to come from somewhere. Could this be something inherited from dialectal German perchance? Doesn't seem too Slavic to me. Edit: could this come from Romanian afină? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 16:32, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

μύκης

This might be more about the format than the etymology, itself, but the etymology added on 30 December 2020 by User:Samubert96 mentions a person 'Furnée' not linked in the sources. So I wonder 1st if the hypothesis would be fringe-like or generally accepted, and 2nd, if the latter, how it could be better linked in the entry. Wakuran (talk) 00:39, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

The added etymology, including the judgemental “correctly”, is lifted almost verbatim from Beekes; Furnée refers to: Edzard J. Furnée, Die wichtigsten konsonantischen Erscheinungen des Vorgriechischen. Mit einem Appendix über den Vokalismus. Mouton, Den Haag, 1972. The entry in Furnée (pp. 298–9) is:

μύκης, ητος m. ‚Stumpf eines gefällten Olivenbaums‘ (IG 2, 1055, 43): cf. μύσκλοι = οἱ πυθμένες τῶν ξηρῶν σύκων (Η.).²² — Vergleiche das oben § 45 angeführte bask. mukuŕ = moskoŕ ‚tronc d’arbre‘;²³ illustratives Beispiel für den irgendwie bestehenden Zusammenhang zwischen Vorgriechisch und Baskisch.²⁴

The rejection of a connection with μύσσομαι is found in footnote 22.  --Lambiam 10:19, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Ah, thanks, so maybe it could just be sourced more clearly.... Wakuran (talk) 11:20, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Indeed, it is distressingly common that someone writing an etymology will mention a scholar by last name only and then provide no bibliographical information allowing the reader to trace the claim back to its source. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:36, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

And this is what virtually always is the case when “Furnée” is mentioned on Wiktionary, about 300 times. Should be removed because non sequitur anyway. The superficial similarity to once transmitted μύσκλοι (múskloi, “stalks of dried up fig trees”) says nothing and is sought, in addition we might rather connect it to μόσχος (móskhos) and μίσχος (mískhos), and that to μασχάλη (maskhálē), which are of course all pre-Greek.

Like every second time I open a Greek etymology it is Pre-Greek. These substratum claims, a pet theory of Beekes, are statistically impossible, I have noted on various occasions. Hundreds must be removed or relativized contra Beekes and Furnée. Fay Freak (talk) 13:11, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Although it's tempting to just remove all of Beekes' Pre-Greek etymologyies, I think they come with the turf of using his dictionary, which the most updated source, especially for Indo-European etymas. I do agree that they ought to be relativized with qualifications such as “Beekes claims” or “Beekes holds”.

When they are credibly disputed and alternative etymologies exist, it should be noted that Beekes' Pre-Greek claims are idiosyncratic or even outright fringe. That qualification can be backed by many reviews of his dictionary, which while praising his Indo-European etyma, decry his overzealousness to classify most of everything without crystal clear etymology as Pre-Greek. Ido66667 (talk) 01:07, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

effervescent

RFV of the etymology. Says it's from French but all the other dictionaries list it as being directly from Latin. lattermint (talk) 20:33, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't see any particularly convincing reason to think it's from French. The OED's earliest attestation is from 1684. It's very possible that it was reinforced from French given the importance of French in the 18th-century chemical revolution, but I can find English uses already referring to bubbling substances in 1719 [1], 1740 [2], 1756 [3], etc. TLFi meanwhile has it as a late 18th-century thing in French, and the earliest French instances I can find for both effervescent and effervescens, the unadapted form mentioned in the TLFi, are from the 1750s. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 20:53, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

On that note effervescence is also listed as a borrowing from French and is claimed to be that by Etymonline but not by the OED. lattermint (talk) 21:06, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

I can't find any 1640s French attestations for effervescence so not sure reference what Etymonline might be referring to. TLFi dates it to the 1680s. There are some misdated hits on Google for the 1640s, notably a Regnier de Graaf translation where the printer's accidentally given it the nonsense year "MDCLXCIX" that Google's chosen to interpret as 1649, apparently the actual date is 1699. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 21:12, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

shag-boy

Any idea where the shag but comes from? Jewle V (talk) 22:30, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Because you shag, shake, heavily when fancying one in your vicinity. Fay Freak (talk) 22:55, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Turkic/tebe

An Etymological Dictionary of Altaic Languages. S. A. Starostin, A. V. Dybo, O. A. Mudrak. Page 1424 — This unsigned comment was added by Abu Windy (talk • contribs) at 01:43, 11 September 2023 (UTC).

@Abu Windy: Probably worse than nothing. See WT:Beer parlour/2023/September#Ban cross-family comparisons from EDAL. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:53, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

פּרעצל from English?

Now I don't know enough about Yiddish as a day-to-day language - I do live in Hong Kong after all - but the CEYD suggests both בייגעלע (beygele) and פּרעצל (pretsl) can be used to mean pretzel, the former of which was also borrowed into Hebrew and appears to be the most common Hebrew word for pretzel. For the time being I've assumed פּרעצל (pretsl) to be an inherited word, what with a regular B => P shift as seen in some other nouns, as well as the Bavarian-ness of pretzels themselves, and of course Yiddish was strongly influenced by Bavarian as well. Hence you see stuff about Middle High German and Brezel in the etymology section.

But what if it's not that at all? What if, as it appears to me that בייגעלע (beygele) is the more common term for "pretzel", פּרעצל (pretsl) was actually re-borrowed from (American) English back into Yiddish? What if it went dialectal German => English => Yiddish? Or am I overthinking things? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 16:41, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Maybe “dialectal German” is actually Yiddish? Actually it isn’t that dialectal, around 1900 both Bretzel and Pretzel very unproblematic written German forms, as you instantly find; and I am surprised that Otto Jastrow translated an Anatolian Arabic text edition in 2003 with Pretzeln, which apparently wasn’t even found strange at the publishing house in Wiesbaden. But the relevant consideration here is that it would require a reason to reckon that specifically Yiddish lacked the word before borrowing it from English. Rather it must have had the word like all other German dialects. Fay Freak (talk) 17:22, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Rosh Hashanah

Do we have a basis for saying this is from Yiddish and not Hebrew? Based on sound/spelling, Hebrew would've been my first guess, and indeed the Hebrew entry says the English etc names are from Hebrew... - -sche (discuss) 14:49, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

The OED says Hebrew too. Their first citation is from 1594, with continuous attestation since, and the spelling is fairly consistent, so I'd also tend towards Hebrew as the immediate source. Beginning in the 19th century I do find the spelling "Rosh Hashona(h)" on GBooks, primarily in Jewish sources, which I would assume is Yiddish-influenced. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 15:04, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

The English pronunciation has Hebrew vowel quality but Yiddish stress placement, so it may be a blend of the two. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:15, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Though I think it's unlikely that the stress placement would have been borrowed from Hebrew unadapted. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 09:17, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, the stress placement seems more natural for English anyway than e.g. /-əʃɑːˈnɑː/, and something like /-æʃəˈnɑː/ would be even more unfaithful to the Hebrew. Of course it's unlikely we can figure out how it was pronounced in Early Modern times, but I doubt we can say for sure whether the current pronunciation was an import from the Yiddish or just reinforced by it. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 10:18, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/dungz

This should be moved back to Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/dungiz, per the cited source. The rationale for the move to *dungz was wrong: OE does not reflect an original consonant stem; the umlauted variant ding points to an original i-stem instead. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 05:14, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

beezer

RFV of the etymology. (Tagged but not listed.) Supposedly from Chinese! - -sche (discuss) 01:48, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm skeptical. The Pinyin "z" is pronounced more like "dz", so the Mandarin word sort of rhymes with "pizza". Also, I don't know much about immigration to England, but in the US the early waves of immigration were from further south, so they mostly spoke lects like Cantonese that pronounce this even more differently. It was only with the Communist revolution that Mandarin started to predominate here.

Also, after looking at Google Books, the earliest usage I see seems to refer to the head, not the nose: 1912, 1913, This one from 1915 is probably clearest, with this one from 1922 offering Spanish cabeza as the origin (not that a publication catering to midwestern farmers of that era is a good source for information on Spanish or etymology). Of course, these all refer to US slang, but they mostly date to around World War I, when there was a lot of contact between speakers of British and US slang. There do seem to be some, like this one from 1914 and this one from 1917 that do refer to the nose, though. Partridge sees it as strictly the nose, and takes it back to 1908.Chuck Entz (talk) 04:33, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

It's complicated. The OED gives two different senses for "beezer" and notes they may have different origins (their other sense is one we don't have, "a (smart) person"). The "person" sense seems to have originated in Scotland (cf. DSL) but from earlier uses—and sources that explicitly denote it as such, like this one from 1919—the "nose" sense seems to originally be an Americanism, contrary to our entry. There are various sources giving the Chinese etymology for the "nose" sense (e.g. The Facts on File Encyclopedia on Word and Phrase Origins, p. 73). I also see this WWII memoir where an American recalls the term "Da Beezer" in Chinese, so the pronunciation of the Mandarin doesn't seem to be an obstacle—it's still voiced, so easier to hear as "z" than the sound in "pizza". But if they were already familiar with the English slang then they'd have been predisposed to hear it that way. The Facts on File Encyclopedia claims that it originates with US marines in China, which seems obviously false—the earliest source I can find hypothesising a Chinese origin even predates WWII (in this journal). —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 08:13, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

I've expanded the entry with as much info as I could find. What I find curious is the 1921 quotation I added under "head" from an American sailing in Vladivostok (with a lot of clearly Sinophone context in the pages surrounding). This suggests to me that a Chinese origin cannot be 100% ruled out. The 1930s source speculating about Chinese I mentioned above also specifically mentions American sailors. But it'd be more convincing if it was "nose" and not, as it seems to be, "head". The Oxford Dictionary of Slang (which I've cited) does note Spanish cabeza but also adds that the semantic development is a bit difficult since in English "nose" precedes "head" (though not by much anyway). I also don't know where the boxing context would come in. For now I've reduced the Chinese hypothesis to a mention with {{ncog}}. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 14:43, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

־קעלע as a separate suffix?

Now this is obviously, as far as we can tell anyway, a combination of ־קע (-ke) and ־עלע (-ele). But I've come across two separate words in the CEYD, טשיפּקעלע (tshipkele) and טראָפּקעלע (tropkele, “droplet”), which are recorded with ־קעלע (-kele) but neither with ־קע (-ke) nor ־עלע (-ele) separately. I've also seen טשיפּקעלע (tshipkele) used on Forverts so this isn't just the CEYD making stuff up as they tend to do (c.f. קאָנטראָל־שטעקל (kontrol-shtekl)). I've seen a few places discuss ־קעלע (-kele) as a variant of ־קע (-ke) but none at a scholarly level, or at least in-depth. So should I add it here, and if so should I add it as a variant of ־קע (-ke) or ־עלע (-ele), or both? Thoughts? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 13:14, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

@Insaneguy1083 Slavic languages are full of double diminutives. A google search for טשיפּקע (tshipke) yields 8 hits (ignoring the result for our previous discussion at your userpage), the most promising being a hit for the EYDES index as well as for this text file, a word list hosted by the University of Kentucky site you've been using. The same goes for טראָפּקע (tropke), 8 hits, two of which are to the EYDES word index (promising). It's possible they are both typos, or it's possible that they're just rare. Helrasincke (talk) 08:41, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Mariel

Right now the article says it is a diminutive of Mary, but doesn't it mean God is my lord in Hebrew and also a cursory search pulls up something about an angel named Mariel which also doesn't make sense if it's a Germanic feminine diminutive. Dngweh2s (talk) 18:11, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

There's certainly no angel named Mariel dating back to Biblical times; the angels Mariel I found online are definitely modern and kind of New-Agey. The Hebrew word מַר (mar, “mister, master”) is also not Biblical; it's a medieval loanword from Aramaic. Another possibility for the name is a blend of Mary with Muriel. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:01, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

The angel Mariel features in minor roles in various medieval and early modern hermetic sources like the Lesser Key of Solomon and (apparently) the cabbalistic Book of Raziel so it's somewhat older than that, though not biblical. See also the appearance in a Syriac charm codex of the 18th c. here. For an English personal name though I'd wager it's more likely just to be a variation of Muriel after Mary. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 14:57, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

親力親為

What evidence do we have that this term originated in Hong Kong? It's quite a claim. ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:11, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

zorch

For the second etymology of zorch, I have recently seen a reference in a paper (Veale, O'Donoghue, and Keane 1999, "Computability as a Limiting Cognitive Constraint: Complexity Concerns in Metaphor Comprehension about which Cognitive Linguists should be Aware") which in turn references Hendler (1989) "Marker Passing over Micro-Features: Toward a Hybrid Symbolic/Connectionist Model". This in turn has a footnote:

The notion of attenuation is quite prevalent in discussion of spreading activation. The term zorch has often been used orally to describe this although Hendler (1987a) appears to be the first to use the term in the spreading activation literature. This use of the term appears to be based on an MIT use of the word to refer to “an amount of energy.” More information on the MIT use of the word can be found in The Hacker’s Dictionary.

Maybe that helps? 216.59.66.162 18:53, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Hmm, could the first etymology be a blend of zap and scorch or torch? Wakuran (talk) 01:16, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Hendler's theory sounds plausible. But where did the MIT's use in the sense of an amount of energy come from? (The French Wiktionary has a later quotation with this sense.)  --Lambiam 19:45, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Bill Watterson used this word a few times in Calvin & Hobbes, so my first thought was that it was an arbitrary coinage by a fan of the strip, but the earlier of the two uses in the strip that I found on this site was from 1988, so apparently it wasnt a tribute to Calvin & Hobbes after all. Still, this doesnt look like a traditional etymology ... maybe it's a tribute to the early text-based RPG Zork? But that wouldnt explain the sense very much. —Soap— 22:03, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Northern and Lule Saami oabbá

These words have oampē as stated origin, but it seems that it should be oampā instead, right? Tynnoel (talk) 16:30, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

German/Bavarian cognate to פֿאַטשיילע?

As title. It doesn't make sense that somehow only Yiddish borrowed this word. In fact, given Austria's proximity to modern-day Italy, it stands to reason that Bavarian would have borrowed it first, and then spread into varieties of Yiddish. Either way, if someone could help in finding the exact language/dialect that lent the word to Yiddish, that would be nice as well, since I don't believe it would have entered Yiddish directly from Vulgar Latin. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 20:12, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't know about that, there are other examples of Yiddish borrowing directly from Romance without the intervention of any German variety. A famous example is לייענען (leyenen). —Mahāgaja · talk 20:26, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

שינקע

How are we so certain that this entered Yiddish via Slavic? The etymology for German Schinken says that it comes from Middle High German schinke. Couldn't Yiddish have just inherited it from there? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 17:04, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure if it were inherited from Old High German scinco it would be *שינק (*shink) without the final *-e. —Mahāgaja · talk 18:15, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

忘れる and 忘る

The wiktionary entry for 忘れる lists the etymology as coming from OJ 忘る, which follows a 下二段 conjugation pattern, but japanese dictionaries like this or this also list a 四段 pattern with a different nuance. Is it known whether the 下二段 form derived from an earlier 四段 form, or vice versa? Horse Battery (talk) 23:06, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Scottish Gaelic ‘com’

Is anyone in a position to add an etymology and the modern pronunciation? I think in some modern Lewis Gaelic dialects it might now be pronounced [k^haum], but I’m not a native speaker. CecilWard (talk) 19:38, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

@CecilWard:, Chan e labhraiche dùthchasach a th'annam nas motha, but I added what I could find. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:58, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Ching

RFV of the etymology. @Fish bowl added this and I agree- this 成 Cantonese surname seems to be more easily found as Shing. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 03:59, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

(The notes at 成 also read: cing4 - rare (e.g. 成數), with no mention of cing4 being used as a surname. —Fish bowl (talk) 04:14, 25 September 2023 (UTC))

phrog/phrogging

Is it related to phishing? — 204.187.100.209 22:42, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

phreaking is older than the other two words, so I guess it could be an analogous coinage. Wakuran (talk) 00:31, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Spelling f-containing words with a "ph" and vice versa was popular hacker lingo. I'll check old text files and see if this spelling pops up, and in which sense. CitationsFreak (talk) 16:28, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Found "phrog" as an alt. spelling of "frog", but not with this meaning. CitationsFreak (talk) 07:59, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

gangbusters

— 204.187.100.209 22:44, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Seems pretty self-explanatory to me. Agents like Eliot Ness were perceived as having been successful. Wakuran (talk) 00:38, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

bougar

— 204.187.100.209 22:44, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Seems to be a quite rare word both in English and Scots. Merriam-Webster explicitly states "origin unknown". I wonder whether it might be derived from Germanic *beuganą (to bend, bow). It seems that Scottish National Dictionary might prefer a Celtic derivation, though. Wakuran (talk) 01:31, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Possible connection to or influence from cognates of either bough or bow (of a ship)? Helrasincke (talk) 11:01, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

It can also mean a rafter in a house. For what it's worth, I can't help seeing it as bow + gar (“spear, pole”), though I know it may only be simplistic coincidence. Leasnam (talk) 19:44, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

stintance

— 204.187.100.209 22:46, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

There's an etymology at stint. Wakuran (talk) 00:39, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

настоящий

Missing etymology. 108.160.120.91 02:37, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

I have tried. It's a participle form of Old Church Slavonic настоꙗти (nastojati) but the exact original spelling is hard to establish and it may need some normalisation. Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:05, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

@Atitarev you've got it right:

• Ivanova-Mirčeva, D., editor (1999), “настоꙗти”, in Старобългарски речник [Old Church Slavonic Dictionary] (in Bulgarian), volume 1, Sofia: Valentin Trajanov, page 927

Chernorizets (talk) 00:57, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

@Chernorizets: Thanks. Is *настоѩщь (*nastojęštĭ) the right normalised lemma spelling? The dictionaries don't seem to provide the lemma for the participle. Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:07, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

@Atitarev based on what I've been able to find so far, probably not - if you're looking for the masculine active participle form, it's likelier to be something like настоѩщꙑ, but I don't know enough OCS to be sure. None of the grammar references I could find justify just adding "ь" directly to the participle base. Chernorizets (talk) 01:26, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

In Codex Zographensis, they reconstruct a derivative adjective настоѩштьнꙑи, if that's of any help.

хлѣбъ нашь настоѩшт[ьнꙑи]

Chernorizets (talk) 01:40, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

@Chernorizets: Thanks. We can also check with fellow Slavic editors later. Meanwhile, you can edit настоя́щий (nastojáščij). Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:28, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

smudge

In Bergamasque dialect (and other Lombard dialects), smagia /ˈzmadʒa/, /ˈʒmadʒa/ means 'stain', 'mark'. For Giovanni Cavadini and Carmen Leone _Dizionario etimologico begamasco_ (2002) this derives from Latin macula (with an intensifying s-prefix). Unless there's a common Indo-European root, this must be a case of a striking coincidence. Richard Dury (talk) 04:46, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Coincidences are not uncommon. Wakuran (talk) 09:10, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

German Projekt

It's the source of the word for project in a number of languages, but it has no etymology. #sadface Could anyone please provide the etymology?

Thanks,

Chernorizets (talk) 05:32, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

According to German Wiktionary:

von lateinisch prōiectum ^{→ la}, das so viel bedeutet wie „Das nach vorn Geworfene“ (substantiviertes Partizip Perfekt (Neutrum) von prōicere ^{→ la}, siehe auch projizieren).

Chernorizets (talk) 05:37, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

 Done —Mahāgaja · talk 09:46, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

How does that correlate with the fact that French had developed the sense "planing" by the 14th century? 88.128.92.34 15:13, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Words 'highly' and 'hayli'

Hi guys I was just thinking if the word highly in English and hayli in Persian/Turkish has an etymological connection at some point? I know their roots are different but their pronunciations are so similar and they are used in same meaning which makes me wonder. I did some research and couldn't really find proof that they are connected but here I am, what do you guys think? Justcallmeasude (talk) 14:06, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Nope, it's just a coincidence. That happens sometimes. My favorite example is the Mbabaram word dog, which means 'dog' and is completely unrelated to the English word dog. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:13, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes! and for a good example of false cognates specifically involving English and Farsi, vide better and بهتر (behtar, “better”), @Justcallmeasude. ~ Blansheflur ｡･:*:･ﾟ❀,｡ 16:52, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Not to mention bad and بد (bad). —Mahāgaja · talk 20:28, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Another nice example is Dutch stekkie and Greek στέκι (stéki).  --Lambiam 15:54, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

кадык#Russian

Can't find any such Tatar word, and the fact it is given in Latin is probably not a good sign. I must note that in traditional (19th century) Russian terminology, "Tatar" could mean pretty much any Turkic language, not necessarily the one we now call Tatar. Thadh (talk) 20:03, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Vasmer means Uyghur قاتتىق (qattiq) in Radlov. --Vahag (talk) 12:21, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

גליווערן

Any ideas? Couldn't find anything Germanic or Slavic related to this, although maybe I'm not looking in the right places. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 15:53, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Update: I found glibbern in a German dictionary, which is a northern German word apparently meaning "to wobble around". Could this be related? Since sometimes words develop the opposite of their original meaning. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 13:58, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

German glibberig means slippery, sithery. The semantic shift seems difficult to explain. One idea I had, was that it could have come from a Balkan Romance derivation of glacies, although it doesn't feel like an obvious candidate... Wakuran (talk) 16:50, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

An obvious canditate for the first part would be Proto-Indo-European *gel-, which gave rise to Latin reflexes such as Latin gelū and gelidus having to do with cold, freezing, etc. The Germanic reflexes such as English cold and German kalt wouldn't work because they have "k", and I have no clue about where to look for the "-יווערן" part. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:07, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I thought about that, too. *g- seems to turn to *k- in Germanic, though, and *ge- to *ʒe- in Slavic, it seems. In Romance ge- tends to produce various fricative sounds. The root might also be absent in Slavic(?), as I have trouble finding examples of uncontroversial reflexes. Wakuran (talk) 22:25, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Another idea was that the initial g- would be a shortened form of German ge- / Yiddish גע־, although it would still raise a lot of questions about where 'livern' might be derived from. I donät know whether Yiddish has a cognate to German liefern, and the semantics still don't make sense. Well, I had some ideas, at least, although few of them were particularly good... Wakuran (talk) 22:33, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Could it be related to Middle High German kleber (“sticky, stuck, firm, durable”) (mod German kleber, kleberig), Middle High German klīben (“to stick, get stuck”), Middle Low German klîven (“to stick, remain stuck”) ? Leasnam (talk) 13:36, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Hmm, in my impression, words derived from *klibāną tend to have connotations of viscous, gluey, resiny substances rather than icy. Still, it might be one of the better suggestions, so far. Wakuran (talk) 13:50, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Looking up גליווער (gliver), I see that many of the words supposedly might have similar connotations to *klibāną, though, although they might possibly be secondary, due to external icy appearance or something... Wakuran (talk) 12:12, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

גליווער (gliver) looks a lot like Limburgish klibber (“sticky or slimy substance, jelly, aspic”), Dutch klibber (“gum, lime, glue”), Middle Low German klibber (“goo, slime”), Middle Low German klever (“resin, glue”), Middle High German kleber (“glue, rubber, tree resin, slime”). Leasnam (talk) 17:53, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

German nüchtern from Latin nocturnus

How did "nocturnal" come to mean "sober"? PUC – 12:51, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Because drinking culture in the Middle Ages did not suppose that you would go out club to become drunk, and club soda was not widely available either, instead one started the day with small beer, after being nüchtern in the sense of having an “empty stomach”, meaning one was in the early fasting state after having slept the usual hours, and easily having drunk something stronger would give rise to this term as an euphemism for the opposite state. It already broadly meant “abstinent” in Old High German, or the derived adjective nuohturnīn / nuehternīn meant it. The present previous gloss “sober” at nuohturn is incorrect, it meant ieiunus. Fay Freak (talk) 13:13, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, that makes sense. PUC – 15:09, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

How a poor dejected person is about to sleep without having a goblet of intoxication; he is unable to sleep through the nights. Being sober, he stays awake. कालमैत्री (talk) 14:10, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

I guess you're joking, but if not... No, that would be a folk etymology. FF's explanation above is much more convincing. PUC – 15:08, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Kluge does not see a semantic connection.^[4] However, the nocturna (Latin) or nocturns used to be the first liturgic office in monasteries, performed in the very early morning. The monks would still be on an empty stomach, so this may have been the origin.  --Lambiam 15:49, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

I was quite astonished the first time my doctor in Germany wanted to do a blood test on me and asked "Sind Sie nüchtern?" as if I might come to a doctor's appointment drunk. She had to explain the other meaning of the word for me. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:37, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

The latest edition of DudenKluge prefers the nocturnus theory (also pointing out that it was originally a monastic word), but point out that the OHG diphthong in nuohturn is problematic as it implies a predecessor *nōht- with a long vowel, while the Latin has a short vowel. Thus they can't rule out the possibility of an old inherited word cognate with Ancient Greek νηφάλιος (nēphálios) and Old Armenian նօթի (nōtʻi) that got conflated with nocturnus. It occurs to me, however, that West Germanic didn't have short o before u in a following syllable, so it's conceivable the vowel of the Latin word got lengthened when it was borrowed into pre-OHG so that it could preserve its quality rather than becoming either u or a. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:58, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

That's what I'm saying. PUC is needlessly POINTy removing my blabber.

EWA goes all in on ūhta (or uohta?) which is mentioned in other dictionaries as a possible source of corruption. Conflation with nocturnus is left as exercise to the reader (“Nicht auszuschließen ist auch ein Einfluss” with further references) and they say nothing of Greek, but nohturna (“night watch”) is a separate loanword. Following up on my previous argument I think this may be relevant to the PIE etymology of night. Looks like a possible zero-grade from *én. EWA thinks that in had a laryngeal and contracted later in German mit bei Univerbierung häufiger prätonischer Reduktion (vgl. O. Hackstein, FS Oettinger 2014:41 ff.)

Cheers. PapasUlysse (talk) 04:49, 12 October 2023 (UTC)