Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2022/March

@Vahagn Petrosyan: Seeing that you have not edited Ottoman Turkish قوندورا (kundura) yet, I note that due to its broad diffusion there are likely Armenian forms to add.

But moreover I have enticing grounds to assume that the conventional Greek etymology is sus, which it is anyway as it would have to omit some intermediate details to formally work. Arabic كُنْدُرَة (kundura, “shoe”), which is conventionally attached to the Ottoman word, is attested as a ship-name at a time when the Ottomans were a local power with hardly a presence in the sea, and that as a term supposedly used on the Maldives, by an author having kicked off his journey in Morocco. I have also found at least one Marathi match, @Kutchkutch, so Turkish etymological dictionaries are redargued and we are compelled to look into the Indo-Iranian field. Fay Freak (talk) 03:10, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

The root, not the word as it does not explain the /r/, I suspect in Persian کنده (kunda) which Steingass glosses as “The stocks for offenders, a kind of clog or wooden fetters for captives; stump of a tree; a butcher's chopping-block; a shoemaker's cutting-board; stock of a gun; a wooden gun (used by raw recruits); wing (of a bird); arm (of a paper kite); a piece or patch (in trousers); curd; a fool, blockhead, man of dull understanding; a robust, beardless youth; a demon of the woods; anything brayed in a mortar; the silken bands with which a falcon's wings are confined when travelling; his collar and fastenings of bells to his legs; a falconer's cage; a potter's wheel; a stable; massive” and I have been explicit about at Classical Syriac ܩܘܕܐ (qawdā, “fetter, clog, bond, shackle”). The form is found in the same Steingass in a transferred meaning as Persian کندر (kundur, “a short, thick-set man; a stout ass”), which may or may not be etymologically identical to the frankincense word.

The primitive idea behind the shoe, کند (kund) a “stock” or “stump”, becomes transparent. If that is so widely diffused a word in antiquity, the Ancient Greek κόθορνος (kóthornos) also belongs to this family. Fay Freak (talk) 03:28, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

@Fay Freak: the best explanation is the derivation from Byzantine Greek κόντουρος (kóntouros, “short-tailed”), which is also attested in the sense "ship" in the 10th century and in the sense "shoe" in scholia to Aristophanes. See http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu/lbg/#eid=38568&context=lsj. The Arabic and Modern Greek are probably directly from Byzantine Greek. If you can, please create the Byzantine Greek entry, synchronizing also with κοντούρα (kontoúra). It is also the source of Venetan góndoła and – according to my discovery – Old Armenian կունդուռ (kunduṙ, “Postpferd”).

Your Iranian theory has been suggested by Asatrian / Arakelova, but I find it less likely, especially since the word refers to a European type of shoe. Vahag (talk) 22:02, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

@Vahagn Petrosyan: I have a déjà vu. This idea of a “clipped tail” reminds of a stupid etymology of بَرِيد (barīd), see its explicit reference section. But I have not got an explanation why one would clip the tail of a horse, the more so if the “tail” is his male member as testosterone would be sought for a swift horse so no gelding here (and if meat producers in Germany cut off the tails of pigs so their conspecifics do not bite them off because of overcrowded sties this is a wholly different matter). And if it is not clipped but just “short” this is nothing distinctive to call horses after it.

Those quotes in the Byzantine Greek dictionary refer to a kind of horse foremost and I do not see where one is compelled to read into it the literal meaning “short-tailed”. See instead the etymology section, and the alternative forms, of the normal word for “ass” in Modern Greek, of obscure beginnings, γάιδαρος (gáidaros) (it would be of course boss if you solved this word, I laugh); and see the meanings and comparisons of Ancient Greek κάνθαρος (kántharos).

That interpretation is even borderline contradictory, what use has a shoe “clipped at its tail”? The back is the functionally essential part of any shoe where it is attached to the foot. It is rather the shoe used by an express, a “post-shoe” (بَرِيد (barīd) means both the the post horse and the messenger); the watercraft sense easily transferred from either the post-horse sense or the shoe-sense. Fay Freak (talk) 00:58, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

@Fay Freak: if I read Kriaras correctly, the sense "short-tailed" is in fact attested in Byzantine Greek. According to Κωστάκης, Λεξικό της τσακώνικης διαλέκτου ΙI (Κ-Ο), 1986, page 128b, κουντούρα (kountoúra) refers to a "slipper with a heel, cut at the back, so that the heel is visible", so the sense development for the "shoe" is explained. The "ship" (really, "small boat, cutter") and "postal horse" ("a pony?") may derive from the sense "short (of clothing), small-statured (of men and animals)" attested for this Greek word in Byzantine Greek and modern Greek dialects. Things would be clearer if we had all the Byzantine and dialectal Greek forms checked for meaning and arranged chronologically. Vahag (talk) 19:17, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

The two English etymology sections disagree about what Arabic word was borrowed. (The first consonant is not even the same: one has sad and the other one seen. The Italian entry, from which the English claims a derivation, sides with the sad one.) 70.172.194.25 05:51, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

The error is in the Italian deriving from Medieval Latin soda (“headache”) which is obviously Arabic صُدَاع (ṣudāʕ) but from which there is no way to that chemical substance. As far I have used to know this is the plant-name سُوَيْدَاء (suwaydāʔ, “seepweed”), compare potash plants instead for potassium, but this is not too popular a plant item: with all this incompetence of language writers in historical causality I now wonder whether this isn’t just simply a substantivization sodo (“solid; hartgekocht”). I’d like a documentation of historical usage of Italian soda, to see how it connects to the plant; if the meaning range is too wild it may also be Medieval Latin soda (“headache”) but without grounds I can’t assume so. Fay Freak (talk) 06:11, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Suaeda species are quite tolerant of mineral salts in the soil and water, so they tend to have higher concentrations than most other plants. It makes perfect sense for the ashes from burning these plants to have been used as a source of those salts. Related plants variously classified as Kali or Salsola, which have similar properties, are the source of the word "alkali". Chuck Entz (talk) 08:08, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

I have cleaned up the etymology. I wonder a bit how the Catalan ended up sosa, ascribed to the 13th century and older than all the other forms (in and from Italian). Fay Freak (talk) 17:26, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Is the Andalusian Arabic pronunciation predictable from the classical Arabic form? Vox Sciurorum (talk) 17:29, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

@Vox Sciurorum: It would be the same, but, as I should have laid open, the word is a relative newcomer that has not been used west of Algeria – Andalusi used أُشْنَان (ʔušnān) until its very end, as witnessed by Karbstein, Andreas (2002) Die Namen der Heilmittel nach Buchstaben: Edition eines arabisch-romanischen Glossars aus dem frühen 17. Jahrhundert (Kölner Romanistische Arbeiten – Neue Folge; Heft 81) (in German), Geneva: Librairie Droz, page 43, a plant glossary from the very end of the language (early 17^th century), and حَمْض (ḥamḍ) and قَاقُلَّة (qāqulla) were also known. In particular, Corriente, Federico, Pereira, Christophe, Vicente, Angeles, editors (2017), Dictionnaire du faisceau dialectal arabe andalou. Perspectives phraséologiques et étymologiques (in French), Berlin: De Gruyter, →ISBN is supposed to contain all vocabulary attested for all Arabic registers of al-Andalus, and owning the absence (of attestation) of the phytonym there, in spite of all the Arabic-language botanical works coming from Spain, Corriente, Federico, Pereira, Christophe, Vicente, Angeles, editors (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans. Emprunts à l’arabe et aux langues du Monde Islamique (in French), Berlin: De Gruyter, →ISBN, page 500 opines that the Catalan signifie que l’arabe andalou a eu une telle variante!

They also show not having understood Arabic morphology well, as سُوَيْدَاء (suwaydāʔ) is not a diminutive that presupposes a hypothetical سَوْدَاء (sawdāʔ), unlike often claimed, as I have shown غُبَيْرَاء (ḡubayrāʔ) and صُفَيْرَاء (ṣufayrāʔ) were unlikely to have been used as أَغْبَر (ʔaḡbar) and أَصْفَر (ʔaṣfar) either in the first place.

Then in the same sentence they mention Spanish zagua also being from the alleged Andalusi form! Now this explanation of this Castilian word, the usual until now, is formally even dodgier, what does @Nicodene say about this? Fay Freak (talk) 20:29, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

@Fay Freak I'm afraid I do not know much about Arabic, but I can address the Romance side of the equation.

If we assume that Catalan sosa, Andalusian zagua, and Italian sòda all developed from a single form, it could only have been */sawda/. Something like */suvajda/ would present enormous phonological difficulties.

Catalan sosa reflects /-d-/ > /-z-/, an old sound-change that predates the written language. Andalusian zagua would have had to come either from Mozarabic or a relatively late borrowing from Arabic, considering the lack of /aw/ > /o/. The loss of /-d-/, ceceo, and /w/ > /ɡw/ are all common in Andalusian Spanish, and together they explain */sawda/ > zagua. Nicodene (talk) 06:45, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

This helps, although it is all stranger that the same unattested form has been borrowed in various centuries, or in various centuries back-formed in Romance as Corriente, Federico (2008) “sosa”, in Dictionary of Arabic and Allied Loanwords. Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Galician and Kindred Dialects (Handbook of Oriental Studies; 97), Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 437b suggests. Probably then it was Mozarabic, if not African Vulgar Latin, once borrowing سَوَيْدَة (sawayda) (in this colloquial vocalism, respectively sawēda) and then contracting it to give a base sawda, loaning it to Catalan early and to Andalusian Spanish late. Fay Freak (talk) 07:01, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

FYI, Etymonline claims that the theory involving an Arabic word for saltwort is "no longer considered valid". But I don't know their sources. 70.172.194.25 21:10, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, his claim of the Arabic term not being attested is wrong, although old attestations are difficult, or finding this word ever in general before internet; someone despaired there. And the other etymologies are worse, this is more or less a verisimile connection due to both the Arabic and the Romance forms referring to about the same plants; we are left to wonder whether something else partook. Fay Freak (talk) 01:04, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Surely the synonym Natron and the fact that resources come from soda lakes in Sudan, or Lake Neusiedl (Austria, Hungary), Rusanda (Serbia), etc. make toponymic references very likely. ApisAzuli (talk) 09:19, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

@Tài Khoản Một An editor from Sept-Oct 2021 said that an obsolete English term for Shaanxi is (quoting the edit) "Possibly" from the Gan (Gan Chinese) language of Jiangxi: here.
(1) What is the level of evidence or validity necessary to sustain (that is: "allow presentation to Wiktionary readers") this claim versus just summarily deleting it as merely speculatory? (UPDATE: I proactively decided to revert this edit on the basis that I subjectively believe that it is not a fact.)
(2) Out of curiosity, is anyone here able to present an alternative etymology? I believe there had been speculation that this word is borrowed into English via Portuguese or French, but the original origin does seem occluded to some degree. I forgot what Ricci's form of this word would have been.--Geographyinitiative (talk) 15:54, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Variety (magazine) “slanguage”, also ankles, oaters, whammo, and socko

• https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/boffo
• https://www.thefreedictionary.com/boffo
• https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Journo%27s+boffo+lingo%3A+the+slang+of+Daily+Variety.-a0138811718
• https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/26/crosswords/what-the-heck-is-that.html
• "Slanguage Dictionary". Variety (magazine). 20 February 2013.
• Gray, Tim (19 October 2020). "Donald Trump Brings 'Boffo' Back for an Encore". Variety (magazine).

FAILED Wikitext: <ref>{{cite news |last1=Gray |first1=Tim |title=Donald Trump Brings ‘Boffo’ Back for an Encore |url=https://variety.com/2020/politics/news/boffo-donald-trump-bob-hope-tweet-1234809757/ |work=] |date=19 October 2020}}</ref>

....0mtwb9gd5wx (talk) 06:38, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Currently etymology states it possibly comes from Dauria, old Spanish name of the Douro river (unsourced at the moment) Portuguese Infopédia states Soria as a cognate of Soure stating the latter comes from Latin Sauri. - Sarilho1 (talk) 11:22, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Spanish Wikipedia provides some useful information, albeit with rather lazy citation. Nicodene (talk) 23:55, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Does this sense belong to the Etymology 1, Etymology 2 or to something completely different? Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 13:51, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, if the etymology "Perhaps from دو (do, “two”) + لاب (lâb, “split, cleft; half”)." is correct, you could discern a semantic connection with words such as duplicity and dubious. Then, it could just as well be a coincidence, though. Wakuran (talk) 19:01, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

For that sense Tsabolov compares the meaning "pit or trap for catching animals" for Turkish dolap in Radloff, Friedrich Wilhelm (1905) Опыт словаря тюркских наречий – Versuch eines Wörterbuches der Türk-Dialecte , volume III (overall work in German and Russian), Saint Petersburg: Imperial Academy of Sciences, column 1718. Vahag (talk) 20:09, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

The English etymology at britchka disagrees with the Germanic etymology at bryka, instead claiming likely origin from Italian biroccio. This is more appealing semantically, but less so phonologically. 70.172.194.25 05:48, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

The Polish Wiktionary states that it comes from German Brücke in the sense of “platform on wheels”, citing a dictionary of German loanwords in Polish, but I cannot find independent confirmation that the German term can or could have this specific meaning.  --Lambiam 10:29, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't know about "platform on wheels", but Brücke can refer to a gantry over a highway or the top beam of a gantry crane, which I suppose can be a kind of platform and could conceivably be on wheels. Nevertheless, "gantry" > "horse-drawn carriage" seems like a pretty far-fetched semantic development. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:40, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, Protze is derived from the Italian, and while such a vehicle can also have a Brücke, a britchka does not have two wheels, so I guess the Italian derivation for this is wrong, and I assume it is after another vehicle that has a Brücke. Fay Freak (talk) 15:14, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

"Brücke" was used for a kind of bench by an oven, where DWB says this sense touches on "Britsche" = "Pritsche" (derived from "Brett"). The latter has a specific sense "board serving as a seat on a sleigh". So I think it could be from this by extension from the bench on a coach to the coach itself. 178.4.151.86 16:23, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

On the other hand, Polish wiktionary also has an entry for "bryk", said to be onomatopoetic and meaning a "jump" or "quick movement". It could also be derived from this and perhaps the idea that it's German is due to confusion with an unrelated "bryk" ("cheat sheet"), short for "ezelsbryk" < German "Eselsbrücke". The Wörterbuch der deutschen Lehnwörter im Polnischen only has an entry for this last, as far as I can see. 178.4.151.86 16:43, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

The allegedly onomatopoeic noun you refer to is the noun corresponding to, and potentially deverbal from, a Proto-Slavic verb, *brykati, which we currently dubiously gloss, given that not only the East Slavic and Polish forms distinctly relate to quadrupeds moving their legs, but this is even present in Latvian braukt (“to ride”) etc. (→ Vasmer; @Bezimenen). What ever it exactly meant, with many a meaning of its potential meaning range across Slavic the derivation of the vehicle name from it is smooth. But this was of course too hard for Germanists. Fay Freak (talk) 21:21, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

The etymology for bruk (“cobblestone”) alleged at bryka has to be inconsistent as well? I suppose *brukiz might match it better like square to quarry (Ger. Steinbruch, Lux. Broch, Da. stenbrud, etc.), all so bruģakmens, брукі́вка (brukívka) (s.v. cobblestone, cp. kamieniołom and respectively akmeņlauztuve, каменоло́мня (kamenolómnja) "quarry", also hammer) and indeed Da. brosten, brostein (id.), though I'm not aware of Bruch having a pertinent meaning beyond perhaps "gravel, split", rather cp. Brocken (“chunk, hunk”). It's not clear to me if a relation to "bridge" might be reasonable, as beach head for example may be compatible with a plastered embankment, see also brook. ApisAzuli (talk) 09:31, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

One certainly has to look into that word, knowing how roads were paved in the motorcarless past. Fay Freak (talk) 15:26, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

So what are you saying then? Above you wanted to derive it from "Brücke". My understanding is that you now prefer the "smooth" derivation from bryk? Everything I said about the Polish word was of course quoted from Polish wiktionary (as indicated). I add that I google-translated it, having no working knowledge of any Slavic language. 178.4.151.86 14:37, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, before it was the choice only between two options of the dilemma posed by OP, and then we have found other options bypassing either. Fay Freak (talk) 15:26, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Is this Arabic etymon correct? There is a comment expressing doubt. Wikipedia has a different theory: w:Shatranj#Openings. The historical documents on Shatranj presumably still exist and it would be possible to check which form is used therein. (Remember to change the root tag if needed.) 70.172.194.25 07:30, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

I currently believe it's more likely to be from the "arrangement" meaning than from "essence", so I'll go ahead and change it. 70.172.194.25 00:56, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Burundi has an unfinished etymology, and Wikipedia doesn't help at all. It only suggests "It may ultimately derive its name from the Ha people of the region, whose place of origin was known as Buha," which raises even more questions, and since I use a search engine that's meh for searching for etymology sources and I do not have time for actually going out of my way to do solid research, I'd like to ask you, my fellow Wiktionarians, to do the research needed. I would be very thankful to any etymology-finder. Luxtaythe2nd (talk) 17:56, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Country name from region name Urundi. The U- is also a prefix as in the regions Usuwi (Germans: Ussuwi), Usangu etc. and relates to the name of a people or linguistic group residing there, speaking, Kirundi. I think this is enough for you; a stem not reducible any more the origin of which will likely be lost in the undocumented past. Fay Freak (talk) 18:16, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Urundi is the historical Kiswahili name (with the Bantu class 14 abstract noun prefix u-), while the native Kirundi name is Uburundi (with the corresponding prefix ubu-). Whether Burundi is just a shortened form of the latter, or borrowed from a neighboring language that actually uses the shorter prefix bu-, is something I still need to find out. Or maybe someone more knowledgeable here already knows about it(?) –Austronesier (talk) 19:59, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

An Ausgleichsform chosen for official use because it is somewhere in the mid of all languages? I have not completely looked into the records but it appears that Königreich Burundi is (to some degree) an ex-post name and before becoming a Republic in 1966 it was known as Königreich Urundi and even Warundi respectively Kingdom of …; and before the 1860s hardly known to Europeans, first occurrences in German are notably translations from English, but this may be biased online corpora. So really we have to look what public relations campaign there was from 1966 to propagate the current name and not the other. Fay Freak (talk) 21:17, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Akin to Rwanda and I imagine it's similar to Botswana. See ubuntu at least for the redupe prefix. ApisAzuli (talk) 05:59, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Greetings. I became aware thanks to the online-only "Corrections" segment on Late Night with Seth Meyers that there's debate as to the correct pronunciation of criminy. To use the old-fashioned pronunciation terms I grew up with, people disagree as to whether the first "i" should be a long i or a short i. The sans-reference etymology given at criminy:

A minced oath from "Christ's money", in reference to the silver that Judas was paid for betraying Jesus.

favors a long i, while the etymology given by Merriam-Webster:

perhaps alteration of jiminy, gemini, mild oath, probably euphemism for Late Latin Jesu domine Jesus Lord!

favors a short i.

I'm not too experienced on Wiktionary the way I am on Wikipedia – could somebody add the alternate etymological possibility, and perhaps even put in some references? Thanks for taking a look. --Dan Harkless (talk) 22:39, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Words derived from "Christ" can have a short vowel sound though; consider Christmas and Christingle. The OED only gives the short-i pronunciation. What reputable sources support the long-i version? Equinox ◑ 22:45, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I didn't mean to imply "Christ"-derived words all use a long i; my comments were only in regards to the pronunciations favored by these two alternate etymologies. For American English, Merriam-Webster gives ˈkri-mə-nē as the first pronunciation, and ˈkrī-mə-nē as a secondary one. I personally associate the long-i version with speakers from the East Coast, particularly New York (and maybe New Jersey), but I don't have any specific data to back that up. --Dan Harkless (talk) 23:14, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Hello all. Brooklyn (New York) originates from the city of Breukelen (Holland). But does the name itself Breukelen have any meaning? A Dutch speaker told me that it has nothing to do with the dutch noun "breuk" or the verb "breken". Do you have any opinion on the matter? Thank you. Gerardgiraud (talk) 14:29, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I found some info from this page: , combined with the fact that Breukelen apparently originally came from Breukelerhof, a fortified building later given name to the whole town.

Letterlijke betekenis naam Breukelen
Brocklede is nu nog de naam van een middelbare school in Breukelen. Het hele gebied heette vroeger zo. ‘Broek’ was moerassig land met bos van elzen en berken en ‘lede’ betekende ‘waterloop’. In dit drassige gebied waar de Vecht aftakte naar de Aa lag een terp, een ‘brokel’. Hier ontstond het dorp dat later Breukelen werd genoemd.

So, the best translation out of context might be something like "marshy mound". Wakuran (talk) 23:08, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Not sure where you get "mound" from in any of that. It clearly equates "‘lede’ betekende ‘waterloop’", as does the entry. ApisAzuli (talk) 05:59, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

"terp", "naar de Aa lag een terp, een ‘brokel’", as far as I understood it. Wakuran (talk) 16:18, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

See Breukelen § Etymology.  --Lambiam 08:44, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

A big thank you to all. Gerardgiraud (talk) 18:58, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

The English entry is given as just being "from" mega-; the German entry is given as a "{{conversion}}" of mega- and catted into CAT:German conversions; that template is used in only five other pages: akár, haza, jelenik refer, scheiß. Do we want to start labelling more things as conversions (there are in particular probably a lot of things like refer which we, per prior discussions, had handled all under one ety, although not without dissent), or ditch the template as too fine a distinction...? - -sche (discuss) 22:37, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

I have no real horse in this race, just to point out that I turned the red cats blue. If we keep this, please add this to a module, etc. so these are standardized and generated from {{auto cat}}. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:50, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand w:Conversion_(word_formation): "... derivation using only zero." The language reality of zero-morphs is often denied.

I understand German "mega" as used prominently by Dieter Bohlen be a clipping of mega geil while geil is proscribed and hence omited. It is missing a morpheme where one would be expected (op. cit.). If we might call this simply clipping or ellipsis, would that be objectionable for the given usage examples? 1. "megaeinfach" clearly belongs in mega-. 2. "Er freute sich mega" seems construed to exhibit an effect (stranding?) that is actually not there in common speech where perfect tense is standard, hat sich mega gefreut. Although it is surely citable and is constructed regularly, I'm not sure the word order changing from perfect to preterit counts as conversion, which is "often allowing the word to function as a new part of speech" (Appendix:Glossary#conversion). Cp. hoch erfreut, presenting in free variation with phonotactics that suggest a bound morpheme (rather sound symbolic with a rising tone) in contradistinction to e.g. sehr erfreut (I have nothing to back this up, it's just how I say it). In this view it feels like a seperable verb to me when stranded(?). See also idiomatic constructions like zu tiefst verletzt sein – superlativ without comparative form and at that participle'ish. More over, substandard forms like er freut sich ein zweites Loch... are suggestive of adverbial verbiage.

3. "Die Party war mega." might suggest free conversion to ADJP. There are no comparative forms to confirm this, as -er (I've begun adding the comparative suffix) would regularly return to be assimilated in the auslaut. Thus it appears unchanged in result – which is actually avoided! The underlying attribute is still comparable, eg. geiler; geiler als mega geil. The DP die mega Party would be at least ambiguous – Es war mega die Party, mega erfolgreich, mega die erfolgreiche Party (like voll der Reinfall, or English all the more vel sim., maybe "? all zu tief verletzt") should show that it can be still adverbial, or determinative in some other way beyond my understanding. Hence I would prefer to spell the collocation as compound NP die Mega-Party, and could thus analyse another clipped anaphora, "* die Party war mega" not mega- + Ø (cp. uncountable Da war Party besides countable eine Party; NB: long ʼʼʼcatʼʼʼ is long is what it is). See similar "eine Müllbezeichnung" for example with fusion. The Bindestrich may be optional. As for e-Mail, the orthography is demoted to a stylistic, typographic graphematic choice of preference, as may be expected, that is not particularly meaningful for our purposes when the variance can be shown. Ergo, I find that it may be questionable how useful the distinction between mega with or without hyphen really is. It seems to be meaningless if conversion is assumed.

As regards English, I'd be cautious. If "Conversions from adjectives to nouns and vice versa are both very common and unnotable in English" (op. cit.), it would be perhaps too fine a difference indeed. On the other hand, as unrefined as I understand the definition, it is opposite of too fine. Add to that, whether a noun like Kühle for example (cp. Old English CÝLE "A cold, coldness, CHILL; frīgus" Bosworth/Toller) was either from adj. kühl or vb. kühlen – creating a substantive or an agentive noun respectively, the latter in one by-sense synonym to Kühler, Kühlung, "refrigerator, freezer" (similar in Wulfstan, "And þǣr is mid Estum ān mǣgð þæt hī magon cyle gewyrcan;"; a chill chill-out can denote a place as well), whatever, would be a diachronic problem on a case by case basis if etymology is concerned – it does appear unchanged from feminine adj. kühle (Luft) or 1P.Sg ich kühle, perhaps by sheer coincidence. When adjectives appear identical to nouns it is often the result of sound change, from which a general pattern is formed by analogy. If the latter count as conversion, this is covered by derivation as per the definition above. It wouldn't hurt stressing the analytic aspect.

The degree to which German is analytical may be controversial, especially with adverbs and adjectives, as for scheiß. Alternatively, we are deriving 5 (five!) distinct suffixes -er, although einziger, einzigster exist in free variation, often proscribed, necessarily with different surface analyses, suggesting slightly underspecified morphemes (which is why it's good to have them in the dictionary to begin with). The approach seems to have failed for -e, "a merger of various Old High German vocalic endings". I didn't find anything under *-īgaz (“-y”) but we might say /e:/ round my parts, cp. shitty. It is also found in adverbs like feste (OHG fasti (“firm”)), cp. festigen. This goes to show that {{conversion}} potentially masks ignorance about interveining changes. This is entirely legitimate if it is likely that a majority of an initially bilingual or other environment wasn't sure about it either (I have hinted at the interjection çüş before; tschau (“tschüss”), later Abfahrt!, Hau rein! etc. became common when I first heared these interjections).

We do make use of separate etymology sections for words of the same PoS that have ultimately the same origin, "same as above". Maybe this template talk is better viewed over a beer parlour. ApisAzuli (talk) 08:39, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Obligatory xkcd (#37 "hyphen", Man, that' s a sweet ass-car ) with conversion from suffix to prefix. ApisAzuli (talk) 09:06, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Isabel#Talk has Isabel being from Hebrew (Yezebel, “priestess of Bael”). Also our given name template asserts Hebrew as a source.

• Is Bael the Hebrew name for a god of others? I assume that it originates from another language.
• In any event shouldn't we have the etymologies of the various cognates of Isabel show the Hebrew, if that is definite?
• Shouldn't Isabel and Jezebel also at least suggest that there is a non-Hebrew source for Bael or for the entire Hebrew word or phrase? DCDuring (talk) 13:07, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
  • I've inserted "from Hebrew אִיזֶבֶל ('izével)" (taken from Jezebel) into the etymology of Isabel and commented out the template claiming Isabel to be "a doublet of Elizabeth". Please revise if this is wrong. DCDuring (talk) 13:12, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
    • I think the etymology at Isabel#Spanish is much more likely to be correct. Jezebel is considered a "bad guy" in the Bible who people would not be naming the daughters after. Hanks and Hodges's A Dictionary of First Names →ISBN also gives the etymology from Elizabeth. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:20, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Baʿal means as much as “Lord”. Judaism arose as the dominant cult from an earlier polytheistic Canaanite religion. The monolatristic worship of Baʿal and that of Yahweh coexisted for some time before the followers of Yahweh won out.  --Lambiam 07:24, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

This should be a fun one for someone interested. Apparently, HMS Challenger and HMS Challenger II are somehow BOTH responsible for the origin of the term Challenger Deep. You say: impossible, if the first ship discovered it and the area was named that before HMS Challenger II existed, then that's that: the word was created before HMS Challenger II existed, done. Well friend, Oxford dictionary says that Challenger deep is named after HMS Challenger II. They write: "The deepest part (11,034 m, 36,201 ft) of the Mariana Trench in the North Pacific, discovered by HMS Challenger II in 1948." You'd think: oh, Oxford's just a bunch of idiots. But then English Wikipedia writes: "Note that the term "Challenger Deep" came into use after this 1951–52 Challenger circumnavigation, and commemorates both British ships of that name involved with the discovery of the deepest basin of the world’s oceans." So there seems to be something going on. I've added a cite from 1909 clearly demonstrating the existence of the term before HMS Challenger II existed. What explains this situation, I know not, and I ask you to check it out if interested. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 15:10, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Here is a 1905 use of the term "Challenger Deep", but the illustration, as well as the statement on the next page that “the depression below a true plane is 11,400 feet”, establish that the name does not refer to the deepest point in the Mariana Trench, about 35,827 feet deep. The stated breadth, 300 miles, is even more than twice that of the whole Mariana Trench.  --Lambiam 07:01, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

There's some very un-etymology crap in the Etymology section. I was gonna just delete it, but thought I'd check here... Notusbutthem (talk) 14:35, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

You could add them as cites to the otherwise uncited entry. DCDuring (talk) 20:06, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

The current etymology for definition 4 seems skewed positively towards those the word is used for, as I've seen it used both as an insult and a compliment. I tried to change it, but the edits were reverted, so instead of edit-warring I'm consulting you here. -insert valid name here- (talk) 19:20, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

User:Goldstaupe seems to be a joky vandal, having changed the etymology to a blend of chad and stud! Equinox ◑ 19:25, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, if it is used positively this makes sense (perhaps a contamination due to the obscurity of the slang word), but is it really used positively as the usage note says or neutrally? Gimme some alt-rights or something who call each other chuds. Fay Freak (talk) 23:47, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

What is a better – linguistically more precise – word than "positive"? I've seen mirative (not applicable if exclusive to grammatical mood), and one rather obscure word that means reclaiming pretty much, and ameliorative. ApisAzuli (talk) 10:29, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

I have added some based and very relevant quotes to the entry. ᛙᛆᚱᛐᛁᚿᛌᛆᛌ ᛭ Proto-Norsing ᛭ Ask me anything 14:46, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm sure it originally had nothing to do with "Chad", but people keep re-adding that to the ety. I've removed it again. The word was originally derogatory. Equinox ◑ 14:47, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Apparently "dromon"/"dromond" were spelled "dromund" in Middle English, Anglo-Norman/Anglo-French, according the American Heritage Dictionary 5e and Collins English Dictionary 12e. J. R. R. Tolkien also spelled it as "dromund" in Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Book 5, chapter 6 - "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields". However, currently, if I search for "dromund" at en.wiktionary.org, nothing turns up.

There is some consistency between sources about an alleged sighting of Wake Island in 1796 . Wake Island's English Wikipedia page (Wake_Island#Etymology) implies that there's some confusion as to whether Wake Island is named for Captain Samuel Wake or Captain William Wake. (My third speculative alternative: a "Captain William Samuel Wake".) I see Wiktionary as an engine for figuring out these kinds of things; please ping me if you have any sources or viewpoints. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 18:53, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm just going to use this spot as a place to dump various resources until I get to a conclusion; if you are interested please join in.

"captain Wake" (1818)

"by the Prince William Henry" (1901)

"Captain William Wake in the British schooner Prince William Henry" (1950)

"Capt. Sam Wake’s island" (1962)

"Captain Samuel Wake of the schooner Prince William Henry" (1995)

• In the first work, by Amasa Delano (related to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and whose actions are the basis for Herman Melville's Benito Cerino), on page 530 refers to the discovery of Wake Island by Captain Wake. On the previous page, the ship (Pilgrim) is said to be under the command of "my brother Samuel", with "my brother William" being first officer. Amasa's ship was the Perseverance.

Here I found reference to Amasa Delano (1763-1823) and to his family, including Samuel Delano Jr. and William Delano. Did they come to be thought the discoverers? DCDuring (talk) 23:53, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

This 2002 work says the Captain of the Prince William Henry is Samuel Wake and credits him with naming it in 1796. DCDuring (talk) 00:19, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Rejected I give absolutely 0.000% credence to the 2002 book. Would a legitimate, dispassionate historian write: "Samuel Wade, the merchantman's skipper, presumed that he was the first to sight the little speck, and he christened it "Wake" or "Wake's" Island."? Sickening. We have no knowledge that Wade named the island for himself- it seems plausible to me that other people named the island after Wade when there was no island discovered on the charts in the vicinity after Pierpont tells people about the crash at Wade's Rocks. (This is just a working hypothesis; still don't have clear info about what happened at the actual Wake's Island in 1796.) No, no, this 2002 book is just a hack playing to modern sentiments; the author did no research into the 18th century origins of the name of the island and just assumed. We here on this page right now know more on this question than that author could ever have dreamed. BUT YET: this is only source being used on Wikipedia to answer this question as we speak. lol --Geographyinitiative (talk) 01:07, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

The Armchair Navigator III: Supplements to Post-Spanish Discoveries in The Pacific, Steve Dehner, 2021, The Armchair Navigator 3 has great footnotes and scans of maps and articles. It raises questions about the coordinates reported by Wake and another mariner, Joseph Pierpont, with him, which may be for Johnston Atoll, not Wake Island. But there doesn't seem to be too much question but that the given name is Samuel. DCDuring (talk) 01:45, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

@DCDuring Great catch about the Delano brothers being named Samuel and William- that must have some connection here. But check this out- have I got a find here
A September 1796 journal that says: "18.] In lat. 16, 45, N. long. 169, 38, W. from London, on my passage from the Sandwich Islands to China, the 2d of Sept. 1796, at midnight, in company with the schooner Prince William Henry, William Wake, master, of London, we both ran ashore on the north side of a reef of Coral rocks and sand Keep the lat. 17. N. and this shoal will not be seen. JOSEPH PIERPONT"
Now this snippet is certainly NOT referring to the actual Wake Island (then Wake's Island)- it's clearly talking about a more obscure location called 'Wake's Rocks' that Delano (1818) mentions in connection with Wake's Island. A "Wake's Island" appears close-by a "Wake's Rocks" in an 1803 nautical table of islands- see Citations:Wake's Island.
As to Dehner's Armchair Navigator, he's directly and admittedly quoting Wikipedia on page 8, which is going off the 2002 book, but if you read the little newspaper clipping from 1796 that also appears on page 8, it says William Wade. The jury is in my friends; it's William--here's a potential draft for a new etymology: Talk:Wake Island. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 23:57, 14 March 2022 (UTC) (modified)

The Delano brothers thing was a canard, but an interesting one, tying in Melville and FDR. The clipping added a lot, but the prompt reporting of the discoveries to the Admiralty's mapping operation adds more credibility to the attribution. DCDuring (talk) 12:21, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Here's one of my current guesses on how this naming happened: Capt. William Wake of the Prince William Henry and Capt. Joseph Pierpont of the Sally made a trip from America to Hong Kong in 1795-1796, with 200 some furs from the Haida chief Cow. On the way, at midnight on 2 Sept 1796, they hit a reef at or near Johnston Island. Then when the sun came up, they saw that island (or two islets?) from a distance of 4 or 5 miles. They made it to Asia where the Prince William Henry was sold and sank within that year. Pierpont later reported the reef's location to the news. Later, between 1796 and 1803, people like John William Norie (see Citations:Wake's Island) were compiling maps and lists of reported islands, rocks and shoals. They knew that Pierpont and Wade had hit some rocks in 1796, and named those rocks for Wade as "Wade's Rocks". They also knew that an island of some sort had been sighted by the captains, but did not have the important information that the island (islands) was relatively close to Wake's Rocks. At this point, there must have been some kind of mix up in making the maps and charts, such that an island extremely distant from the events of the night of Sept 2nd 1796 was labelled as Wake's Island. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 10:08, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Isn't this a pun on Hebrew תְּפִלָּה (t'filá) / Yiddish תּפֿילה (tfile)? Seems obvious, but I'd like a sanity check before adding that note to the etymology. 70.172.194.25 01:20, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Is this from צַעַר (tsá'ar, “sorrow”), from the root צ־ע־ר (ts-`-r), or צָרָה (tsará, “distress”), from the root צ־ר־ר (ts-r-r)? Leaning toward the first. 70.172.194.25 17:05, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I guess the root here is just asar- since -arse (no joke intended) just looks like an infinitive ending -ar with the reflexive personal pronoun se. Of course, an asarar- root could still be clipped. Wakuran (talk) 23:44, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I think it's a- + sar + -ar(se). But I'm not fully sure which Hebrew word the sar is. 70.172.194.25 00:24, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I found a source to support צַעַר. 70.172.194.25 00:42, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Ah, yeah. Makes sense. What source? Wakuran (talk) 03:25, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

A combination of the two listed at asararse#References. A big part of why I was convinced was also that "sar" is given as an alternative form of "şá'ar" which is definitely from צַעַר. 70.172.194.25 04:43, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Wait, on further examination, this source gives the etymon as צַר, which is the other root again. Aaaa. Although we don't have the sense in question, he.wiktionary does: he:צר#צַר א. It seems like there's a contradiction between the source that says "tsahar" and this, which would just be "tsar". I'm reconfused. 70.172.194.25 04:49, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

If it's so uncertain, I would note both Hebrew words in the etymology section (with the citations you've given here). Better to have the links to tsar and tsa'ar than the current situation, IMO.--Ser be être 是^talk/stalk 01:01, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

The Arabic etymon given here isn't the same one DHJE gives, which would be حَرْب (ḥarb), but that makes less sense. Also, I'm not sure how normal it is to make a verb meaning "hit" or "beat" from a Hebrew noun meaning "sword". (Unless this sense already exists in the root?) 70.172.194.25 23:04, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Does anyone know the actual origin of the word?

I had been told that it evolved in reference to a popular meeting place, in ancient Rome, where elders would meet to discuss matters and that it was situated at the junction of 3 roads. (Tri Via). Sounds just simple enough to be true.

The word trivia is originally the plural of Latin trivium, which was used generically for any meeting of three roads. Later, in medieval universities, the term was used for what now would be considered the undergraduate curriculum, then offering instruction in the three “lower” liberal arts: grammar, logic and rhetoric. See Trivium on Wikipedia. As such it was contrasted with the quadrivium of the four “higher” liberal arts: music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. Subject matter that only required knowledge imparted by the trivium was trivialis – “trivial”. It is commonly reported that this sense of “trivial knowledge” then was transferred to the plural trivia, but in fact already in Classical Latin the adjective trivialis had the sense of “that which is in or belongs to the cross-roads or public streets”, and hence figuratively “that may be found everywhere, common, commonplace, vulgar, ordinary, trivial”, even found in the collocation trivialis scientia (“trivial knowledge”).  --Lambiam 11:49, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Logan Pearsall Smith, author of a book entitled Trivia and credited with popularizing the term – although his book is not a compendium of trivial snippets of knowledge – quotes John Gay’s Trivia: Or, the Art of Walking The Streets of London: “Thou, Trivia, Goddeſs, aid my ſong, Thro’ ſpacious ſtreets conduct thy bard along”.  --Lambiam 12:24, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

I found a use from 1843 in which the term appears to have the same meaning as today: “The Sand-Rock Spring finds an honourable mention in the Guide-books, why, the compilers of such trivia best know themselves.” This precedes any references to the game of Trivia, which make an appearance in the 60s.  --Lambiam 12:49, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

That's begging the question, because a) the intersection as common meeting place where gossip might occure, and b) the undergraduate curriculum – are at odds. One seems to be a commonly understood piece of trivia in part because of online etymological dictionaries. The other caught me by surprise because of it and works much better in the sense of common knowledge, in contradistinction to doubtful chatter. What's missing so far is why would the elementary courses be named thus. The trivial solution, which might suggest itself if reading between the lines, that the curriculum was deemed to be concerned with public knowledge, maybe the easy part, or stuff that everyone should know, indeed a trivial pursuit, does alas require a semantic drift over several centuries that is difficult to grasp to begin with, why "any public place" would be metonym of T-intersection. And then "anything commonplace" is slightly easier to accept only if accepting the primary premisses. I cannot but reject this.

To make a non-trivial counter point, I have to refer you to two uncertain etymologies, that of tribus on the one hand, and tyda (“to interpret; indicate”) from the etymon of Dutch in a sense of folk (cp. Volk, give or take, if you can follow my drift) pressumably through a sense of "explain to the tribe" (@jogloran linguistics.stackexchange (the question now closed by an admin with a vengence, and thus restricted to view, a commentator further suggested magyarázat exhibiting a similar correspondence; conversely, I am trying to point out this is still an open problem, sorry for the drivel). ApisAzuli (talk) 21:35, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I cannot write a train of thought without mangling the English language. To summarize my questions:

• Would a literal three-way come to mean "common place"? (no pun intended)
• Would a curriculum be named like that?
• Might tribe be comparable in the way that *þiudijaną is compared with *þiudiskaz, as well as magyaráz with magyar, and possibly more?

ApisAzuli (talk) 22:01, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Trivium and tribus only seem to be indirectly related, trivium refers to the three disciplines of grammar, logic and rhetoric, while tribus refers to the three tribes of Ramnes, Tities and Luceres. The connection doesn't seem to be any stronger than the one in threesome and threedimensional... Wakuran (talk) 03:52, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

In the medieval "undergraduate curriculum", three roads (grammar, logic and rhetoric) came together. In English, the attribute “street corner”, as in Street Corner Society or “street corner social work”, the term does not necessarily literally refer to those spots where two streets meet; rather, it refers to the social life that takes place on the street in general, in which corners have an important but far from exclusive place. The confluence of the Classical Latin figurative sense with a belittling attitude towards the “lower” liberal arts is IMO a coincidence. But that concerns the adjective trivial(is), and not the sense development of trivia. The question remains if the quote from 1843 is the sighting of a rara avis or whether the modern sense was already then seen more often.  --Lambiam 19:33, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

There's no reason to assume that it was a blunder, nor that there were the modern sense as seen in Wikipedia section headlines where it might as well read information so irrelevant in view of the rules that most of it has been either removed (Pokemon trivia) or moved into appropriate places by now rather than tidbits you need to know when signing up for a game show. The tone of the quote allows emendating to trivialities, respectively *trivial(s) – says I having played "Trivia'pursuit". That sentiment is still as ambiguous as common – begging the question, as I said – Allgemeinplätze or Pöbel; see also platitude, multiple, pleonasm, noting that palatium is still uncertain. Although, it's remarkable that an exam may come as a quiz. ApisAzuli (talk) 01:15, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Also see tribadism, tribulation, platypus and palaver.  --Lambiam 22:42, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

... And Platt, like Pahlavi. Note the -vi in that one, though uncertain it is. ApisAzuli (talk) 07:22, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Hello. In a text in Polish language the quotation are preceded by "prwdr", example . Do you know the meaning of this abbreviation? Gerardgiraud (talk) 07:23, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Haven’t encountered it myself, but apparently it’s used for pierwodruk, see eg. this or this. // Silmeth ^@talk 17:06, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

@Silmethule: thanks a lot. Gerardgiraud (talk) 19:54, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Hello all. Henry Miller lived some time in Decatur street in Brooklyn (New York City). But what is the exact meaning of "Decatur"? Gerardgiraud (talk) 19:59, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Proximately, a last name, most likely after Stephen Decatur (in case that helps any). --Tropylium (talk) 20:10, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I found a New York City government website which confirms/accepts that "Decatur Street, named prior to 1835" was named to "honor the American naval hero Stephen Decatur (1779-1820)". Various random websites have various fanciful notions of where the surname might originate, including "Dutch de Caters, a nickname for someone thought to resemble a tomcat", Greek "deca-" (ten), and the profession of decating cloth (we lack that entry, but see decatissaggio and decatize); a cursory search didn't find me any reliable information, but perhaps a biography of Stephen would shed light on the question. - -sche (discuss) 21:38, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, this will really help me writing a text about this New York street. Gerardgiraud (talk) 04:43, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

The surname and the variant Decater are thought to stem from the Dutch surname de Cater, now spelled de Kater.  --Lambiam 22:35, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

"The tomcat"? Wakuran (talk) 23:28, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

"The heretic"? Cp. Ketzer. ApisAzuli (talk) 01:35, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Apart from it being an unusual name, I think that'd rather be De Ketter. Wakuran (talk) 12:48, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Does anyone have a source attesting/defining this word? It appears in the etymology of abacus. Does it mean dust/powder like the Hebrew word? I could not find it in Tomback. 70.172.194.25 03:21, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

It was copied in February 2020 by Sgconlaw onto the English from the Ancient Greek page where it was added in March 2018 by Djkcel, a then not particularly reliable editor who could only have reverse-transcribed. He gave as a source an old volume of the Oxford English Dictionary which is neither reliable in being careful with Semitica. I have not looked it up but it may have been copied over and over from older English sources in a time when it was not customary to put asterisks in front of reconstructed/merely assumed terms.

However, Phoenician-Punic being the Trümmersprache it is, the dictionaries, the two most widespread ones also a quarter and two quarters old respectively, not including a form, by no means allows for the presumption either that a word is not attested. Phoenician-Punic studies go on and I have already added and quoted Phoenician and Punic terms not included in the dictionaries.

This being said, I still however opt for removing the form as it looks like garbage. Oddly, Klein, Ernest (1987) A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English‎, Jerusalem: Carta, →ISBN, page 4b, literally claims a specifically Hebrew origin of the Greek word. Fay Freak (talk) 04:11, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Beekes writes at the entry ἄβαξ: Etymology unknown. The assumption of a loan from Hebr. ʾ‬ābāq ‘sand, dust’ ... is semantically weak".  --Lambiam 12:31, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

The Latin word convalo (“I grow strong”) is currently missing an etymology, stating that the word valo does not exist. Surely this must be related to valeo (“I am strong”), which does have an etymology.

Could this be a contraction of the word with the same meaning valesco (“I grow strong”), which might explain why it has dropped the e in valeo? Both of these words have the same perfect tense convalui, although the wiktionary entry for convalui only shows it as the perfect of convalo.

--Langue738 (talk) 11:30, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Yeah... The word is not in the Lewis & Short, Gaffiot or DMLBS dictionaries, and "convalo"/"convalit" give zero results in Corpus Corporum. Looks like the word doesn't exist. Probably someone looked at convalere and misunderstood it should be convaleo.--Ser be être 是^talk/stalk 23:30, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

I feel I should clarify: the DMLBS gives an entry for convalesco, noting the infinitive convalere (giving a quote of it too: "si Robertus ‥ ~ere poterit, ita quod de vita ejus non desperetur" Cl 490b). The L&S and Gaffiot just have convalesco convalescere, with perfect convaluit, no supine (no fourth form), and no convaleo/convalere. And Corpus Corporum does give instances of convalet. The entry convaleo should be created to reflect this, and the various present etc. forms of convalo deleted... Hrm.--Ser be être 是^talk/stalk 23:42, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Note this word was sent to WT:RFVN. This, that and the other (talk) 12:24, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm confused about whether according to CEDHL, agunah is supposed to be of ultimate Semitic origin or not. Both Wikipedia and Wiktionary currently claim that the word comes from a meaning of "chained", which I assume is the anchoring/tying sense. CEDHL attributes this to Greek. Then they have another entry meaning deserting, with Semitic cognates, which seems like it would apply to agunah as well. 70.172.194.25 05:16, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

This is not mutually exclusive, as roots often have mixed origins. Largely it is presumably of Semitic origin (if only we look how many Arabic roots start with ع ج …). Confidently on the other hand we can assume that the Greek ὄγκῑνος (ónkīnos) together with ἄγκυρα (ánkura) (which is also reckoned as the origin of أَنْجَر (ʔanjar)) and ἀγκύλος (ankúlos) (the last gave us إِنْكِلِيَّة (ʔinkiliyya), a word the reader has not known before if he has not stalked my edits) is native or at least Indo-European, basically the same root with ablaut and different suffixes—you see that (Proto-)Greek internal etymologies can be discerned in the same fashion as Semitic ones. You can’t avoid some accidental matches.

I wouldn’t even assume Greek origin of the Hebrew if I don’t specifically know a nautical connection; then generalization is possible, as in Russian ча́лить (čálitʹ) from an obscure nautical context. That being said, עֹגֶן seems specific enough and not attested old enough to be suspicious, and indeed the other forms have denominal character—but not all within the root.

Accordingly the root entry has to have two etymology headers. And CEDHL ascribes the agunah meanings, “deserting” the wife etc. to the native part of the root (which is found in the Tanakh unlike the anchoring stuff, and has a separate entry in CEDHL) Fay Freak (talk) 16:45, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps an acronym based on the later half of this sentence from a paper discussing it: "Cubilin is a peripheral membrane protein consisting of 8 Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF)-like repeats and 27 CUB (defined as Complement C1r/C1s, Uegf, BMP1) domains" plus "-ilin" modeled after other proteins. Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30295181/ — This unsigned comment was added by 67.248.64.181 (talk) at 22:16, 22 March 2022.

It's not hard to find various sources explaining that the name is indeed from the abbreviation CUB as you mentioned: , , , etc. The suffix -in is obvious. I'm not sure where the -il- came from exactly, but it's found in some other names of molecules. 70.172.194.25 22:20, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

I added a sense of "climbing" to א־מ־ר to cover it, but I couldn't find the etymology of this word. 70.172.194.25 00:14, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi All,

Names for days of the week often connect to old deities. Friday in various languages often connects to deities of Love: to Venus, as in vendredi (French) and venerdi (Italian); and for English it's Frigg.

It's interesting to note the connections and see how the old words are modified. In Finnish, I have no trouble understanding how maanantai, tiistai and torstai variously draw on moons, gods of war and thunder... But in the case of perjantai, the Wiktionary etymology says: "Borrowed from Old Swedish frēadagher, from Proto-West Germanic *Frījā dag." The English 'Friday' from Frigg, is easy enough to follow. But the mutations that lead to 'perjantai' seem really drastic.

Aside from my inability to follow the story of the word, I notice that perjantai looks as if it might connect to Hesperus, the evening star form of Venus. There's even a Hesperiankatu in Helsinki. Hesperus -> Hesperia -> truncated to peria -> perja? Or do you think it's just a coincidence?

Blueclear (talk) 13:04, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

The derivation from Hesperia seems even less likely to me. I don't know if perjantai actually comes from frēadagher, but since Finnish originally had neither the f sound nor word-initial consonant clusters, a change of fr- to per- seems quite plausible. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:22, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Just to mix things up a bit, let me throw in Old Prussian Perkuns and its ancestors/cognates. I'm sure there are semantic and phonological reasons this won't work, but it was the first thing I thought of when I saw this. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:07, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

If we accept sunnu-antai < sunnu-dagr and maana-antai < māna-dagher, the derivation perja-antai < frēa-dagher does not look implausible.  --Lambiam 12:15, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Such useful feedback. Many thanks to all. Blueclear (talk) 12:25, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Almost every source I could find to discuss this word (usually normalized as halχ) has a different, unconvincing definition of it.

• Pittau (2018) claims it means "a vase of copper or bronze", citing Ancient Greek χαλκός (khalkós), which is the definition and etymology given here. But for an Etruscan loan from Greek, a form like *𐌙𐌀𐌋𐌙 (*χalχ), with a velar, would be expected, so this theory is not very likely.
• Iatsemirsky (2007) claims that it's actually the numeral 10, but this theory is widely unaccepted and 𐌇𐌀𐌋𐌊 clearly patterns as a noun, with a diminutive 𐌇𐌀𐌋𐌙𐌆𐌀 (halχza) and its locative 𐌇𐌀𐌋𐌙𐌆𐌄 (halχze).
• Steinbauer (1999a) and Oettinger (2010) agree with Pittau that it's a type of vessel, but derive it from Hittite ḫalwani- (“a type of drinking vessel”). However, Simon (2021) notes the unexplained disappearance of ani and questions the link between Hittite /w/ and Pre-Etruscan */kʰʷ/. This is more convincing, though.
• Gordon (2014) defines it as "a sacrificial animal", and derives it with the patient suffix -𐌉𐌙 (-iχ) from the verb root 𐌇𐌀𐌋 (hal, “to sacrifice”). This is the most convincing to me, but he has a few controversial theories and his dictionary and blog are really the only sources for his take on Etruscan grammar, making it hard to add to Wiktionary without a lot of original research to confirm it (which I'll get around to sometime).

So in a fairly obscure language like Etruscan, what do you do if you know a definition is wrong but there's nothing better to replace it? Does the definition section let the reader know all this? Do you leave it? Or is it just not worth an entry yet? airy—zero (talk) 03:02, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Do we know in what context the word is attested? Some writing on a physical object perhaps?

Anyway, {{uncertain}} can be used in such cases. See ᚷᚫᚷᚩᚷᚫ for an example. 70.172.194.25 03:05, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, if the meaning is quote uncertain, have a non-gloss definition explain that, whether using the aforementioned template or {{n-g}} like in ᚐᚆᚓᚆᚆᚈᚈᚋᚅᚅᚅ. BTW, I question whether (it is thought that) ᚷᚫᚷᚩᚷᚫ means "password" and "magical formula", or it is merely thought to be a password or magical formula, in which case those definitions should also be given as non-glosses. - -sche (discuss) 06:51, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Ooh, that's perfect, thank you! It seems to only be attested in the Tabula Capuana and the Liber Linteus, I'm looking into the context. airy—zero (talk) 12:41, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Reminds a bit of ᚨᛚᚢ, doesn't it? ApisAzuli (talk) 14:20, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

The "Descendants" section of persicum claims that Malagasy paiso is "probably" a (implied: direct) loanword from Latin. That makes no sense. The historically informed conclusion is that it is simply a loanword from French pêche. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:08, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Oh, and by the way, the Latvian and Lithuanian words could be borrowed from Middle Low German by the 16th century or so, which seems more likely to me than direct borrowings from, e. g., Renaissance Latin. But I'm not that well informed on East Baltic and don't have access to etymological dictionaries of Latvian and Lithuanian. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:25, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

I doubt whoever put paiso into the descendants section of persicum meant to imply that it was borrowed directly from Latin. More likely they meant it's probably ultimately from persicum without specifying whether it got there through French or Portuguese or what. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:39, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Most likely it's from French, see also here. The diphthong ai is often pronounced as , so it's quite natural that it is used in the adaptation of the French word. The final supporting vowel -o is also found in other loanwords, e.g. pilimo < plume. –Austronesier (talk) 19:04, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

I've been wondering why the etymology of English blank and the listed descendants of Proto-Germanic *blankaz seem to disagree?

I'd been thinking that maybe the Anglo-Norman form and the Old English form ended up merging, or at the very least influenced each other. Am I wrong for thinking this? –Dran gewöhnt (talk) 13:50, March 26 2022 (UTC)

It seems unobjectionable on the face of the claim that the Middle English traces Frankish through Anglo-Norman whereas Old English inherits. Wording "akin" is weak enough per WT:ETY, leaving the reader to fill in the blanks. From recent additions to the entry it looks like this is being worked on. I concede that these etyma are most curious. A discussion in comments certainly won't suffice to resolve this, and sources can be considered outdated for our purposes if they don't break even with the spectacular Frankish hypothesis. ApisAzuli (talk) 09:55, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

I've corrected the Descendants at *blank (which is the source for the WGmc Descendants at *blankaz). Leasnam (talk) 16:18, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

I think both words survived and there was so little change that they merged, but that we get our semantics from the French and not from the Old English. Blond is another word that may have done this, OE had a word blondenfeax, "grey-haired", but then when we got the word blond(e) from French we took the French meaning with it too. —Soap— 22:44, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Does anyone have an etymological source for this Scottish Gaelic word? I believe it's borrowed from English monkey, like the words mwnci (from Welsh) and moncaí (from Irish), but I have no source at all. Is it okay to write the etymology section putting "probably" in it? --Jesielt (user talk) 22:26, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

It seems rather obvious, overwhelmingly likely to be true. If you need a source, though:

J. D. McClure et al., editors (2009), A Land that Lies Westward, →ISBN, page 9:

There appears to be a general rule that English loan words having, in English, the vowel , e.g., uncle, monkey, drugs, when borrowed into this dialect have , as , , . This is in contrast to the representations seen in 'standard' written Gaelic such as muncaidh, drugaichean.

70.172.194.25 22:36, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! Jesielt (user talk) 23:39, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

There's widespread confusion or disagreement about the etymology. Here are the most reliable sources i could find for the three different common etymologies (section titles added for 3 variants) :

• http://chem125-oyc.webspace.yale.edu/125/history99/5Valence/Nomenclature/alkanenames.html

In 1847 Dumas named the three-carbon acid PROPIONIC, from Greek proto (πρωτο, first) and pion (πιον, fat) again with the Lavoisier -ic suffix. The physical properties of the smaller acids, formic (from Latin formica, ant) and acetic (from Latin acetum, vinegar) were not considered fat-like. By 1850 the three-carbon radical was being referred to as PROPYL. (Click for Dumas's rationale.)

• https://books.google.fi/books?id=M6zWDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT200&lpg=PT200&dq=propane+etymology&source=bl&ots=MxCez7Y7Yq&sig=ACfU3U1al9n_6Pp68GpxJIE5nwnz9Wd-9A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjwhM6G6uX2AhUopIsKHWlSDBsQ6AF6BQi_ARAD#v=onepage&q=propane%20etymology&f=false

from propionic acid, from proteon pion = the first fat

• https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/propane

from propionic acid

• https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/propionic_acid

Mid 19th century propionic from French propionique, from Greek pro ‘before’ + piōn ‘fat’, it being the first member of the fatty acid series to form fats

• https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Propan

Kurzwort aus Propylen und Methan

• https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Propylen

Kunstwort aus griechisch prõtos = erster, píōn = fett und hýlē = Holz

--Espoo (talk) 08:33, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

I’m not sure I understand the differences. Of course, Dumas and his coauthors wrote in French, “Ces caractères nous ont conduits à désigner cet acide sous le nom d’acide propionique, nom qui rapelle sa place dans la série des acides gras : il en est le premier.” So they naturally used the French spelling propionique; English propionic is a borrowing with an obvious adaptation of -ique to -ic. Since the coiners are not explicit exactly which Greek term gave rise to their choice of the prefix pro-, the precise etymological interpretation of this bit of the neologism can only be conjectural; one might even surmise they were thinking of Latin. The French adjective premier leads one naturally to Ancient Greek πρῶτος (prôtos); however, a problem is then that the corresponding prefix should have been proto-. (The choice proteon mentioned above, presumably from πρώτειος (prṓteios), seems less plausible, as that adjective means “having prime quality”, “occupying the chief rank”.) If we may assume the coiners had some background in Latin and Greek, as one may assume of educated people in 19th-century France, my money is on pro- from Ancient Greek πρό (pró). However, this remains conjectural.  --Lambiam 15:12, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

I added section titles to specify the differences.

Where did you find the French original?

https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/propionique Formé à partir de pro-* pour «premier, primitif», du gr. π ι ́ ω ν, neutre π ι ̃ ο ν «gras», cet acide étant le premier dans l'ordre de la série des acides gras, et du suff. -ique*.

https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/pro- Pro-, préf.issu de l'abrév. de l'adj. gr. π ρ ω ̃ τ ο ς «premier» avec le sens de «premier, primaire» (v. pro- B). V. propane, propionique--Espoo (talk) 03:32, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't have access to definitive references on chemical terminology, but MWOnline has the first use of propyl preceding that of propane, which is not consistent with our etymology of propyl. DCDuring (talk) 16:00, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

I think the term propane may have been introduced here in 1866 in a footnote that extends from page 67 to 58, which expounds a methodic naming scheme for a group of hydrocarbons based on the -ane and -yl suffixes. The author does not claim originality for this method, referring to a method originally employed by Laurent and a principle proposed by Gerhardt. “Laurent” refers to French organic chemist Auguste Laurent, who, according to Wikipedia, “devised a systematic nomenclature for organic chemistry based on structural grouping of atoms within molecules”. “Gerhardt” is French chemist Charles Frédéric Gerhardt (born in then-German Straßburg), said (by Wikipedia) to be “usually linked with his contemporary, Auguste Laurent”. The French term propyle is recorded in 1864, while French propane is recorded in 1870, later than in English. If propyl is indeed recorded as early as 1850 (I think anyway compound names formed with propyl-, from propylic alcohol or alcool propylique, are from around 1854), our etymology of propyl is wrong. More likely, historically , propyl < propyl- < propylic/propylique < prop(ionic/ionique) + -yl + -ic/-ique, while propane < prop- (as in prop-yl(-ic)) + -ane.  --Lambiam 00:13, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Relatedly we have prop- and propyl derived from each other. DCDuring (talk) 16:03, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

So I think that in propylic the prop- comes from propionic, using an unetymological splitting prop- + -ionic instead of pro- + pion + -ic, while propane reuses the prop- of propylic.  --Lambiam 00:20, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it's related to Hungarian "lengyel" — This unsigned comment was added by Muonium777 (talk • contribs) at 14:27, 29 March 2022 (UTC).

Quite likely. Not by inheritance, of course, but someone borrowed it from someone- who borrowed from whom isn't obvious. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:50, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

It does look a bit like a blend of the name of Lechites with the name of the Lendians. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:52, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

According to {{R:lt:LEW|entry=lénkas|page=356}} , it's borrowed from an East Slavic word "lęchъ". I'm not sure whether this specific form is attested. Russian лях (ljax) and Polish Lach have some info. 70.172.194.25 05:14, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Each one has an entry saying that it derives from the other. So what is the deal? I checked out French abonner, whose entry traces it to Old French aboner and also lists among its derivatives Spanish abonarse. —PaulTanenbaum (talk) 17:16, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

The issue was that both meanings of the verb and noun ("fertilizer" and "subscription") had been merged into the same sub-heading of the entry. I feex DJ K-Çel (contribs ~ talk) 17:43, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

¡Qué bueno! Thanks DJ K-Çel! — PaulTanenbaum (talk) 18:36, 31 March 2022 (UTC)