Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2025/May

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"I longa" as a German term?

In the English-language Wiktionary, at the entry for the uppercase letter I, in the "German" section, it gives the Latin phrase "I longa " as a related term.

Is this referring to the tall version of the letter I sometimes found in Roman inscriptions? Or has it come to mean something else in German? It isn't in de.wiktionary.org. It isn't in the online Duden (at least it's not under "Longa" and not at their entry for the letter I). Do Germans just happen to study Roman inscriptions a lot? Or maybe something to do with binnen-I? I'm just not sure why this item is where it is. TooManyFingers (talk) 16:33, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

That is just Latin, but yeah, German scholars have dealt a lot with Latin inscriptions. Imbricitor (talk) 16:45, 2 May 2025 (UTC)
The pioneering role that Germans played in the field of linguistics is a fact, but quite irrelevant here. All there's to it is this: The Long I is a thing, it even has a wikipedia article, its German name is I longa, and we cover German terms in our dictionary. (Why don't Germans say langes I instead? Because that term already refers to the sound , so it would be ambiguous.) 2.207.102.157 23:02, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Ukrainian suffixes and suffix forms ending in -ь

User 91.122.22.140 (talk) (@91.122.22.140), returning to action after a recent block, has categorized the following Ukrainian suffixes and suffix forms in Category:Ukrainian terms suffixed with -ь:

I don't see how it makes sense to etymologize these forms as the result of suffixation with -ь (-ʹ). They simply end with the letter -ь. I propose that these edits be reverted, but first would like to get some input from other editors in case there's something I've missed. See also the following recent discussions of questionable work on Ukrainian suffixes:

Voltaigne (talk) 18:46, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Just undo them. Vininn126 (talk) 07:20, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
Done Done. Voltaigne (talk) 13:17, 12 May 2025 (UTC)
78.81.123.235 (talk) (@78.81.123.235) is the latest IP address of the "Minor editing" editor (following on from 91.122.22.140 (talk) (blocked at the time of writing this) and 78.37.216.35 (talk)). This time, the user has categorized the following borrowed terms in Category:Ukrainian terms suffixed with -ь:
None of these are valid instances of the -ь suffix as defined at -ь#Ukrainian so I have reverted them all. Voltaigne (talk) 11:14, 16 May 2025 (UTC)
Empty the category by changing the etymologies and later it can be deleted. Vininn126 (talk) 11:28, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

deonym, genericized term

Any idea how sense 2 of deonym (which seems more common than sense 1, theonym) came about? How did we get that meaning from (as some sources assert) roots for "god" + "name"? Or are those sources mistaken, does it have some other ety, e.g. from the prefix de-, signalling that such terms have been de-proper-noun-ized? - -sche (discuss) 17:01, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Treccani gives the etymology of deonomastica as de- +‎ onomastica. One would expect a similar composition for deonym, (originally?) meaning, more generally, a common noun that started its life as a proper noun, such as badminton, marathon and quisling.  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:31, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
Aha! Thank you. - -sche (discuss) 01:12, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Origin of the French term "(s)chlintement"

This a term in speech pathology which is a synonym for sigmatisme latéral. I sometimes find it spelt with an 's', sometimes without. Is it at all related to German Schlund? Or is it onomatopoeic?

chlintement

schlintement

Wiktionnaire entry

Thank you.Pvanp7 (talk) 11:06, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

The article Lispeln in the German Wikipedia states:
Die Störung des „sch“ wird als „Schetismus“ bezeichnet, die des „ch“ als „Chitismus“.
I think the French terms are likewise onomatopoeic, with the same semantic distinction between the variants.  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:43, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
But if they are onomatopoeic, then why add the 's' to the beginning of the word? Pvanp7 (talk) 12:08, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
Two guesses. Theory one. Originally, chlintement was coined as expressing a mix of /ʃ/ (as in chaise) with /l/. The intended pronunciation was, accordingly, /ʃlɛ̃t.mɑ̃/, but since some French words starting with chl, such as chlore, are pronounced with the onset /kl/, the s was added to avoid an unintended pronunciation spelling.
Theory two. This is a source that mentions des consonnes schlintantes, a term also used here and here. In the context, the term schlintant is neutral and does not per se suggest a pronunciation problem, but its spelling may have led to the spelling schlintement.  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:30, 10 May 2025 (UTC)
I don't know what would be the chicken and egg here, considering the German-influenced spelling. Wakuran (talk) 22:27, 11 May 2025 (UTC)
Interesting, I will try to write an etymology taking these possible sources into account over the coming days. Also when I first saw the word I thought it was pronounced /sklɛ̃t.mɑ̃/, which is part of the reason I found the addition of 's' such a strange choice. :) Pvanp7 (talk) 22:51, 11 May 2025 (UTC)
Okay, I've written a page for schlintement now. Thank you for your help, you really saved me a lot of time. I might add the pages for the red-links later on, though that will probably take some time, especially since there seems to be an overlap in meaning between sigmatisme, schlintement, chuintement, chlintement, and clichement. I still don't know if chlintement is just a variant form or not. Pvanp7 (talk) 06:45, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

linter

How does this etymology work phonetically? I can't think of any rule that deletes a PIE *p in Latin in any context, much less this one. Latin isn't Celtic. And there is no mention of linter (or *lunter) being a Celtic loanword or anything. This entry really needs more explaining. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:10, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

It seems to come from Lewis & Short, but it's not explained there. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:19, 10 May 2025 (UTC)
De Vaan, you may already know, says "No etymology." Priscian mentions λιντήρ. I can't find much else, but I did find works (going back to the 1800s) agreeing with you that a connection with πλυντήρ (pluntḗr) (some works star it as if it's unattested), despite being the "traditional" etymology, seems unlikely precisely because of the odd lack of p. - -sche (discuss) 02:38, 10 May 2025 (UTC)
@-sche: Beekes indicates that the word is not directly attested, only Πλυντήρια (Pluntḗria) (neuter plural), the name of a purification festival, and not much else. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:02, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

About Portuguese leoa.

The word leoa is said to come from Latin leaena. I think this is unlikely, since the change ae → o seams pretty unusual. Instead, like other dictionaries show, this word was probably formed by adding the feminine morpheme -a to the root leon- (in Vulgar Latin or Galician-Portuguese). Therefore, *leona → leõa → leoa would make way more sense and be in accordance with other analogous forms such as pavão → pavoa, leitão → leitoa. Compare Modern Italian leena, which is used poetically, to Spanish leona and Catalan lleona. OweOwnAwe (talk) 17:26, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

That looks correct. Why did you remove your Vulgar Latin reconstruction *leona? — Ganjabarah (talk) 00:59, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
Yes, I agree it's not from Latin leaena.--Urszag (talk) 01:04, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

sarsaparilla

This word's pronunciation remains non-rhotic (with silent ⟨r⟩) even in rhotic accents, but the deletion may have been motivated by an earlier lag dissimilation (since ⟨ar⟩ is most commonly pronounced as /ɑː(r)/, not /æ/ vs. /ɑː/ due to trap–bath split). Does this make sense to people, as written, or can it be worded in a clearer way? - -sche (discuss) 19:35, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

How about "The U.S. pronunciation (as if the word were spelled sasparilla) may be due to dissimilatory loss of the first of two r sounds (compare governor /ˈɡʌvənɚ/ and February /ˈfɛbjuɛɹi/)."? —Mahāgaja · talk 06:24, 12 May 2025 (UTC)
It's better. There's also the absence of an expected /ə/ to note: */ˌsɑɹsəpəˈɹɪlə/. Nicodene (talk) 06:34, 12 May 2025 (UTC)
More than a few dictionaries (also) give pronunciations with an in sarsa as well as pronunciations in which the sarsa part is bisyllabic.  ​‑‑Lambiam 21:04, 12 May 2025 (UTC)
Interesting. Of the 55 examples at Youglish, I only hear bisyllabic sarsa in one. - -sche (discuss) 23:01, 12 May 2025 (UTC)
I observe that words like rasp and grasp also have /ɑːsp/ in the UK but /æsp/ in the US. Is /æsp/ the original pronunciation here which the above-mentioned trap-bath split shifted to /ɑː/ for Britons, or is this just one of those US-UK differences like rationale...? - -sche (discuss) 23:01, 12 May 2025 (UTC)
The problem with YouGlish is that you get repeated clips of the same word from the same speaker, just said at a slightly different part of the video - it’s a good rough guide sometimes but in this instance there’s only one British clip and effectively only one Australian clip (as it shows several clips of the same woman). It’s hard to find British people saying the word on YouTube, or indeed in real life, as it’s not a popular or widespread drink or plant here but I would just say it in approximately the American way (but with an ‘a’ vowel that’s significantly shorter and of a different quality to the American one). I did find a clip of a YouTuber from Northern England say it more or less as I would here I wouldn’t say that the TRAP-BATH split properly applies to words spelt with an ‘r’ like ‘car’, ‘park’ and ‘sarsaparilla’ personally in any case, though I can see how it could be considered to be a related phenomenon. I also came across examples of Americans saying the ‘r’ and using the PALM/FATHER vowel (arguably the ‘bath’ vowel) rather than the TRAP one as well as a bisyllabic ‘sarsa’ from Americans and Jamaicans and at least one instance of ‘sasprilla’ with only three syllables. What does seem very wrong is the penultimate syllable given in our Northern English pronunciation suggesting it’s pronounced as though it’s spelt with -ella at the end instead of -illa. Overlordnat1 (talk) 00:56, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
I’ve just corrected the ‘-ella’ mistake at the entry. Overlordnat1 (talk) 07:48, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Lessico Etimologico Italiano

Can someone offer advice on how to use Lessico Etimologico Italiano? Not that it looks as promising as it is bloated, but I'd like to see what they have on bronzo. I couldn't find it, or some wild variants neither on volume 7, part brac*--bulla, nor in the search interface. Another poss. is under the lemma "brundisium" - which refers away to some DI volume. This is where I'm stuck. What's your experience with it anyway? Danny lost (talk) 01:59, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

mniê ... liêt

Podlachian. How is it from Ukrainian мені ... років, rather than from/cognate with "мені ... літ" (compare Russian мне ... лет, Polish mam ... lat)? Voltaigne (talk) 13:04, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Done Case closed (Special:Diff/84877368). Voltaigne (talk) 22:53, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

せん may not be dialectal しない

Can the etymology of せん be sourced? According to various posts on the web, ん is not negative. It’s a contraction of the archaic auxiliary verb む. RicherK9 (talk) 13:58, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

ん is a contraction of む and of ぬ according to goo辞書. ぬ is a particle that shows negation in modern colloquial speech (but is also the literary negation particle). Therefore, ん is negative in せん, where it can be looked at as しない and is similar to せぬ or せず. Compare ます's standard negative form ません or Kansai's へん (related to this せん). It's also recorded in some Eng. dicts. (Jisho.org, Kakimashou.com) and there are some posts on Yahoo!知恵袋 that talk about it (Post 1, Post 2, Post 3). Also see ん on Wiktionary. Languagelover3000 (talk) 13:10, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

I know Ibrahim comes from a variant of אברהם (Abraham), but could the change be influenced עברי (Hebrew)? 2603:6080:BE00:6783:51A2:182F:55B0:68EF 22:17, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

In Arabic, Ibrahim starts with an alif hamza, corresponding to a glottal stop, like the Hebrew alef of Abraham. The ayin of Hebrew עברי, corresponding to a voiced pharyngeal fricative, is reflected in Arabic عبري. These two onsets are very different phonemes.  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:42, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
Thank you for the clarification. 2603:6080:BE00:6783:6882:AC44:58E6:9BE 16:44, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

まんこ

RFV of the etymology. @Eirikr done this in like 2013 or earlier. Chuterix (talk) 00:27, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Athabaskan berries

Does Chilcotin dɨg (“Saskatoon berry”) come from Proto-Athabaskan *giʼgə (“berry”)? —Mahāgaja · talk 19:27, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

This, seemingly referring to a slightly later work by this Smith, suggests that Tsilhqot’in dɨg is possibly contracted from dînsh-gige ‘blue grouse berry’ – (Smith 2008), where gige seems to be the unmodified descendant of *giʼgə. (It would also be interesting to track down the etymology of Babine-Witsuwit'en digï / dəgi (“huckleberry”), Dakelh (Stuart/Trembleur Lake) dəje "huckleberry", though, and to double-check what the usual clc reflex of PA *g is.) - -sche (discuss) 22:04, 18 May 2025 (UTC)
Thanks! —Mahāgaja · talk 06:12, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

porthole

Could the etymology be verified? The current unsourced etymology claims this as an alteration of portal, but etymonline just lists this as a transparent compound of port + hole. Horse Battery (talk) 21:08, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

The earliest recorded uses show it clearly as port hole(s), then port-hole(s) and later porthole(s). I've updated the etymology. Leasnam (talk) 04:34, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Аркадий

The page claimed it's borrowed from Greek Ἀρκάς, which is clearly absurd (the ending doesn't match). I've changed "borrowed" to "derived", but the etymology still needs to be expanded. Arcadius or Ἀρκάδιος seem to be more likely source words, but I do not know for certain. 62.63.86.37 12:02, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

I think it's safe to say it's from Ancient Greek Ἀρκάδιος (Arkádios), so I've added that now. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:04, 21 May 2025 (UTC)
It’s more than safe. Emperor Ἀρκάδιος, known in Latin as Flavius Arcadius, is named Флавий Аркадий on the Russian Wikipedia.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:15, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

"learn" split in two etymologies

I doubt that any reliable source would derive "learn" (to teach) from Proto-Germanic *laizijaną. Right? I mean, sure, the two verbs were merged semantically. The Middle English Dictionary already gives both senses for each of leren and lernen. And the same also happened elsewhere, of course. Dutch leren, Luxembourgish léieren have both senses, as does German lernen ("das lern ich dir" being colloquial as in English). But our etymology suggests that "learn" (to teach) genetically continues "leren", which is clearly not the case. 2.207.102.157 21:23, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

I agree. Nevertheless, I've made a tweak to Etymology 2. Apparently the sense of "teach", as you say, is much older, going back to early Middle English (circa 1175, Ormulum) where it appears in To lokenn watt itt lerneþ uss ("To see what it teaches us"). Based on the form I would say it is clearly the Old English leornian (“to learn”) with a different sense. However, especially in later Middle English, I wonder how much of this usage was possibly interpreted as ler(e) "teaching, doctrine" + -nen "-en". In any event, this would still place the term under the first etymology. We used to show a note explaining the mixed-up usage. Leasnam (talk) 15:30, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
I've consolidated the two etymologies back into one. Please have a look Leasnam (talk) 02:50, 1 June 2025 (UTC)
Now the verb lear links to a non-existent etymology, though. Wakuran (talk) 16:29, 1 June 2025 (UTC)
fixed, and cross-referenced learn and lear. The Middle English entry still needs to be added under lernen with corresponding mention of the semantic shift and the quotation. Griffon77 (talk) 03:05, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

Sanskrit पूर

  1. Is there any chance that the sense “the cleansing of a wound” derives from Proto-Indo-European *puHrós, from *pewH- (“to be clean; to cleanse, purify”) (Sanskrit root पू)? How to explain the semantics if not? I can't think of a parallel for “fill” > “clean” or “treat a wound”, though it seems possible via the idea of covering (‘filling in’?) a wound with an ointment or poultice.
  2. Why is this listed as a descendant at *puHrós (“~ (a kind of) wheat”)? Which sense is meant—“a kind of incense, bdellium”? Or one not listed? (@Victar, though I don't expect you to remember what you had in mind 6 years ago.)
  3. What is the origin of the “incense” sense as well as “citron tree”? Should they to be grouped together and/or with “to purify”?

— Ganjabarah (talk) 21:42, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

@Ganjabarah: It's not from *pewH- (“to be clean, pure”), but rather some separate similar root. The reconstruction *peh₁w- is suggested. See {{R:iir:Lubotsky:1988|136}}. --{{victar|talk}} 05:02, 27 May 2025 (UTC)
Interesting, thanks. I will definitely have to separate the etymologies. Still not sure what to do about your पूर (pūra). I'm also wondering how regular the change ṝ > ūr as in the homophonous terms from *pl̥h₁- is; is this a late Sanskrit phenomenon? — Ganjabarah (talk) 20:19, 27 May 2025 (UTC)
@Ganjabarah The intended meaning for पूर (pūra) at *puHrós is "cake", but the etymology is rather doubtful, see {{R:sa:KEWA|head=pūraḥ|page=322-3|vol=2}}.
I think पूर (pūra, “filling”) is technically from a secondary root पूर् (pūr) (probably back-formed from पूर्ण (pūrṇa)), also seen in the causative पूरयति (pūrayati). See further {{R:sa:Jamison:1983|page=149}}. Exarchus (talk) 18:00, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

caboce, caboche

Compare Occitan gavach (“bird's crop, goiter, swelling; (figuratively) mountain-dweller, northerner, peasant”), which Diccionario de la lengua española glosses as “que habla mal” (“who speaks badly”); this apparently gave rise to a Western Romance wanderwort but is itself of unknown origin (suggested Celtic). The Old French words (see title) supposedly have an internal etymology and therefore would have to be the source of this other set if they are related; if not, it looks rather substratey, but the Latin caput etymology could work with some leeway. At the very least this would demonstrate convergent sound symbolism for round lumps such as heads (cf. PIE *gʰébʰ-l-, pseudo-PIE *káput, PIIr. *kapā́las : PWG *habVlō, even Proto-Afroasiatic *ḳapay- (“head, skull, occiput”); and with some overlapping consonants English clod, clot, Latin globus, glaeba, gibber). — Ganjabarah (talk) 01:04, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

monumentous

monumentous refers to this discussion for etymology and origin notes. I just wanted to note that I've found this word used in an advertisement from November 1986, in that month's issue of Dragon magazine, promoting a then-upcoming roleplaying game from Game Designers Workshop (GDW), to be called Traveller: 2300 (it would later be renamed 2300AD in order to resolve consumer confusion with the company's other, unrelated, game line, Traveller). From the ad, "Never before has such a monumentous task been undertaken, either in gaming or in science fiction." Whateley23 (talk) 05:56, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

The first explanation seems best, simply monument + ous. Explaining it as "confusion" or "a portmanteau" is unwarranted and judgemental. Griffon77 (talk) 08:51, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
oh, and apparently google books has a reference from 1889, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle no less, in "The Firm of Girdlestone." https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Firm_of_Girdlestone/szJXAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22monumentous%22&pg=PA365&printsec=frontcover
What's more August Brachet's French Grammar of 1869 says "monumentus" is found in inscriptions back beyond the 4th C. https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/A_Historical_Grammar_of_the_French_Tongu/_Nwn56hEDJoC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=monumentous&pg=PA97&printsec=frontcover. The *Lexicon totius Latinitatis: Appendix Lexici totius ... - Page 110, 1841 has a couple of Latin quotes. https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Lexicon_totius_Latinitatis/55_ref5XuykC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=monumentous&pg=PA110&printsec=frontcover Griffon77 (talk) 09:39, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
In these (rare) inscriptions it is a noun, a masculine variant of monumentum.  ​‑‑Lambiam 16:43, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
hmm, that explains Brachet's description. Monumentus continues to be used in this manner in the 17th and 18th C. Griffon77 (talk) 17:17, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
You're looking for a *monumentosus, of which I could find a few attestations in New Latin:
  • in "Dictionarium linguarum Septem" (Ambrogio Calepino) under nedum with the meaning '(of offerings) fitting for a monument' or something of the sort (it could be a misspelling of monumentorum)
  • in "Vindiciae pro veritate et iustitia rei iurisque cameralis" with meaning 'monumental'
  • "ectropothecium monumentosum"; this species' name is not even current.
  • a helpful gloss in a "Dictionarium trium linguarum": verbum monumentosum, vox empathica. Here with meaning 'emphatic'
I found Portuguese and Italian reflexes of it as "monumentoso", rare and seemingly colloquial, although quite old.
It seems different generations speaking different languagues with Romance background simply met in making the same mistake. Saumache (talk) 17:21, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
In linguistics this kind of thing is not considered a "mistake". It's just natural language development. Grammarians and stylists would consider it a mistake, but they are notorious for favoring "educated" errors and inconsistent constructions such as myself (construing the reflexive self as the object), over the regular meself (self as a reflexive of the object me).
Porto Editora – no Dicionário infopédia da Língua Portuguesa . Porto: Porto Editora. . https://www.infopedia.pt/dicionarios/lingua-portuguesa/monumentoso derives it from monumento + -oso Griffon77 (talk) 02:13, 27 May 2025 (UTC)
I have no pretensions to linguisthood, let's say I'm a self-conscious grammarian, I'm not always non-judgmental/serious in my wording, mistake because it's poorely and only sporadically attested throughout history without ever having secured its place in any given dictionary, because in the end I'm sure it either wasn't (but I guess you'd say conflation means awareness of the rules of one's own language and is "natural development" thereof) or definitely was of their own volition for speakers of the past ~500 years to utter/write down such a nonce word (either by lack of vocabulary, confusion-conflation; humour, wit, sudden creativeness,...), it was never to root itself in, mistake because it's not needed. Portuguese -oso and -ous are equivalent to Latin -ōsus, monumento and monument to monumentum, sorry if I did not make my self clear. Saumache (talk) 07:06, 27 May 2025 (UTC)
-ous is a regular suffix for English words, one that people use all the time to create new words, many accepted despite being more nonsensical than monumentous, which at least has the Romance and Latin parallels you noted, unlike slumberous or splendiferous. Creating new words is not a mistake. Rare does not mean "incorrect" just because a user lacks academic prestige in English. Griffon77 (talk) 00:31, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
In the late 19th century, when Doyle put the words “monumentous episode” in the mouth of his character, the collocation momentous episode was far more common than monumental episode, so the explanation of his character’s words is far more likely meant to characterize the character’s garbling of the English language than an “educated error” or a monumentous episode in language development.
Conversely, monumental task is far more common than momentous task, and the most likely explanation of the use of monumentous in “monumentous task” (in the ad quoted by the OP) is as a variant of monumental.
Possibly, there are also intentional uses (and not just mentions) of monumentous as a portmanteau. Classifying the nature of actual uses can only be approached on a case-by-case basis.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:22, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
Its most common use is in Congress. In 1947, a college yearbook uses it in combination with momentous, as "the momentous and monumentous task", clearly meaning "monumental, great". A 1910 obituary of George Willis Kirkaldy, published in a couple of academic journals with identical wording refers to his "monumentous catalogue of Hemiptera", here monumental seems a more likely sense as there are 80,000 species. In 1950 it is used by Joseph Appleyard, from 1967 a professor of English at Boston College. Griffon77 (talk) 10:36, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
From a book with the title Horrible Words:
Humungous and ginormous bring to mind a word that would doubtless be found even stupider by the huffers and puffers, and the only one of these three that the OED has not yet deigned to include on its pages: monumentous, a nifty blend of monumental and momentous. As long ago as 1890, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave it a whirl in the speech of a character in his novel The Firm of Girdlestone: ‘in all his experience he had never met with a more “monumentous episode” ’.
In other early uses the word also occurs in the speech of fictional characters who try to speak in a formal register, and then, as in the Arthur Conan Doyle quotation above, the intended meaning is just “momentous”, but here is a non-fictional use from 1910, where the meaning (as in the 1986 ad) is just “monumental”.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:15, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
It seems to me that there are three distinguishable senses:
  1. A misconstruction of momentous.
  2. A rare variant of monumental.
  3. (humorous) Blend of monumental +‎ momentous.
Which of these meet our CFI needs some investigation.  ​‑‑Lambiam 16:52, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
Either humorous or just misconceived, I guess... Wakuran (talk) 17:01, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
Does he mean "momentous" though? Describing the use of monumentous as "trying to speak in a formal register" is a judgement not based on facts in evidence. It's more a reflection of the reader's perception, rather than the writer's or speaker's intent. The difference in sense is that between senses of monument — memorial, or edifice — from one sense monumentous is "memorable", the other "large, monumental".Griffon77 (talk) 17:05, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
In fact I'd say the best definition of the word as used by Doyle is remarkable. Griffon77 (talk) 17:54, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

азбука#Belarusian

Wiktionary and ESBM are in conflict. Wiktionary says азбука a reflex of Old East Slavic азъбукꙑ (azŭbuky). Etymological Dictionary of Belarusian Language says it's a borrowing from Russian а́збука (ázbuka) that displaced earlier абецадла (abjecadla). Both look convincing to me. Could someone double-check this etymology? Хтосьці (talk) 08:23, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

  1. ^ Martynaŭ, V. U., editor (1978), “азбука”, in Этымалагічны слоўнік беларускай мовы (in Belarusian), volumes 1 (А – бячэ́йка), Minsk: Navuka i technika, page 96

Хтосьці (talk) 08:23, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

HSBM says it's attested since 15th century, so borrowing seems unlikely to me. Why would it be borrowing? Sławobóg (talk) 10:40, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
Good point, I didn't check HSBM. Thanks! Хтосьці (talk) 16:13, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
The date is irrelevant; the evidence for borrowing will be whether it fits better with Belarusian or Russian morphology, displaces an earlier Belarusian form, or fell out of use in Belarusian and was re-borrowed (or imposed) from Russia later. ESBM does not contradict Wiktionary, but adds further explanation of how it came into Belarusian. There are technical differences between а́збука and абецадла. The latter can refer to a specific modification of the alphabet that came into use under Polish-Lithuanian hegemony, intended to reflect sound changes in Belarusian or Ukrainian, and then periodically repressed by Russian and USSR Russification policies. Griffon77 (talk) 18:25, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
«The date is irrelevant» — it might be, but the presence of the word in Old Belarusian is not.
«ESBM does not contradict Wiktionary» — my understanding is that we don't use {{inh+|...}} for words that existed in a common ancestor, but then fell out of use but then were re-borrowed. In such cases, we use {{bor+|...}} (and mark the common ancestory with {{der|...}}). So, the current etymology does contradict ESBM. However, ESBM doesn't seem to list its sources here, so I guess it’s OK to deviate from it — especially since HSBM lists this word as existing in Old Ruthenian, and ESBM doesn't even mention it, so it's possible that ESBM compilers missed this part.
«There are technical differences between а́збука and абецадла» — if I understand ESBM’s point correctly, its point is that abecadła used to have a broader meaning that it has today (and was used for use cases that are now covered by azbuka). So, basically, if we accept ESBM’s point of view, then we need to assume that azbuka existed in Old Belarusian, was displaced by abecadła and then re-borrowed from Russian. I think it looks doubtful, and it looks more plausible that modern Belarusian form simply continues Old Belarusian one. Хтосьці (talk) 13:47, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

rustic and روستا

Is English rustic related to Persian روستا (rustâ)? Vox Sciurorum (talk) 08:53, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

No. The Iranian word etymologically means "river-bed" and contains *hráwtah (“river”) + تکیدن (takidan, “to run”). Vahag (talk) 09:15, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

Deotheih (8-11th C. Bavaria/Austria)

Does anyone have any insight here? the prototheme seems to be OHG deot, "nation", but the deuterotheme heih has me stumped. doesn't really match the expected morphology of haoh, hoh, and neither haih, nor hieh fit the morphology of another known word. Modern Luxembourgish has heih for standard German hoch "high", but this variant doesn't seem to go back far enough, unless this is evidence it does. Griffon77 (talk) 08:10, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

The manuscript is here https://manuscripta.at/diglit/AT7290-HsA1/0011
the i is not clear at all, it looks like Deothe:h. Griffon77 (talk) 10:40, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

phở

PhanAnh123 has removed a number of sources indicating that the word phở comes from French (pot au) feu and has labelled this "a popular folk etymology that is certainly false". Is this justified? I note that the OED (which admittedly specializes in English, not Vietnamese) treats the feu theory as plausible. Zacwill (talk) 08:46, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

At any rate, I'd leave out "that is certainly false", since being false is part of the definition of a folk etymology. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:54, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
I have removed "that is certainly false" (which would need a source), but left the labelling of it as a folk etymology. - -sche (discuss) 07:42, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

morrinha

The etymology says "Unknown" but then says it's cognate to English murrain, which (according to that entry) has a clear Latin etymon. Was the intent to say that it's unclear what exact route the Latin word took on its way to Portuguese, or was the "unknown" meant to apply to the "drizzle" sense while the "sickness" sense has a clear etymology, or what? - -sche (discuss) 21:41, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

I've revised the entry, but if anyone can provide more detail, please do. - -sche (discuss) 05:29, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Doo

The etymology for the navajo word for no/not, doo, does not exist, why? 38.43.33.153 21:43, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

Few regular editors with deeper knowledge of Navajo, or no one knowing why due to lack of attested Navajo writing, presumably. Wakuran (talk) 00:28, 27 May 2025 (UTC)
I would assume the former, because there are lots of Athabascan languages up north to compare with, and this should be very basic vocabulary. With indigenous languages north of the US border attestation doesn't go back very far by Old World standards, but there were no great empires to wipe out the smaller languages before the Europeans arrived. And people have been doing a lot of comparative work on the Na-Dene languages, because they represent the best shot we have of demonstrating genetic relationships between languages of Asia and the Americas. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:24, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

föld

Hungarian föld. This was tagged in August, 2023; but I don't see that it was ever listed. Leasnam (talk) 03:38, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

breadkind

Which sense of kind (-kind?) does breadkind derive from? Lfellet (talk) 08:08, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Seems to be just noun sense 1. It looks like there's also meatkind and salt kind (salted meat) and fish kind. I can't find closed forms of those, so I wonder if we should have a extra sense at kind, "(Caribbean) Food of a particular category". Smurrayinchester (talk) 08:50, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Pannonian Rusyn таще

Means "sparrow", the bird. There exists the relational adjective тащи (tašči) and the "diminutive" тащок (taščok), so I doubt this was a native derivation, and instead I feel like all three were inherited from Old Slovak or borrowed from Carpathian Rusyn, but I cannot find anything of the sort using regular reconstruction rules. The noun declines with the usual -че (-če) small animal neuter ending, so a borrowing from Hungarian seems unlikely. Any ideas? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 20:02, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Could it be 'baby bird → small bird → sparrow' with initial p- dropped? Cf. Slovak vtáča, Polish ptaszę, Old Ruthenian пташа (ptaša) (HSBM). Not sure why it has -ще and not -че, though. Хтосьці (talk) 21:10, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
@Хтосьці: My mistake; таще (tašče) actually means "baby sparrow", while тащок (taščok) is the actual word for "sparrow". And there's an inexplicable proclivity for Pannonian to form diminutives using specifically -чок (-čok) as opposed to -ок (-ok), e.g. ашовчок (ašovčok), ангелчок (anhelčok), камиончок (kamiončok), гарчок (harčok). So maybe тащок (taščok) was formed by птах (ptax) or Old Slovak vták + -чок (-čok), and then Old Slovak vtáča (we know that Slovak -ča usually corresponds to Pannonian -че) and the relational adjective vtáčí were modified by analogy, giving таще (tašče) and тащи (tašči). Insaneguy1083 (talk) 08:55, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
It is птах (ptax) +‎ -че (-če). See here, page 11. Vahag (talk) 21:10, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
That, or inheritance from Old Slovak vtáča n. Stands to reason, I think, that Old Slovak could have formed an eastern variant *vtášča (via vták + -ča in the same way you suggested) that was just never written down. Never thought about the possibility of dropping an initial consonant when forming such diminutive forms, but now that it's been pointed out that that happens, it makes total sense. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 21:22, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

flirt

RFV of the etymology. two problems:

  • the form flird cited in the etymology seems Scots only. if this is the case, the current way we phrased it is confusing; if it isn't, I can't find any evidence of flird outside of Scots.
  • Is the form gill-flurt cited in the etymology (=jillflirt?) actually Middle English? This word (and its various variants) is unattested until the Early Modern period and is very transparently a combination of flirt and Jill, gillian, etc. (unless one can say for certain that jillflirt and affiliated predate flirt; but flirt in the sense of "woman that behaves inappropriately" is as early as mid 16 c., and in the sense of "a jibe" yet earlier, while OED's earliest record for jillflirt &c. is an attestation of flurt-gills in 1597)

--ragweed theater talk, user 21:08, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

I've cleaned it up a bit. Please have a look and see if anything further is needed. Leasnam (talk) 05:13, 30 May 2025 (UTC)
looks good, thank you! i've also made some small changes to the wording on Scots flird in that section. ragweed theater talk, user 11:38, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

Adalheidis

Do we have a date for this? It's been enteredas OHG, but the Monumenta Germaniae Historica dates the first entries to the 12th C., which makes it Middle High German, except that this is also the Latin 3rd declension form, in Latin, not high German texts. Griffon77 (talk) 00:15, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

螳螂捕蟬，黃雀在後

RFV of the etymology. Most of the dictionaries say it comes from 《莊子》 (Zhuangzi), earlier than Shuoyuan.--Kethyga (talk) 13:50, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

see e.g. 古代漢語大詞典（新一版）, which cites Shuoyuan explicitly (and cites only Shuoyuan). note that though Zhuangzi has the tale itself, the usual moral today (i.e., thou shalt not overfocus so much on immediate gains as to fail to recognize potential dangers) is not really the point in Zhuangzi. it's not until in the Hàn literature that we have on record the tale coupled with the moral explicitly.
that said, Shuoyuan isn't the only Hàn source with this fable-- this is also in Han Shi Waizhuan (Book 10, Chapter 21), and the wording there is actually much closer to the idiom (and might have actually been the place the idiom got its current wording from). i have rewritten the etymology ragweed theater talk, user 21:27, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

stramonium

We say "origin Unknown, possibly from Tatar turman". The old NED also mentions this idea, and suggests Russian дурман (durman) as another derivative of Turkic. But our Russian entry (and e.g. durnaropė) considers itself a native formation. If the much more similar дурман is not from turman, is stramonium? What do more recent works say about its etymology? - -sche (discuss) 15:12, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

I will address only the supposed Tatar turman: it is taken from Korsch and supposedly means "horse remedy". However, the correct Tatar term is дәрман (därman, “remedy”) < Persian درمان (darmân). Perhaps Korsch confused it with Tatar турман (turman, “paraphernalia, accessories”). Vahag (talk) 20:29, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

Italian gramo

From some Romance language (e.g. Old French grain (“melancholy, sorry, sad”)) ultimately from Proto-Germanic *gramaz? Saumache (talk) 16:16, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

Treccani and Garzanti simply say "from Germanic (*)gram".
Etimo is more detailed: Old French gram (also Old French grain and Old French graim), from Old High German gram (cfr. Old Norse grami).
Old Norse grami is an inflection of Old Norse gramr; Old High German gram is also mentioned in the etymology section of German gram. o/ Emanuele6 (talk) 15:23, 30 May 2025 (UTC)
Thanks! Now, do we add unclear descendants to entries of reconstructed terms? It is not to be found at *gramaz, neither is Cimbrian gramo which, interestingly enough shares the same meaning seen in French and Italian (but see also Middle Dutch gram and although not directly from *gramaz, German gramvoll, English grame) and might be historically relevant, though it can itself be some early borrowing from Italian too. The word is said to have been used in Lombardy and Provence in old dictionnaries and to have had the possible meaning 'cupido, desideroso'. I will update the entry further, waiting for data you can provide. Saumache (talk) 15:40, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

isolead

Which sense of lead is this from? The metal Pb as bullets are made of it? Or the verb /li:d/ as it apparently will lead the shooter to the target? Phacromallus (talk) 09:12, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

Leads are something that can be computed, so this is a count noun referring to something non-material. While somehow each source I look at does not define the term but assumes the reader is familiar with it, the sense seems intimately bound to estimating the future position of a moving target, given that a launched projectile needs time to bridge the gap. We have a sense for the verb, defined as “To aim in front of a moving target, in order that the shot may hit the target as it passes.” My guess is that the meaning of the noun is the distance, in the direction of motion of the target, between where the target is at the time of firing and where it will be when hit. But I am not sure; perhaps the meaning is simply the position one should aim at.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:02, 1 June 2025 (UTC)
The sense is "the distance ahead of something moving". you lead the target because it will catch up to where you are aiming. Griffon77 (talk) 07:48, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

leadhand

Which sense of lead is this from? Phacromallus (talk) 09:14, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

No pronunciation key, but I suppose it's from the verb "to lead". Wakuran (talk) 10:25, 31 May 2025 (UTC)
A functional synonym of leading hand, but the literal sense is closer to foreman and first mate. The lead hand is the one at the front. Griffon77 (talk) 07:53, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

leadwork

2nd defn in lacemaking? I doubt there's any metal involved. Should we split into 2 etymlogies? Phacromallus (talk) 09:22, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

It possibly refers to bobbin lace, in Italy in particular using lead bobbins (piombini) to tension the threads, although bone, wood and pewter were more common elsewhere. Griffon77 (talk) 08:07, 6 June 2025 (UTC)
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