Meaning – Page 4 – Interesting Literature

The Curious Origin of the Word ‘Tuffet’

The interesting origins of an elusive word

Here’s a question for you: what does the word ‘tuffet’ mean? Can you picture or describe one? The word ‘tuffet’ should be easy enough to define. Its origins, similarly, should be fairly straightforward when we look into it. How about we make it a multiple choice question? Is a tuffet:

a tuft or bunch of something
a small hill or mound
a hassock or footstool?

If you answered 3. then, alas, it appears you’re wrong. Or at least you may be. It’s a tricky issue, you see.

The Curious Origin of the Word ‘Malapropism’

The interesting origins of a useful word

The word ‘malapropism’ is among the wordiest of words, denoting a misused word. Specifically, a malapropism is an erroneous word used in place of another, correct word, e.g. ‘at this pacific moment’ (rather than specific moment) or referring to a place of scientific experiment as a ‘lavatory’ rather than laboratory. So much for the technical meaning of the word ‘malapropism’ itself, but what is the origin of the term?

The Curious Origin of the Word ‘Robot’

The interesting origins of a ubiquitous word

Here’s a question for you: when did the word ‘robot’ first enter the English language? And where did it come from? There are a few misconceptions about the origins and various meanings of the term ‘robot’, so the issue is worth examining a little more closely. The most common definition of ‘robot’ is the one provided by the Oxford English Dictionary: ‘An intelligent artificial being typically made of metal and resembling in some way a human or other animal.’ But the story of how the word came to have this meaning is a curious one. Its origin, indeed, takes us back to nineteenth-century Europe.