By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
What connects the word ‘female’ with ‘male’, etymologically speaking? How did these corresponding terms come about? The origins of the word ‘female’ are worthy of further inspection, because, as ever on this blog, there are some surprising facts to uncover in the etymology and history of ‘female’.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
What are the origins of the word ‘family’, and what does ‘family’ have to do with the word ‘familiar’, or, for that matter, with the Latin famulus? We might assume that the etymology of ‘family’ will be straightforward, denoting a group of related people, but that meaning of the term is actually surprisingly recent. Let’s take a closer look …
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The word ‘dollar’ is, of course, widely used, not only in the United States but also in various other countries. Indeed, there are more than twenty different currencies around the world known as the ‘dollar’, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, Barbados, Guyana, the Solomon Islands, and, most famously, the US.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The origin of the word ‘tragedy’ involves wine, singing, and goats. More predictably, it involves the origins of theatre itself, back in ancient Greece. But in order to understand the etymology (or, at least, the commonly accepted etymology) of the word ‘tragedy’, we need to go back over two thousand years and take a closer look at those singing goats.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
What does the word ‘sinister’ have to do with being left-handed? And what was the meaning of the word ‘ambidextrous’ when it was first coined? And what do these two questions have to do with each other? Let’s take a closer look at the interesting origins of the word ‘sinister’.