Homonyms, Etymologically Speaking: B

Many words have two meanings, sometimes more, which are often very different. Such words have identical spelling and pronunciation, they are known as homonyms. Here I continue an A to Z list of such words and look at how that word came to have two different meanings.

B is for band and also for bat. Taking 'band' first, clearly the earliest usage would have been as in the sense 'a flat strip, that which binds'. This word is seen in Old English bend, Old Scandinavian band, and Old French bande, and all with identical meanings. Clearly this monosyllabic word has been around a long time, and we can trace it back to the root word bhendh, meaning 'to bind' in Proto-Indo-European.

The second use of 'band' is as in the sense 'an organised group', particularly used when speaking of an armed group of men. It is not difficult to see how the 'binding' of a flat strip has been transferred to the 'binding together' of a group of individuals. This is also why a group of musicians are known as a 'band', and has been since at least 1660.

An examination of 'bat' looks at both the flying mammal and that used to hit a ball (or similar) in sporting contests. Taking the latter first, Old English batt was used to refer to a cudgel, and was a loan word from Irish bat and Gaelic bata, both having identical meanings. These come from the Proto-Indo-European bhat 'to strike'. Note the Middle English use referred to a 'lump, piece, chunk', the term surviving in terms such as 'brickbat'.

When it comes to the mammal, the creature was known in Middle English as bakke, this related to Old Swedish natbakka 'night bat', and Old Norse ledrblaka which might be used to mean 'bat' but literally translates as 'leather flapper'. This is also seen in the Proto-Indo-European bhlag 'to strike', this also the origin of words such as 'flagellate'. Old English hreremus was also used to refer to a bat, this from hreran 'to shake'.