Homonyms, Etymologically Speaking: D

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.

D is for date, not only a part of the calendar but also a fruit. Taking the calendar term first, it came to English from French date with the modern meaning, and no surprise to find this coming from Latin data meaning 'to give', and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European do also 'to give'. Meanwhile the fruit can be traced to Old French date, Old Provencal datil, Latin dactylus, Greek daktylos, all of which are easy to recognise as being related to the words for the hand. Whether this refers to the resemblance of the fruit to fingers/thumbs, or whether the leaf of the date palm resembles the palm of the hand is still being argued.