Blooming Etymologies

With spring fast approaching here in the UK and, undoubtedly aided by a mild winter, the flowers associated with the season are already adding a splash of colour. Snowdrops have come and will soon be gone, crocus are putting on an excellent show, yellow daffodils are out or nearly so, and tulips will soon be flowering and looking past their best seemingly hours later.

As with all nouns, names of flowers were originally created in order to be recognised. Over the years these have been corrupted and changed beyond recognition, or named by science for reasons usually only they understand. Thus this time, as you may have guessed, a look at the origins of some flower names. Taken in alphabetical order we begin with .......

Agave is named from the Latin, itself from Greek Agaue, a proper name in Greek mythology. Her name, and thus that of the flower, is derived from the Greek meaning 'noble, illustrious' and thought to have been used by scientists to refer to the flower stem rather than the flower.

Alyssum certainly comes from another Latin loan word from the Greek, although just why alyssos describes the plant as 'curing madness' is not clear.

Amaryllis also has a Latin/Greek origin and comes from amaryssein meaning 'to twinkle, sparkle'.

Anemone is a Greek word meaning 'wind flower', literally 'daughter of the wind' and can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European animus, to breathe', with a feminine suffix.

Aster is named from the Latin and Greek for 'star', a refernece to the flower shape.

Azaleas like sandy soil and is named from the Greek azaleos 'dry'. Related words are found in Hittite hassa 'hearth' and Sanskrit asa 'ashes, dust'.

Begonias are named after the French governor of Santo Domingo and patron of botany Michael Begon (1638-1710).

Chrysanthemum comes from the Greek khrysanthemon literally meaning 'golden flower' and unites the elements anthemon 'a flower' and Proto-Indo-European andh 'bloom'.

Cowslip is named for it was thought to grow only on ground where cow dung could previously have been found.

Cyclamen comes from Latin/Greek where ultimately kyklos meant 'circle', a reference to the bulbous shape of the root.

Dahlia comes, as many will know, from Anders Dahl, the Swedish botanist who first found and identified it.

Delphinium is another of Latin/Greek origins. Here Greek staphis agria literally means 'wild raisin'.

Edelweiss, as Vince Hill will undoubtedly have told you, is from the Old High German edili weiss of 'noble white'.

Erica is a plant genus named from the Greek ereike 'heath'.

Forsythia, which just so happens to be showing the first signs of the yellow flower through the window, is named after Scottish horticulturalist William Forsyth (1737-1804). His family name is of Gaelic origin, Fearsithe meaning 'man of peace'.

Fuchsia comes from German botanist Leonard Fuchs (1501-1566) whose name means 'fox'. While the term 'fuchsia' has been taken for the red colouring of the same name, the idea of 'red' referring to the colouring of the fox is, to say the least, fanciful.

Geraniums are named from the Greek and Latin, where grus means 'crane' and refers to the seed pods resembling a bill of the crane, indeed the plant is still sometimes referred to as 'cranesbill'.

Gladiolus is Latin for 'small sword', a reference to its sword-shaped leaves.

Gypsophila comes from the Greek, where gypsos philein literally describes 'to love chalk'.

Hydrangea comes from the Greek hydor angeion meaning water vessel' and a reference to the seed pods.

Lavender came to English from French and ultimately from Latin, where lavare meant 'to wash' and a reminder the scent was used to wash and perfume fabrics.

Magnolias are named after the French physican and botanist Pierre Magnol (1638-1715).

Narcissus comes from the Greek narke 'numbness' and related to narcotic becuase of the sedative alkaloids obtained from the plant.

Orchids are the favourite flower of many because of their numerous forms and extraodinary colours and shapes. It is also my favourite flower, but for very different reasons. It came to English from Latin orchis and Greek orkhis meaning 'testicle' because of the shape of the root. Around 1300 it was known in England as the 'ballockwort', where 'ballock' is simply the diminutive of 'ball'.

Poinsettias are named after Joel Poinsett, the US ambassador to Mexico who is credited with bringing the plant to the attention of the rest of world - but this may be a load of orchids.

Rhododendron is the Greek for 'rose tree'.

Snapdragon flowers are said to resemble the mouth of a dragon - and also, since 1704, the name of a game where players pluck raisins from burning brandy and them eat them while still burning.

Tansy is a herb, its name from the French and ultimately the Greek athanasia 'immortality'., itself a a prefix meaning 'not' and thanatos 'death'. This may seem a strange meaning until we learn the plant has always had negative associations with pregnancy, either as a contraceptive or to bring about a miscarriage.

Tulips are my least favourite flower, the leaves begin to droop even before the flower emerges and the petals fall far too easily. It came to English through French and ultimately from Turkish tulbent 'a turban' as it is said to resemble such.

Wisteria was wrongly named after American anatomist Caspar Wistar (1761-1818), making it rather less of an honour.

Sporting Etymologies (Part 2)

Following on from last week's look at the etymology of sporting names, here is the second and final part:

pelota - a game of Spanish origins, it is played by hitting a ball against the walls of three-sided court. The name is from the Spanish pella, itself from latin pila, 'ball'.

polo - with its origins in the east it is not surprising to find the word in Tibetan pu lu 'ball', although there is a Tibetan dialect called Balti which has polo as a word for 'ball'.

pool - was an early term used for billiards where these cue sports were played in a room where gamblers 'pooled' their money to bet on horseracing off-track.

racing - as so many sports involve racing it would be wrong to omit a word which came to English from Old Norse ras where 'running' was used in the sense of 'running water' and derived from the Proto-Germanic raes 'to rage'. It is not used as a noun in English before 1510 and for the first time as a verb around 1670.

rounders - the forerunner of baseball which originated in Ireland around the middle of the eighteenth century, the name self-explanatory.

rowing - as with 'racing' the origin of the name is obvious. The word can be traced back through almost every language to the Proto-Indo-European verb ere 'to row', predictably one of the earliest words.

rugby - almost everyone will know the story of the origins of rugby football, where one Matthew Webb Ellis was playing association football on the playing fields of Rugby school when he picked up the ball and ran with it. The sport took the name of the school (not the town) and later the World Cup of Rugby Union was named the Webb Ellis Trophy.

shooting - as with rowing this features a verb which can be traced back through many languages to the Proto-Indo-European skeud 'to chase, to throw, to project'.

skating - the skate was brought to England by the followers of Charles II at the Restoration in the seventeenth century. Hence the term comes from Middle Dutch schaetse, itself from Norman French esache 'stilt, trestle' and first seen as a verb by the end of the seventeenth century.

ski-ing - another winter sport which, as with skate, in English began as a noun. It is derived from Old Norse skith, also the origin of 'skid', and originally referred to 'a snowshoe'.

snooker - was a variation on billiards invented by British officers serving in India towards the end of the nineteenth century. The term is slang, not the modern 'snooker' meaning 'to put in a difficult position' but Victorian slang for 'newly joined cadet'. It is said to have been used for the game for it was so easy to fool the new cadets when teaching them the rules. It is claimed the man who first used the term was a certain Colonel Sir Neville Chamberlain (not the man who later served as prime minister), who was serving in Jubbulpore with the Devonshire Regiment.

soccer - is derived from association football and, contrary to popular belief, was used in Britain many years before a competitive soccer ball had been kicked in the USA.

softball - a variation of baseball played, as the name suggests, with a larger, softer ball to prevent injury. The ball is also pitched using an underarm action and is played on a smaller diamond.

squash - is named from the ball, which does squash more than other balls.

swimming - the verb can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European swem meaning 'to be in motion'. Over the centuries it passed from one language to another where to was used in the sense 'hunt', 'motion', and 'chase' well before it applied solely to movement in water.

tennis - was originally called sphairistike, Greek meaning 'in playing the ball', named by its apparent inventor, Major Walter C. Wingfield and first played in Wales. The original game was played without a racket, tennis probably comes from tenez Old French for 'to receive, to take', which was once called out by the server as a warning to his opponent he was about to serve.

volleyball - clearly named from a volley being used in sporting terms where the ball is played before it hits the ground. The word volley comes from Middle French volee or 'flight'.

wrestling - an ancient sport with a name from the word wrest, itself from Proto-Germanic wraistijanan 'to bend, twist'.

yachting - features a comparatively recent word derived from Dutch jaght schip literally 'chasing ship'.

Sporting etymologies (Part 1)

During England's resounding success in the Ashes I heard 'cricket' pronounced at least three different ways. The English 'cricket' and Geoff Boycott's 'creekitt', while the Australian 'cruckit' sounds more like the sound of the insect of that name.
I had been wondering about the etymology of the word and before long had unearthed the notes for another piece written from some years ago. This not only looked at the etymology of cricket but many other sports and games, reproduced here in alphabetical order.

archery - surely one of the oldest surviving trials of skill, it comes to English from the Latin arcuarius meaning 'of a bow'.

badminton - possibly the name with the best-known etymology, it comes from the Gloucestershire place name of Badminton, ironically more closely associated with equestrian events today. The game itself is held to have originated in ancient Greece, thereafter moving east across China and south to India, where it was known as Battledore and Shuttlecock (the bat and the shuttlecock).

baseball - the name explains the basic premise of the game, hitting a ball and then running around the bases. Considered the 'national sport' in the USA by 1856, its simplicity as a bat and ball game make it difficult to trace. However it does not seem to have been played in the Americas until the arrival of those of European descent, thus the game is a derivative of rounders.

billiards - is ultimately from Old French billard 'bent stick'. This is a clue to its origins for, as with all games played with a cue, it originated as an outdoor lawn game. A reference from 1340 shows a game played outdoors which appears to be reminiscent of both billiards and croquet, while the first indoor billiards table can be traced to the regin of Louis XI of France (1461-83). An engraving from a book published in 1710 shows two men playing billiards, however the 'sticks' depicted are bent and more reminiscent of miniature hockey sticks.

bowling and bowls - two similar sports (indoors and out) clearly associated with 'bowl', the verb describing the action when delivering the ball. Of course this raises the question as to which came first, the answer being uncertain, although we do know these ultimately come from 'ball', itself of Germanic descent from 'sphere, round'.

boxing - another ancient pastime, possibly the original 'sport' for it requires no equipment! The modern name is a Middle English word box, although the origins of this word are unknown.

chess - is derived from the Old French esches which means simply 'checks'.

cricket - and the subject which started the thought processes. Sadly the etymology of the word is completely unknown. Indeed even the earliest written reference, which mentions Prince Edward, son of Edward I, at Newenden in Kent in the year of 1301 playing a game known as creag. Clearly this could be the first syllable of 'cricket' but as we have no notion of what form this game took or what creag is telling us, we are none the wiser.

croquet - is thought to be a dialect form of the French crochet 'a little hook'.

curling - is first mentioned in print in 1620 in Perth, Scotland in the works of Henry Adamson. The noun comes from curl, describing the motion of the stone.

dominoes - the earliest dominoes were carved from ivory with inserts of ebony and clearly not only extremely valuable but also white with black spots, rather than the reverse colouring today. It's name is derived from the similarity to Venetian Carnival masks, these domini being white with black spots. In turn these were named after the French priests whose winter hoods were black on the outside and white inside. The word can be traced back to the Latin dominus 'lord, master'.

fencing - is one of the easiest to understand. It comes from the Old French defens 'defence' and was absorbed into Middle English as fens.

golf - few can not have heard that golf is an acronym standing for "Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden", it will come as not surprise to find there is not an element of truth in this suggestion. The origin of the term is uncertain, although there is a reference to a game kolf involving a small ball and a curved bat being played in the Netherlands in 1297.

gymnastics - is ultimately from the Greek gumno 'naked', for ancient Greek competitors were completely naked.

hockey - and the similar hurling are played with a curved stick and a ball. Despite the very different rules the object of both games is ostenibly the same as many other games which date back at least five thousand years - stone tablets depicting very obvious hockey-like games have been unearthed in the ancient city of Ur.

judo - is from the Japanese ju do 'soft way'.

lacrosse - a game originating with the native people of modern Canada, the name was coined by French settlers who called it (le jeu de) la cross '(the game of) the hooked stick'.