Homonyms, Etymologically Speaking: P

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.

P is for palm, which is either a tree or a part of the hand. The body part is not recorded until around 1300, it came to English from Old French paume and Latin palma 'the flat of the hand'. Both are derived from Proto-Indo-European pele 'flat, to spread' and for obvious reasons.

The tree or the word for the tree, correctly known as the date palm, spread to Western Europe along with Christianity. It is thought to describe the leaves of the tree which have a spreading effect like the fingers on the hand.

The sense of 'palm' meaning a bribe is seen as early as 1620, but then the term was 'palm oil'.

Bloody History of Lichfield

In the 17th century corporation officials claimed the seal represented the corpses of three armies of Christian kings, defeated here by Diocletian, this was repeated in the 19th century. The three kings said to have been Bor, Ro, and Cop – this held to be the origin of Borrowcop Lane.

Back in the 7th century – for many years the ‘grey battle field’ explanation of the place name of Lichfield was given. This is said to come from a 7th century battle, Caer Lwydgoed stated the Welsh of Powys capturing 1,500 cattle, 80 horses, and five bondsmen. Later the place name was said to come from Middle English lic ‘corpse’ was the basis and thus ‘field of corpses’ and said to be the 7th century battle or, through pure conjecture by Matthew Paris of St Albans Abbey in 1259, that some 999 Christians were martyred here by the order of the Roman emperor Diocletian (284-305). The story was compounded in 1549, when the new city corporation decided to use the image on its seal and featured for over a century.

An interesting story but that's all it is, a story. It has absolutely no basis in fact.