Homonyms, Etymologically Speaking: L

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.

L is for left, which could be the past tense of 'leave' or the opposite of 'right'. In order, the verb 'to leave' has a clear etymology traceable through Old English laefan, Proto-Germanic laibjanan, and Proto-Indo-European leip, all having the general meaning of 'allow to remain as it is'.

When it comes to the opposite of 'right', many parents will have taught their children (as the majority were right-handed) the way to remember which was which was to think the hand you write with as your right and the one which is left is your left. Assuming the child was not left-handed (or did not have three hands) this would work. This idea of the right hand being the correct hand is also known (and famously so) in the term 'sinister' which was also once used for left-handedness, itself seen as unlucky or suspicious for much of history. This must be a very old idea as so many languages see 'left' as bad, including the root of all those in European and to the east, where Proto-Indo-European laiwo meant 'considered suspicious'.

The political left-wing is not used in 1871, but it had been used in a military sense since 1530. Having two left feet is first recorded in 1902, while the left bank of a river, first recorded in the 13th century, is that side which is on the observer's left when facing downstream.

Homonyms, Etymologically Speaking: K

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.

K is for kind, as in 'sort, variety' and also in 'friendly'. Taking these in order, the noun can be traced to Old English gecynd, not only 'kind' but importantly 'race, nature' and thus related to 'kin'. This is from Proto-Germanic kundjaz 'family, race' and derived from Proto-Indo-European gene 'give birth, beget'.

The adjective 'kind' has exactly the same origins as the noun, but Middle English also gave us the alternative kinde with this usage.

Nobody used womankind until the late 14th century; no one was described as kind-hearted until 1530; and one-of-a-kind was not used until 1961. Lastly the slang 'kinda', clearly a form of 'kind of', but a word which was once given as 'kinder', and even Charles Dickens used it, albeit he gave it as kiender.

Synonym Etymologies K

Continuing the look at synonyms through the eyes of the etymologist, this time it is the letter K and kid. Hardly any surprise to find this began as the young of the goat, its etymology is uncertain, and later applied to children, first recorded in 1590.

Child is first seen in Old English cild where it referred to the unborn infant or foetus. It came from Proto-Germanic kiltham, a word which also gave Gothic kilpei 'womb' and inkilpo 'pregnant'. Note the Old Swedish kulder was used to mean 'litter', while Old English cildhama may have been defined as 'womb' but actually was literally 'child home', and in the 15th and 17th centuries 'child' was nearly always referring to a girl.

Baby is a diminutive of 'babe', itself short for the 13th century word baban and likely imitative of baby talk (as is 'babble').

Toddler is derived from 'toddle', a word first seen in Scotland and northern England and of unknown origin.

Infant is an interesting word which is a combination of 'in' and 'fari'. Here 'in' is used as a prefix meaning 'not', while 'fari' is the verb 'to speak'. A pretty good description of a young infant.

Minor began as a Latin word meaning 'small', and is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root mei also meaning 'small'.

Juvenile is from the Latin iuvenilis meaning 'youthful'. It came from iuvensis 'young man, one in the flower of his age'. Note this did not refer to one who was just maturing, or approaching maturity, for the Romans this was a man aged between 21 and 40 - there's hope for us yet.

Youth is, unsurprisingly, from the same source as 'young' and yet 'youth was the earlier word. Another of Germanic origins, it was more often used to refer to young warriors and even the young of cattle in its earliest times.

Teenager is named from those in their teens (thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, etc.). Teenager has only ben used since 1922, prior to that it was 'teener', and earlier still simply 'teen'.Note the element 'teen' is from 'ten' - this fourteen is four-ten, sixteen is six-ten, and so on.

A Tree of Indo-European Languages

Over the last few weeks I have looked at the origins of the names of cities from many European countries. In doing this I wanted to examine the links between the various languages by comparing the elements which make up these names to English place names.

Last time I looked at Greek places which, for the most part, were derived from mythological figures. Conversely many of the other place names are derived from words which ultimately can be traced to more ancient tongues. Without a doubt the most commonly mentioned early language is Greek. In truth this is probably because more is known about this particular language than any other of comparable age.

I thought this might the ideal time to take a short break from looking at the place names and take a brief glimpse into the Indo-European group of languages and examine the family tree. The following image will show the development best of all. Note the timelines are approximate and only represent the first accepted appearance of a distinct tongue.

It is worthwhile highlighting the languages which have resulted in the majority of English place names. The Celtic languages first emerged and diversified around five thousand years ago, around the same time as the Germanic and Italic groups. The Celtic tongues have produced many of the topographical names, while the Germanic group contains Old English and Old Scandinavian, the two tongues which have contributed more to English place names than any other.