Synonym Etymologies N

Continuing the look at synonyms through the eyes of the etymologist, this time it is the letter N and new. As a simple and monosyllabic word, 'new' has hardly changed since Proto-Indo-European newo and with the same meaning. That we find other Germanic languages with very similar words: Old Saxon niwi, Old Frisian nie, Middle Dutch niuwe, Old High German niiwl and Danish (and Swedish) ny is telling, as are the non-Germanic languages with similar words, such as: Sanskrit navah, Persian nau, Hittite newash, Greek neos, Lithuanian naujas, Old Church Slavonic novu, Russian novyi, Latin novus, Old Irish nue, and Welsh newydd. The point is, with it being common to so many languages, it can not have ever meant anything else and must be ancient in the extreme. For the same reason that the word is so ancient, synonyms of 'new' are rarely needed. Indeed many of the following are only synonyms due to modern usage.

Fresh has, for most of its history, simply been used to refer to food, albeit not as we would think today but in the sense of 'not salted' - salting being the method of preservation for much of human history. Not until the 14th century did it come into use as a synonym for 'new' and it's roots are unclear, even though it is common to most Latin and Germanic languages.

Novel is used in this sense, at least since the 15th century, at least a century before it was used as a noun. Interestingly, the word 'novel' is from 'novella', itself a Latin term meaning 'new things'.

Original is clearly from 'origin', and while it seems odd to be talking of the origins of the word 'origin', he goes. This is from Latin originem. 'a rise, commencement, source, descent', and can betraced to the Proto-Indo-European heri 'to rise'.

Contemporary is a complex word, which is a good indication it is comparatively modern. Thus we can get rid oc the first syllable, leaving the root 'temporal', itself from Proto-Indo-European temp-os 'stretched' and ten 'to stretch', both used in the sense of 'time'.

Upgraded comes from 'up' added to 'grade', itself a word which has meant 'to step, walk' for much of its existence and found in Latin gradus and Proto-Indo-European ghredh.

Recent comes from the Latin recentem meaning 'fresh, young' as much as 'new'. It can also be seen in Sanskrit kanina 'young'. Old Irish cetu 'first', and Breton kent 'earlier'.

Current in the 'contemporary' sense is unknown prior to around 1600. It came from the noun, describing movement and, as an adjective, is used in the sense of 'keeping up with the times'. The noun comes from Proto-Indo-European kers 'to run'.

Latest, the superlative of 'late', is first seen in 1520 and used to mean 'the last in order'. The word 'late' has an odd history, for the Old English laet meant 'slow, sluggish, lax', Old Norse latr 'lazy', Gothic lats 'weary', and all from Proto-Indo-European le 'to let go'.

Mint - and I could not resist including a little modern slang. Little surprise to find it came to be used in this sense from the idea of a freshly-minted coin. The place where a coin is produced, the 'mint', is derived from the same source as the word 'money' - Latin moneta, first seen in English in mynet, the Old English word meaning 'coin, money'.

Etymology of Ancient Currencies

Last month I looked at the etymologies of contemporary currencies and those recently superceded by the introduction of the euro. However there are many which have come and gone in history and they must also have an origin.

Lydia was a region in what is now western Turkey. They used the stater, a coin used in many parts of Greece. Made from electrum and silver, its name translates quite literally as 'weight'.

The ancient Persians used the gold coin known as the daric. The daric was introduced by Darius the Great of Persia during his reign of 522BC to 486BC. The figure depicted with a bow and arrow is either a great warrior or a king, their identity is unclear. What is clear is, despite the seemingly obvious naming of the daric from Darius, in reality it comes from a Persian word for 'gold'.

Ancient Greeks had the drachma. This term is ultimately from the ancient Greek verb drassomai meaning 'to grasp' and evolved to mean 'fistful'.

The Roman Empire used a number of coins. One is known to modern numismatists as the antoninianus, several documents refer to coins named after one Antoninus, although they have no notion as to the coin's appearance, nor do they know what name was given to the coin they now know by this name. The same is true of the follis, the etymology and the actual name is unknown. The argenteus was a silver coin with a name which meant 'silver' in Latin, similarly the aureus was a gold coin whose name meant 'golden'. The denarius is derived from the Latin deni or 'containing ten' as it was equal to ten asses, these being bronze (later copper) coins, and related to the Greek assarion and understood as 'a part thereof'. Latin dupondius describes itself as a 'two pounder'. The follis took its name from the word meaning 'bag' and usually of leather, suggesting the original value of same was an amount contained within said bag. A sesterius was equal to two and half asses, the name means 'two and a half'. The gold solidus is not difficult to see as meaning 'solid'. A talent began as a unit of mass, the name meaning 'balance, scale', which readily transferred to a coin of a certain weight.

Ancient Israeli coins begin with the gerah, derived from Aramaic word which translates as 'money'. We also find the prutah, which spoke of itself as being 'a coin of lesser value'. The best known coin is probably the shekel, equivalent to an Akkadian and/or Sumerian unit of weight first recorded over four thousand years ago. Lastly is the zuz, a word meaning 'to move' and suggesting a redistribution of wealth.

Brazilians once valued their cruzeiros, the name describing the constellation of the Southern Cross.

Peru had the inti, named after the Incan sun god Inti.

In China the tael was a unit of weight before it became a monetary value, this being a Portguese adaptation of a Malay word meaning 'weight'.

Ukranians once dealt in karbovanets, a word of doubtful etymology which has been said to describe the way these smaller value denominations were carved around the rim of a metal rouble or of a rod on which such coinage was recorded.

Montenegro saw the introduction of the perun in 1851. This was named after Perun, a supreme god of Slavic mythology.

Ecuador used to deal in the sucre until 2000. This monetary value was named after Antonia Jose de Sucre, the Venezueland independence leader and close friend of Simon Bolivar.

In Guinea between 1971 and 1985 banks issued various denominations of syli. The 10 denomation note featured Patrice Lumumba on the obverse, the reverse depicted a group of people carrying bananas; 25 saw a man smoking a pipe on one side, and a man with cows on the back; 50 and a bearded man is shown, turn it over to find a large dam and reservoir; while the 100 denomination note had Ahmed Sekou Toure on the front, and a steam shovel with two trucks on the reverse. Oddly none of these notes feature the 'elephant', which is what syli translates as.

Back to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the Democratic Republic of Congo had the Katanga Cross. Made from copper it was named from the Katanga region where much copper was mined. However it is not the name but the extraordinary form this coinage took. As the name tells us this was not a coin as we would recognise it, this was an X-shaped ingot. Furthermore the size of these things was little short of astoonishing for coinage, although produced in various sizes, these were typically 20cms across and weighed a pocket-bursting kilogram each. Tossing these must be a nightmare!

The Etymology of World Currencies

Having looked at the etymologies of former European currencies recently, I spent most of the next day wondering about the origins of others worldwide. This is what I uncovered.

The dollar of course shares an origin with the Slovenian tolar, as discussed last time. From the former European silver coin the thaler, an abbreviation of Joachimsthaler and telling us it was first minted in Bohemia. Here thal means 'valley' and thaler 'thing or person from the valley'.

Somoans use the tala, a literal translation of 'dollar'.

Several countries use the Russian ruble, the word thought to be derived from the verb rubit meaning 'to chop'. Earlier a ruble was that chopped from an ingot of gold or silver of a certain weight.

I have always found the Albanian lek to be a most curious name so it came as quite a disappointment to find it was named for the first face to appear on the coin, that of Alexander the Great.

Algerians are paid in dinar, clearly derived from the old Roman denarius, itself from Latin deni 'containing ten'. Bahrain and Iraq also use the dinar. The denar of Macedonia shares this origin despite the different spelling.

Since independence in 1977, Angolans have used the kwanza which also happens to be the name of the major river in the country.

Argentina has the peso, clearly derived from Spanish peseta and from a Catalan word peceta meaning 'small piece'.

The Armenian dram literally translates into English as 'money', although there are suggestions this is related to the Greek drachma 'fistful'.

Azerbaijanis hope to have pockets full of manats. Manat is borrowed from moneta meaning 'coin'.

The taka is the currency in Bangladesh, taka being the Bengali word for 'money'.

The rupee, used in India and nearby nations, is from a Sanskrit word meaning either 'silver' or 'made from silver'.

The Kalahari Desert is known for its lack of rain, this arid region occupies large stretches of Botswana. Clearly rain is precious and the currency is thus called the pula, the Setswana word for 'rain'.

Brazilians have the real which means both 'royal' and 'real' in Portuguese, the coinage meaning originally the former.

Until they adopt the euro in 2013 or 2014, Bulgarians have the lev which was an early Bulgariuan word for 'lion'. Similarly the Moldovan leu also means 'lion', the same coin is used in Romania.

The People's Republic of China use a system of currency called the renminbi, literally 'the people's currency'. The basic unit is the yuan meaning 'round object' and is known colloquially as the kuai meaning 'lump'.

The Japanese yen has an identical meaning of a 'round object'.

Similarly the Korean won also speaks of itself as a 'round object'.

In Vietnam the dong is from dong tien, a direct translation meaning 'money'.

Croatians count their kuna, the name meaning 'marten' as the pelts of pine martens were the basic monetary unit in medieval times.

It was on his fourth voyage to the Americas when Christopher Columbus found what is now Costa Rica. The native Spanish name for Christopher Columbus is Cristobal Colon, which is why their unit of currency is the colon.

In the Czech Republic the koruna is one of several currencies derived from 'crown'. The Danish krone is another.

Eritrea named the nafka after the town of Nafka, the base of operations during the Eritrean War of Independence against Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian birr has the literal meaning of 'silver', prior to their introduction they had used thalers (also the origin of the dollar) and blocks of salt called 'amole tchew'.

The lari is used in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, lari being an old word denoting 'hoard, property'.

Ghanains once used cowry shells as currency, they now use coins called cedi which was also the Akan word for 'cowry shell'.

Across the Atlantic in Guatemala a very similar story is found for the quetzal, for in the Mayan culture the tail feathers of the Resplendent Quetzal were used as currency.

In Honduras and the lempira is the basic unit of currency, the name dating from the sixteenth century ruler of the indigeous Lenca culture, Cacique Lempira.

The Hungarian forint was named after Florence in Italy, where the original gold coins were minted.

Kyrgyzstan uses the som, literally meaning 'pure' and implies it was originally made from 'pure gold'.

South Africans use the rand, which takes its name from Witwatersrand, the name of the ridge of land on which Johannesburg is built. The place name describes 'the white waters ridge'.

Macau use the pataca, a name borrowed from the Portuguese reference to the Mexican dollar as the Pataca Mexicana.

Madagascar uses the ariary meaning 'silver dollar', which is divided into five iraimbilanja, a name meaning 'one iron weight'. This is one of only two currencies in the world which does not employ a decimal system.

Malawi has the kwacha, which happens to be the word for 'dawn' in both the Nyanja and Bemba languages.

In Malaysia they use the ringgit, a Malay word meaning 'jagged' for the term was originally used to describe the serated edges of the silver Spanish dollars seen here from the sixteenth century.

The evolution of the rufiyaa, the currency of the Maldives, is something of a mystery, however there can be no doubt it is from Hindi and ultimately Sanskrit words for 'silver'.

In Papua New Guinea the locals used a pearl shell as a token when trading until the introduction of the kina. This was derived from the Kuanua of the Tolai region, which was where these pearl shells were obtained.

In Poland the zloty means 'golden'.

Tajikistan use the somoni, named after the man known as the Father of the Tajik Nation, Ismail Samani whose name is also spelled Ismoil Somoni.

Tonga has the pa'anga, also the name of a vine which produces large pods with reddish-brown seeds which can be up to five centimetres in diameter.

Ukraine uses the hryvnia, which comes from the former word for the currency grivna used in the eleventh century.itself from a Slav word meaning 'mane' and probably suggesting something valuable worn around the neck.