Feet Idioms

Several words have found themselves used in a number of phrases. 'Spring' being an example, and seen in expressions such as 'spring fever', 'spring upon', 'spring chicken', 'spring cleaning', etc. This etymologist thought about looking at some of these and see what usage, origin, and beginnings can reveal. This time we start with 'foot'.

On foot is the earliest, at around 1300.

Hot foot is first seen in English around the same period of the early 14th century, but received a boost as American slang in 1896 to mean 'hastily', and saw a third revival around 1934 as a prank involving matches.

Put one's foot in it dates from 1823.

One foot in the grave is first seen in 1844.

We put our best foot forward for the first time in 1849, although Shakespeare did speak of 'the better foot before' in 1596.

Cold feet, for it is only used in the plural, first appears in 1893 and some sources suggest this is a bad rendition of an Italian phrase, avegh minga frecc i pee meaning 'to have no money', although this seems somewhat contrived.

Got off on the wrong foot is first seen in print in 1905, two years earlier than anyone ever got off on the right foot.

My foot, an expression of contempt, is first seen in 1923.

Put one's foot in one's mouth is not seen in writing until 1942.

One no longer used is 'foot' meaning 'a person' and thus 'non-foot' meant 'nobody'.

Suicide

Not until 1822 when the Church of England changed its mind were suicides allowed burial in consecrated ground. Even then it was only agreed as from the following year.

While burial was permitted, they were denied any ritual until 1880, and not allowed a Christian burial until February 2015 when the Church of England Synod voted, and by 262 to 5, in favour of lifting the restrictions - and mostly because most of the clergy had already chosen to ignore the ban anyway, this mostly due to a better understanding of mental health problems.

Originally the Church of England simply adopted the view of the earlier Catholic Church in England, where suicide was considered a sin. Prior to the development of Christianity, suicide was a common way to die. Personal suicide avoided shame or suffering, institutional suicide gave a way out for royal servants, convicted criminals, distraught widows, and as a form of euthanasia for the elderly or infirm.

Mozambique Place Names Explained

Having blogged samples of my books on English place names and also examined the etymologies of the nations of the world and their respective capitals I thought it time I cast my net a little wider. As English place names share some links to other tongues it would be interesting to see if any of the elements contributing to our place names could be found elsewhere. Continuing an alphabetical tour of the world and a look at the largest Mozambique settlements.

Maputo, the capital and largest city of Mozambique, was known as Lourenco Marques until 1976, this the name of the Portuguese navigator who explored this area in 1544. Maputo shares its name with the Maputo River, itself formerly known as the Suthu River, itself from suthu and either refers to the Basotho people or the colour of the muddy waters of the river. The present names of both were derived from the link to the Mozambique Liberation Front or FRELIMO and, from the etymologist's point of view, of little interest.

Angoche, like the capital, had been known by a different name prior to independence in 1976. Earlier the name of Antonio Enes referred to the 19th century Portuguese journalist and colonial administrator Antion Jose Enes.

Beira was named to honour the Portuguese Crown Prince Dom Luis Filipe, prior to that it was known as Chiveve after the local river. Beira is also the name of a rare antelope, it is not clear if this is why the name was chosen and the origin of the river name is unknown.

Catandica took its name from the son of a local chief who served in the army.

Chimoio is taken from one of the sons of Ganda, a chief of the Moyo clan. Chimoio was a great hunter, he once killed an elephant while on land held by a neighbouring tribe. This was considered a crime punishable by death. His father agreed to the execution but requested his family be allowed to settle close to the grave to watch over the remains. This gave the name of Chimoio or 'little heart' to the region.

Chinde shares a name with the Chinde River on which it stands, the meaning of the name is unknown.

Cuamba was originally named Nova Freixo, this taken from the name of Freixo de Espada a Cinta in Portugal, this the birthplace of Sarmento Rodrigues, the governor general of Mozambique. Cuamba is the original name of the place and of uncertain origin.

Gurue had earlier been named Vila Junqueiro, this taken from the name of a company producing tea Plantacoes Manuel Saraiva Junquiero. This is only slightly more unusual than the name Gurue, this a local tribal dialect either the name of a local tribal chief or their name for the peccary, a pig-like animal.

Inhambane had been known as Terra de Boa Gente by the Portuguese, this meaning 'the Land of the Good People'.

Lichinga was known as Villa Cabal to the Portuguese, this translates as 'full house' as it was designed to become a fast growth urban centre.

Manica takes its name from the Kingdom of Manica, its origins are unknown.

Matola is from the name of the kingdom here when colonists arrived, it continues to be a common surname locally.

Maxixe is named after an African chief.

Nampula is held to be from the word whampula, the name of a legendary tribal chief in this area.

Pemba was founded as Porto Amelia by the Niassa Company in 1904, named after the Queen of Portugal.

Ponto da Ouro translates as 'tip of gold', referring to the beach at the tip of the cape.

Quelimane has two explanations, neither of which are particularly convincing. Some suggest the Portuguese found an Arab here when they arrived, he acted as interpreter and the place named from the Swahili for 'interpreter'. An alternative explanation speaks of a visit from Vasco da Gama who, on reaching here in 1498, asked "Who are you?" and heard the reply kuliamani. Unfortunately the people misunderstood the question and thought he had asked "what are you doing?" to which they responded "we are cultivating", which is exactly what kuliamani means.

Tete comes from the local Nyungwe word mitete meaning 'reed'.

Vilankulo is named after tribal chief Gamela Vilankulo Mukoke, with some of the districts here named after his sons.

Note the spellings of the places are English as the piece is written in English.

Etymologies and Homonyms

Whilst I am always interested in learning new words, it is the never so much the meaning as the origins which intrigue me. Previously I looked at homonyms, a word with two meanings and I looked at the etymologies of these words. Were there two completely different origins and the identical spelling is pure coincidence or has the word simply been used to mean two different things?

Here are another selection and, having done A to F before, now continue with a selection of others:

gill - not the shortened version of the female name Gillian (the name Jill is simply a late alternate spelling), where one of the earliest references is from 1630 in the term 'gill-flirt' referring to 'a giddy young woman'. Here the two meanings are somewhat uncertain, probably owing to the very different meanings of the same word. However the noun describing the breathing organ in fishes likely came to English from Norse tongues, such as Old Danish gaeln and thought to have originated in the Proto-Indo-European ghel-una meaning 'jaw'. The Greek word kheilos or 'lip' has similar beginnings and does tend to support this idea. The term is also used to mean a liquid measure, coming to England from the Old French gille, used in measuring wine, and derived from Latin gillo 'earthenware jar'. The trail becomes blurred here but seems to share an origin with 'gallon', which also originally would describe the vessel used to hold a liquid rather than the volume of liquid it held.

grave - is another where the two most commonest uses are through each having very different origins. Most often associated with death, it came from Old English graef meaning 'ditch', 'trench' and 'cave' as well as somewhere to place a body. This can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European ghrebh meaning 'to dig, scratch, scrape'. This also brought us the third rarely used use. While we tend to use 'engrave' today, originally 'grave' would have been the norm and the 'scratch, scrape' meaning is easy to see in 'engrave'. We also use 'grave' to mean 'weighty, important' and in this case the word came to English rather later from the Old French greve 'terrible, dreadful', itself from Latin gravis or 'heavy, ponderous, burdensome, loaded' and even 'pregnant'. Considering I am writing this on Father's Day to link a word suggesting 'children' with an alternative meaning of 'terrible, dreadful' might be rather bad timing. Yet this sense is undoubtedly the origin as it is also seen in Greek baros 'weight', Sanskrit guruh 'heavy', and from Proto-Indo-European gwere 'heavy'.

groom - here the origins of the meanings are much more closely related, this mainly through the much later beginnings. As a noun in the 12th century grome simply referred to a 'male child'. However within a hundred years it had come to mean 'a youth, young man' and also spoke of a 'male servant, attendeant, minor officer, a knight's squire'. Here the term is thought to be from Germanic growan meaning 'to grow'. As a reference to one who tends horses it clearly came from associations with a knight's squire, by the 19th century having the more general meaning of 'to tend for', and a century later 'prepare for office or succession'. Not until 1600 do we see this used as an abbreviation for 'bridegroom', where Old English brydguma may have been used to mean 'suitor' but is clearly a combination of bryd 'bride' and gruma 'man'. Note the term 'bride' comes from the Proto-Indo-European root bru meaning 'to cook, brew, make broth' - again unlikely to be the most popular revelation on Father's Day.

gross - in these metric times the idea of a dozen dozen, once the most common use, has been replaced by the 'to disgust' and yet the latter use is unknown prior to 1971. The earlier quantity is simply from the Old French gross douzaine or 'a large dozen' by the 16th century and had earlier been used for a weight equal to one-eighth of a dram'. While 'gross' is rarely used to mean 'large, thick' today, it was once used when speaking of the coarseness and quality of cloth. Here the German gross 'large' can still be seen, as can the Latin grossus 'thick, coarse' and used to refer to both food and a person.

hail - as a greeting is from Old Scandinavian heill 'health, prosperity, good luck' and related to Old English waes haeil, itself still used as 'wassail'. Of course we British will associate this more with the weather phenomenon, where the Proto-Indo-European kaghlo 'pebble' is still fairly easily seen in the Greek kakhlex also meaning 'pebble'.

horn - the two meanings are still very much in use, if not the very old joke "Why do cows wear bells? - Because their horns don't work" would have died out years ago. Horn, when speaking of that used on a car, comes from the wind instrument, itself so named as the first were indeed made from animal horns. That part of the animal can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European ker used to mean 'horn, head, uppermost part of the body'. Before anyone writes and points out there is a third use, the sexual usage is acknowledged and has a most interesting etymology. Since at least the 15th century (and possibly since the heyday of the Greeks) the horn has been used to symbolise cuckoldry, perhaps the victim would be seen to grow such on his head, and thus 'horny' in the sense 'aroused' comes from 'horn' being used to mean 'cuckold' - not a nice thing to be but, to my mind, a delightful word.