That was not what I meant. (G)

Undoubtedly, the etymology and evolution of the word 'gasket' makes it one of my favourite English words.

Gale may be a strong wind today - or perhaps one of British soaps worst ever characters - but for reasons which have never been understood, during the eighteenth century it was used to mean 'a gentle breeze'.

Garbage can be used to mean 'rubbish', and other things deemed of poor quality, but for the majority of its life has referred to 'offal' and, for a short time, 'worthless writing'.

Gasket, that part which creates a seal between to castings, on a car engine for example. This began as a length of rope soaked in oil, those small lengths of rope were also used on sailing ships when the furls were tied up or furled. That length of rope was also used to tie the end of the plait of French ladies of the night many years earlier. The link is in the short length of rope, useless other than for the specific purpose.

Generous or 'giving' comes from the Latin generous meaning 'noble'.

Genial may mean 'good-natured' today, but the Latin original meant 'nuptial'.

Genius suggested great intelligence today, but came to English from Latin as a word meaning 'attendant spirit'.

Gestation today refers to the time spent in the womb, so it hasn't changed a great deal since it first came to English to mean 'carrying'.

Giddy is a somewhat dated synonym for 'dizzy'. The word 'giddy' began as Old English gydig meaning 'mad' as in 'possessed' and continued until the 14th century, resurfacing in the 17th century, when it meant 'mad with rage', around the time the modern usage is also first seen.

Gingerly or 'cautious' has nothing to do with ginger. Coming to English from the French gent or 'of good birth', it was originally used in the sense 'daintily' or even 'mincingly'.

Girl in the thirteenth century was also used for male children, albeit almost exclusively used in the plural to refer to 'children'. The Prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales includes such a reference.

Glad has always meant 'happy, joyful', but in the earliest days it was also used to mean 'bright, shining', too.

Glamour began as an 18th century Scottish word meaning 'magic, enchantment' before coming to be used in its modern sense.

Glee may mean 'happiness' today, but historically meant 'play, sport, music'.

Glimmer is just a faint light today, but historically was used to mean 'shining brightly' until the fifteenth century.

Gloat in the sixteenth century was used in the sense of 'looking askance', a hundred years later was used to mean 'regard admiringly', another century on it was used in the sense of 'stare', not until the nineteenth century did it start to be used in the modern sense of 'enjoy the satisfaction of'.

Go-cart, more often go-kart today, began in the seventeenth century as that push-along which toddlers still use to assist them take their first steps.

Gore, the modern idea always being the spilling of blood, but until 1760 the original use would be describing 'filth' and often specifically 'dung'.

Gossip comes from the Old English godsibb, meaning 'godparent' and this was in use until at least the fourteenth century, thereafter evolving to mean 'well-known acquaintance'.

Grammar is the study of sounds and syntax, although originally it meant very specifically 'Latin'.

Grass widow is a term I have never come across, apparently it has the same general meaning as 'golf widow', in that a woman's husband. This is something rather tamer than the original use of the term which, from at least the sixteenth century, described a woman known or claiming to have had sexual intercourse with numerous married men.

Gravy is that brown savoury sauce made from the meat juices, but that isn't what it has always been. In the fourteenth century it described a white sauce, based on a mixture of broth, herbs and almonds blended with ale, which was used as a dressing for fish, poultry and vegetables.

Grin is today used mostly to refer to a toothy grin, although occasionally we use it in the sense of pain, as in 'grin and bear it'. But historically it referred to a display of anger, even dogs and wolves were said to 'grin' when baring their teeth in a snarl'.

Grizzle is a word which is becoming less popular with the passage of time. But when first seen in the eighteenth century, it wasn't used to mean 'cry bitterly' but 'to grin mockingly' or 'sneer'.

Grocer is today a retailer of vegetables or general comestibles. However originally it referred to one who bought in bulk - and the pronunciation still says 'dealer in gross'.

Groom has had three meanings and all have a basis in the thirteenth century synonym for 'boy'. It was then transferred to 'one who tends to horses' and 'the tending of horses'. Soon after it came to refer to 'man' rather than simply 'boy', and with the predictable result it came to refer to one who was going from boyhood to manhood at the altar.

Grub today can refer to 'food' or 'insect larvae'. Yet when first appearing in the fourteenth century, it described 'a man of short stature, stunted growth'.

Guess today means 'to estimate', but perhaps if we look at it in the sense of 'take a stab at', then the original idea of 'to aim' makes more sense.

Guilt or 'having committed a crime' began as a general term for the crimes themselves.

Gymkhana, a contest on horseback for children, is derived from the Hindi gend-khana, which translates as 'racket court'. Hence the definition was seen as 'a place of sport and play' in British-held India, where horseracing, polo, and other equestrian events were popular.

Friday the 13th

Friday 13th April 1832. The following week the local press reported the sad death of a groom, he in charge of three horses belonging to “a most worthy gentleman” passing through the city on his way to London. The youth was described as “a fine, handsome, and intelligent young man of the lower classes” – amazing how wonderful he was and yet they didn’t bother to find out his name – was obviously not sober before he arrived in Lichfield but was most inebriated by the time he left the city. As time passed his “drunkenness increased its despotic tyranny over him” – until 10 miles down the road he fell from his horse and to his death. He died from a fractured skull at 10am on the following morning, Saturday.

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.