Carnival of the Etymologies
A regular Thursday feature of "Done With Mirrors"
It all began with vikings. Doesn't it always?
In the newsroom where I work, we were proof-reading a story in which someone referred to the funeral customs of vikings. The reporter had written it with a capital V-, and I said it ought to be lower-case. We looked it up, and the dictionary we use as a standard -- Webster's New World 4th ed. -- has it down, though gives the upper case V- as a secondary spelling.
To me, probably because I know them in a historical context, viking is a job, not an ethnicity. It means roughly "Scandinavian pirate of the 8th to the 11th centuries." There were Danish vikings and Norse vikings. They were young men who chose or were driven to take to the sea in an army and raid and maraud for a living.
When they came to England or France, they were different from the local population. But not all Norse voyagers to France were vikings. And when the vikings came home again to Scandinavia, they were no different than the population that had stayed home.
Viking with a capital V-, to me, is the U.S. football team. They may have their own funeral customs, but that wasn't what we were writing about.
The word itself, as we use it, is a modern revival, first attested in English in 1807 (as vikingr; the modern spelling is attested from 1840). The word was not used in Middle English, and in fact it is not an English word.
The historical writers revived it from the Old Norse word for the sea-raiders, vikingr, which usually is explained as properly meaning "one who came from the fjords," from vik "creek, inlet" (which is the second element in Reykjavik, the name of the Icelandic capital).
But Old English had wicing and Old Frisian had wizing, both used in the same sense as the Old Norse word but attested almost 300 years earlier.
The connection between the Old Norse word and the other two is much debated. They look like variations of the same word, but many linguists think the English and Frisian words derive from the common Germanic noun wic meaning "village, camp."
Temporary camps were a feature of the Viking raids. That would have been one of the obvious qualities of a "viking" when he was abroad. When he was at home, where Old Norse was spoken, it wouldn't have been so. He might have been seen as one who "takes to the fjords."
Old English wicing was not a common word. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Scandinavian raiding armies generally were referred to as þa Deniscan "the Danes," or simply þone sciphere "the ship-army."
Germanic wic is related to Latin vicus "village, habitation, group of houses" (which is related to the source of Italian villa), via a common ancestor in Proto-Indo-European *weik-, which probably meant "clan." Also in the family are Sanskrit vesah "house," vit "dwelling, house, settlement;" Avestan vis "house, village, clan;" Old Persian vitham "house, royal house;" Greek oikos "house;" Old Church Slavonic visi "village;" Gothic weihs "village;" and Lithuanian viešpats "master of the house."
Greek oikos "house" is at the root of economics (Greek oikonomia "household management"). So there's a linguistic direct connection between Alan Greenspan and Harald Bluetooth. Who knew?
Pirate came into English in the 13th century, via French and Latin, from Greek peirates "brigand, pirate," a word that literally meant "one who attacks." It was derived from the verb peiran "to attack, make a hostile attempt on, try," which has been traced to a reconstructed Proto-Indo-European base *per- "to try" (also in Latin peritus "experienced," periculum "trial, experiment, risk, danger" -- the source of peril and the middle part of experience).
The Germanic branch of the family seems to be represented by, among other words, Old English fær "danger, fear," the source of fear.
A pirate is named for what he does, but a buccaneer is named for how he eats. The word is first recorded in English in 1661, from French boucanier, which literally means "user of a boucan," a type of native grill used in the Caribbean islands. It was a raised wooden structure that the Indians used to either sleep on or to cure or roast meat or fish.
Bucaneer originally was used of French settlers working as hunters and woodsmen in the Spanish West Indies, who became a lawless and piratical set after they were driven from their trade by Spanish authorities in the 1690s. Boucan comes from a mangled Europeanization of a native Caribbean word, which also took another path -- via Arawakan (a native language of Haiti) and Spanish and came out barbecue.
A corsair is literally "one who goes on an expedition." It comes to English from French corsaire, a word that traveled up into France via Provence from Medieval Latin cursarius "pirate," which is from classical Latin cursus "course, a running." The meaning evolved in Medieval Latin from "course" to "journey" to "expedition" to "an expedition specifically for plunder."
The Proto-Indo-European root of the Latin word is *kers- "to run," also preserved in Greek -khouros "running," Lithuanian karsiu "go quickly," Old Norse horskr "swift," Old Irish and Middle Welsh carr "cart, wagon," Breton karr "chariot," and Welsh carrog "torrent").
From the Gaulish form of these Celtic words (karros) the Romans formed their word carrus for the two-wheeled Celtic war chariot. This word survived into French with a general sense of "wheeled vehicle," and became Modern English car.
The Italian form of corsair was corsaro. Via the pirate-infested Adriatic Sea, this word passed into Old Serbian as kursar, later altered to husar, and from thence into Hungarian as huszar. In landlocked Hungary the word lost its seagoing nature and came to mean "mounted freebooter" and later merely "light horseman," which is how the Germans picked it up as Husar and passed it on to English as hussar.
A rover looks straightforward, right? One who "roves" the seas robbing other ships.
Not quite. It came to Middle English from Middle Dutch rover "robber, predator, plunderer" (short for zeerovere "pirate"), from the verb roven "to rob." This is the Dutch form of the word represented in English by Anglo-Saxon reaf "spoil, plunder" and reofan "to tear, break."
The native form of the word hasn't left many traces in Modern English, except in bereft and a few other antiquated words. The ground sense seems to be that of "breaking," and the root is connected to the source of Latin ruptura, source of rupture.
The verb rove meaning "to wander with no fixed destination" doesn't turn up in English until about 150 years after the first record of rover. It probably was influenced by rover, but in fact it is possibly a Midlands dialectal variant of northern English and Scottish rave "to wander, stray," which is probably from a word the vikings brought from Scandinavia.
*Today's "Carnival of the Etymologies" is dedicated to the person who landed here after doing a MSN search for "Things to do around North Vernon Indiana" and the person who landed here after doing a search on French Google for "ADAMS ABIGAIL GLAMOUR GIRL."
It all began with vikings. Doesn't it always?
In the newsroom where I work, we were proof-reading a story in which someone referred to the funeral customs of vikings. The reporter had written it with a capital V-, and I said it ought to be lower-case. We looked it up, and the dictionary we use as a standard -- Webster's New World 4th ed. -- has it down, though gives the upper case V- as a secondary spelling.
To me, probably because I know them in a historical context, viking is a job, not an ethnicity. It means roughly "Scandinavian pirate of the 8th to the 11th centuries." There were Danish vikings and Norse vikings. They were young men who chose or were driven to take to the sea in an army and raid and maraud for a living.
When they came to England or France, they were different from the local population. But not all Norse voyagers to France were vikings. And when the vikings came home again to Scandinavia, they were no different than the population that had stayed home.
Viking with a capital V-, to me, is the U.S. football team. They may have their own funeral customs, but that wasn't what we were writing about.
The word itself, as we use it, is a modern revival, first attested in English in 1807 (as vikingr; the modern spelling is attested from 1840). The word was not used in Middle English, and in fact it is not an English word.
The historical writers revived it from the Old Norse word for the sea-raiders, vikingr, which usually is explained as properly meaning "one who came from the fjords," from vik "creek, inlet" (which is the second element in Reykjavik, the name of the Icelandic capital).
But Old English had wicing and Old Frisian had wizing, both used in the same sense as the Old Norse word but attested almost 300 years earlier.
The connection between the Old Norse word and the other two is much debated. They look like variations of the same word, but many linguists think the English and Frisian words derive from the common Germanic noun wic meaning "village, camp."
Temporary camps were a feature of the Viking raids. That would have been one of the obvious qualities of a "viking" when he was abroad. When he was at home, where Old Norse was spoken, it wouldn't have been so. He might have been seen as one who "takes to the fjords."
Old English wicing was not a common word. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Scandinavian raiding armies generally were referred to as þa Deniscan "the Danes," or simply þone sciphere "the ship-army."
Germanic wic is related to Latin vicus "village, habitation, group of houses" (which is related to the source of Italian villa), via a common ancestor in Proto-Indo-European *weik-, which probably meant "clan." Also in the family are Sanskrit vesah "house," vit "dwelling, house, settlement;" Avestan vis "house, village, clan;" Old Persian vitham "house, royal house;" Greek oikos "house;" Old Church Slavonic visi "village;" Gothic weihs "village;" and Lithuanian viešpats "master of the house."
Greek oikos "house" is at the root of economics (Greek oikonomia "household management"). So there's a linguistic direct connection between Alan Greenspan and Harald Bluetooth. Who knew?
Pirate came into English in the 13th century, via French and Latin, from Greek peirates "brigand, pirate," a word that literally meant "one who attacks." It was derived from the verb peiran "to attack, make a hostile attempt on, try," which has been traced to a reconstructed Proto-Indo-European base *per- "to try" (also in Latin peritus "experienced," periculum "trial, experiment, risk, danger" -- the source of peril and the middle part of experience).
The Germanic branch of the family seems to be represented by, among other words, Old English fær "danger, fear," the source of fear.
A pirate is named for what he does, but a buccaneer is named for how he eats. The word is first recorded in English in 1661, from French boucanier, which literally means "user of a boucan," a type of native grill used in the Caribbean islands. It was a raised wooden structure that the Indians used to either sleep on or to cure or roast meat or fish.
Bucaneer originally was used of French settlers working as hunters and woodsmen in the Spanish West Indies, who became a lawless and piratical set after they were driven from their trade by Spanish authorities in the 1690s. Boucan comes from a mangled Europeanization of a native Caribbean word, which also took another path -- via Arawakan (a native language of Haiti) and Spanish and came out barbecue.
A corsair is literally "one who goes on an expedition." It comes to English from French corsaire, a word that traveled up into France via Provence from Medieval Latin cursarius "pirate," which is from classical Latin cursus "course, a running." The meaning evolved in Medieval Latin from "course" to "journey" to "expedition" to "an expedition specifically for plunder."
The Proto-Indo-European root of the Latin word is *kers- "to run," also preserved in Greek -khouros "running," Lithuanian karsiu "go quickly," Old Norse horskr "swift," Old Irish and Middle Welsh carr "cart, wagon," Breton karr "chariot," and Welsh carrog "torrent").
From the Gaulish form of these Celtic words (karros) the Romans formed their word carrus for the two-wheeled Celtic war chariot. This word survived into French with a general sense of "wheeled vehicle," and became Modern English car.
The Italian form of corsair was corsaro. Via the pirate-infested Adriatic Sea, this word passed into Old Serbian as kursar, later altered to husar, and from thence into Hungarian as huszar. In landlocked Hungary the word lost its seagoing nature and came to mean "mounted freebooter" and later merely "light horseman," which is how the Germans picked it up as Husar and passed it on to English as hussar.
A rover looks straightforward, right? One who "roves" the seas robbing other ships.
Not quite. It came to Middle English from Middle Dutch rover "robber, predator, plunderer" (short for zeerovere "pirate"), from the verb roven "to rob." This is the Dutch form of the word represented in English by Anglo-Saxon reaf "spoil, plunder" and reofan "to tear, break."
The native form of the word hasn't left many traces in Modern English, except in bereft and a few other antiquated words. The ground sense seems to be that of "breaking," and the root is connected to the source of Latin ruptura, source of rupture.
The verb rove meaning "to wander with no fixed destination" doesn't turn up in English until about 150 years after the first record of rover. It probably was influenced by rover, but in fact it is possibly a Midlands dialectal variant of northern English and Scottish rave "to wander, stray," which is probably from a word the vikings brought from Scandinavia.
Labels: etymology
