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PREFIX LIST

 

Base	Meaning	Origin
ab	away	Latin
acro	top, tip, end	Greek
ad, ac, at, as, ap, am, an, ar, ag, af	to, toward, at	Latin
ambi	around, both	Latin
amphi	both, of both sides, around	Greek
ant, anti	against	Greek
ante	before	Latin
apo, ap, aph	away from, off	Greek
archa, arshae	old, ancient	Greek
auto	self	Greek
ben, bon	good, well	Latin
bi	two	Latin
co, con, com	together, with	Latin
contra, contro	against	Latin
de	from, away, off	Latin
deca, dec, deka	ten	Greek
di, dis	two, twice	Greek
dia	through, across	Greek
dis, dif	apart, away, not, to deprive	Latin
du	double, two	Latin
dys	difficult, bad	Greek
e, ex, ec	out, beyond, from, out of, forth	Latin
ecto	outside of	Greek
en	in give [intensifier]	Latin
endo, ento	within	Greek
ep, epi	upon, at, in addition	Greek
eu	good, well	Greek
extra	beyond	Latin
fore	before	Anglo-Saxon
hemi	half	Greek
hetero	various, unlike	Greek
hier	sacred	Greek
holo	whole	Greek
homo	same	Greek
hyper	above, beyond	Greek
hypo, hyp	under, less than	Greek
ideo, idea	idea	Greek
in, ir, im, il	not, without	Latin
in, im	in, on, upon, into, toward	Latin
inter	between	Latin
intro	within	Latin
iso	equal	Greek
kilo	thousand	Greek
macro	long, large	Greek
magn, mag, meg, maj	great	Latin
mal	bad, ill	Latin
mega	great	Greek
met, meta, meth	among, with, after, beyond	Greek
micro	small	Greek

 

migr	to move, travel	Latin
mill	thousand	Latin
mis	less, wrong	Latin
mono	one	Greek
multi	many, much	Latin
neo	new	Greek
non, ne	not	Latin
o, ob, oc, of, op	against, toward	Latin
omni	all	Latin
paleo	long ago, ancient	Greek
pan, panto	all, every	Greek
para	beside, beyond	Latin
penta	five	Greek
per	through	Latin
peri	around, about	Greek
pre	before	Latin
pro	before, forward, forth	Latin
pronto	first	Greek
poly	many	Greek
post	after	Latin
pseudo	false, counterfeit	Greek
quad, quatr	four	Latin
re	again, anew, back	Latin
retro	back, backward, behind	Latin
se, sed	apart, aside, away	Latin
semi	half	Latin
sover	above, over	Latin
sub	under, below, up from below	Latin
super, supra	above, down	Latin
syn, sym, syl	together, with	Greek
tele	far off	Greek
trans	over, across	Latin

 

SUFFIX LIST

Noun forming suffixes

Suffix	Meaning	Origin
age	belongs to	Latin
ance	state of being	Latin
ant	thing or one who	Latin
ar	relating to, like	Latin
ary	relating to, like	Latin
ence	state, fact, quality	Latin
ent	to form	Latin
ic	like, having the nature	Latin & Greek
ine	nature of-feminine ending	Latin
ion, tion, ation	being, the result of	Latin
ism	act, condition	Latin & Greek
ist	one who	Latin
ive	of, belonging to, quality of	Latin
ment	a means, product, act, state	Latin
or	person or thing that	Latin
ory	place for	Latin
ty	condition of, quality of	Latin
y	creats abstract noun	Greek & Anglo-Saxon

 

Adjective forming suffixes

Suffix	Meaning	Origin
able	capable of being	Latin
al	like, suitable for	Latin
ance	state of being	Latin
ant	thing or one who	Latin
ar	relating to, like	Latin
ary	relating to, like	Latin
ate	to become associated with	Latin
ent	to form	Latin
ial	function of	Latin
ible	capable of being	Latin
ic	like, having the nature of	Latin & Greek
ine	nature of-feminine ending	Latin
ive	of, belonging to, quality of	Latin
ory	place for	Latin
ous	characterized by, having quality of	Latin
y	quality, somewhat like	Greek & Anglo-Saxon

 

Verb forming suffixes

Suffix	Meaning	Origin
ate	to become associated with	Latin
fy	make, do	Latin
ise, ize	to become like	Latin

 

Adverb forming suffixes

Suffix	Meaning	Origin
ic	like, having the nature of	Latin & Greek
ly	like, to extent of	Latin

 

GREEK AND LATIN ROOTS
BASE		MEANING		ORIGIN
act		to act		Latin
acu, acr, ac		needle		Latin
alt		high		Latin
anima, anim		life, mind		Latin
ann, enn		year		Latin
anthrop		man		Greek
aqua		water		Latin
arch, archi		govern, rule		Greek
arm		army, weapon		Latin
arbitr, arbiter		to judge, consider		Latin
art		craft, skill		Latin
arthr, art		segment, joint		Greek
aud		to hear		Latin
bell		war		Latin
biblio, bibl		book		Greek
bio		life		Greek
capit, cipit		head		Latin
caus		cause, case, lawsuit		Latin
cede		to go, yield		Latin
cele		honor		Latin
cell		to rise, project		Latin
cent		one hundred		Latin
cept, capt, cip, cap, ceive, ceipt		to take, hold, grasp		Latin
cert		sure, to trust		Latin
cess, ced		to move, withdraw		Latin
cid, cis		to cut off, be breif, to kill		Latin
circ, circum		around		Latin
civ		citizen		Latin
claud		close, shut, block		Latin
clin		to lean, lie, bend		Latin
cog		to know		Latin
column		a column		Latin
comput		to compute		Latin
cont		to join, unite		Latin
cor, cord, cour, card		heart		Latin
corp		body		Latin
cosm		world, order, universe		Greek
crac, crat		rule, govern		Greek
cred		believe, trust		Latin
crit, cris		separate, discern, judge		Latin
culp		fault, blame		Latin
curs, curr, corr		to run		Latin
custom		one's own		Latin
dem		people		Greek
dent, odon		tooth		Latin
derm		skin		Greek
dic, dict		to say, to speak, assert		Latin
duct, duc		to lead, draw		Latin
dur		to harden, hold out		Latin
	ego		I		Latin
	ethn		nation		Greek
	equ		equal, fair		Latin
	fac, fic, fect, fact		to make, to do		Latin
	famil		family		Latin
	fen		to strike		Latin
	fer		to carry, bear, bring		Latin
	fid		trust, faith		Latin
	fin		to end		Latin
	flu		to flow		Latin
	form		shape, form		Latin
	fort		chance, luck, strong		Latin
	frig		cool		Latin
	fum		smoke, scent		Latin
	gam		marriage		Greek
	gen		race, family, kind		Latin
	geo		earth		Greek
	gno, kno		to know		Greek
	grad, gred, gress		step, degree, rank		Latin
	graph, gram		write, draw, describe, record		Greek
	grat		pleasure, thankful, goodwill, joy		Latin
	grav, griev, grief		heavy		Latin
	gymn		naked		Greek
	hab		to have, hold, dwell		Latin
	hom		man, human		Latin
	hosp		guest, host		Latin
	host		enemy, stranger		Latin
	hydro		water		Greek
	hygiene		the art of health		Greek
	hypno		sleep		Greek
	init		to begin, enter upon		Latin
	jur, jus, jud		law, right		Latin
	juven		young		Latin
	labor, lab		work		Latin
	lat		lateral, side, wide		Latin
	laud		praise		Latin
	leg, lig		law, to chose, perceive, understand		Latin
	lev		to make light, raise, lift		Latin
	liber, liver		free		Latin
	lingu, langu		tounge		Latin
	lith		stone		Greek
	loc		place		Latin
	locu, loqu		word, speak		Latin
	log		idea, word, speech, reason, study		Greek
	luc, lum		light		Latin
	man		hand		Latin
	mar		sea		Latin
	med, medi		middle		Latin
	medic		physician, to heal		Latin
	memor		mindful		Latin
	men, min, mon		to think, remind, advise, warn		Latin
	ment		mind		Latin
	meter, metr		measure		Greek
	migr		to move, travel		Latin
	mim		copy, imitate		Greek
	mit, mis		to send		Latin
	mor		fool, manner, custom		Greek
	morph		form		Greek
	mort		death		Latin
	mov, mob, mot		to move		Latin
	mus		little mouse		Latin
	mut		change, exchange		Latin
	necess		unavoidable		Latin
	neur, nerv		nerve		Greek
	noc, nox		night, harm		Latin
	nomen, nomin		name		Latin
	null, nihil, nil		nothing, void		Latin
	nym, onym, onom		name		Greek
	opt		eye		Greek
	ord, ordin		order		Latin
	ortho		straight		Greek
	par, pair		arrange, prepare, get ready, set		Latin
	part, pars		portion, part		Latin
	ped, pes		foot		Latin
	pend, pond, pens		to weigh, pay, consider		Latin
	phe, fa, fe		speak, spoken about		Greek
	phil		love		Greek
	phon		sound, voice		Greek
	photo		light		Greek
	pler		to fill		Latin
	plic		to fold		Latin
	plur, plus		more		Latin
	pneu		breath		Greek
	polis, polit		citizen, city, state		Greek
	port		to carry		Latin
	pos		to place, put		Latin
	pot		powerfull		Latin
	prim, prin		first		Latin
	priv		seperate		Latin
	prob		to prove, test		Latin
	psych		mind, soul, spirit		Greek
	pyr		fire		Greek
	reg, rig, rect, reign		government, rule, right, straight		Latin
	respond		to answer		Latin
	rupt		break, burst		Latin
	sacr, secr, sacer		sacred		Latin
	sat		to please		Latin
	sci		to know		Latin
	scope		to see		Greek

 

 

ENGLISH ORIGINS

 

Assassin – a person who commits murder either for hire or from fanatical motives. The Arabic word hashish was originally applied to a number of grasslike plants and in time came to refer specifically to hemp. A product of the hemp plant was used as an intoxicant, and thus from Arabic we get our word hashish. The process whereby a general plant word came to be applied to a specific drug is replicated in English, where marijuana came to be known as weed or grass.

 

In the twelfth century, Europe learned of a murderous Ismaili sect in Syria, a sect that was part of the Shiite branch of Islam. Whether this sect regularly abused hashish is not known for certain; the colorful tales that are told about its members being held in thrall by visions of Paradise conjured up in a drug-induced trance or psyching themselves up for berserk attacks by smoking it are probably untrue. But it is true that they were known as 'hashish-takers' (Arabic hashishi or hashshash) by their fellow Syrians. From one of these words or from their plurals with the ending -in, the Romance languages acquired their words for the sect: French assassin, Spanish asesino, and so forth. In all of these languages, the resulting term came to be applied to murderers irrespective of religious or Eastern connotations.

English borrowed its word assassin, probably from Middle French, in the fourteenth century, when it first appeared (in the singular) in the form hassassis, and later settled into the spelling assassin which had also finally prevailed in French.

 

Bedlam – a place, scene, or state of uproar  and confusion. In 1247 a priory was founded in London for the order of St. Mary of Bethlehem. By 1330 this priory had become the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem, intended to serve the poor or homeless who were afflicted with any ailment. By 1405 this hospital, now under royal control, was being used, at least partly, as an asylum for the insane, the first such institution in England.

 

In popular speech the name Bethlehem had become telescoped to Bedlam, and in 1528 William Tyndale used Bedlam in his The Obedience of a Christian Man in reference to this particular hospital. Also in the sixteenth century, an inmate of this asylum came to be called a bedlam.

 

As with most such asylums of the time, abuses were prevalent when proper outside inspection was not maintained. Indeed, Bedlam had become infamous for its brutality. In his diary for 1657, John Evelyn noted that in Bedlam he "saw several miserable creatures in chains." By the latter part of the seventeenth century, the word bedlam had begun to be used in a generic way for any lunatic asylum. At about the same time the term was first applied metaphorically to a scene of wild uproar or confusion, its common meaning today.

In the eighteenth century, it became the custom of the upper classes to visit Bedlam to observe the antics of the insane patients as a form of amusement. It has been estimated that about 100,000 persons visited the hospital for this purpose in the course of a year. William Hogarth, known for his satirical paintings of society in this era, depicted fashionable ladies visiting Bedlam as a showplace. However, after an investigation in 1857, the hospital came under regular government inspection and has since been known for its enlightened treatment of the mentally ill.

 

Berserk – frenzied or crazed. The Old Norse berserkr is a compound of ber-, the root of bjorn, 'bear', plus serkr, 'shirt' (related to the English dialect word sark). Thus a Norse berserkr was a warrior who wore a bearskin shirt. In battle these warriors would work themselves into a frenzy and, according to popular belief, at such times they even became invulnerable to the effects of steel and fire. The word was borrowed into English in the early nineteenth century when literary interest in Scandinavian history and myth was high, and from the sense of a Scandinavian warrior frenzied in battle the word became a general term for someone whose actions are marked by reckless defiance.

Later in the nineteenth century berserk also began to be used as an adjective. In the United States this adjective began to gain considerable currency in the late 1930s, and in the Chicago Daily Tribune on 20 November 1940 an article headlined "America Goes Berserk" refers to "the recent addition of the word 'berserk,' as a synonym for crackpot behavior, to the slang of the young and untutored.... American stenographers... are telling one another not to be 'berserk."' Since then berserk has become a perfectly acceptable word no longer in the realm of slang.

 

Amok is similar in meaning to berserk and it has a similar origin. Surprisingly, however, it came into English from the other side of the world and at an earlier date, that is, in the seventeenth century from the Malay amok meaning 'a furious attack or charge'. A Malay would sometimes work himself into a frenzy of revenge and wildly attack his enemies, or even people at random when he was out of control. In English amok may be used to describe any action carried out or occurring in a violently raging or undisciplined manner, and is most common in the phrase "run amok."

 

Bunk – insincere foolish talk or nonsense. The word bunk in the meaning 'nonsense' is a shortened form of bunkum, a variant of buncombe, which in turn is the name of a county in North Carolina. So how did the name of a county come to be synonymous with nonsense? It may be said to have come about by an act of Congress. Around 1820 a congressman by the name of Felix Walker, who represented the district in which Buncombe County, North Carolina, was located, had stubbornly persisted in delivering an exceptionally long and wearisome speech to the sixteenth Congress despite the objections of his impatient colleagues. He later explained that he had been determined "to make a speech for Buncombe." His speech, then, was intended primarily to curry favor with his electors; whether or not it was relevant to the matter at hand was no concern of his. Buncombe, as well as its variant bunkum, quickly caught on as a synonym for meaningless political claptrap.

From political nonsense to any kind of insincere talk or action was but a short semantic step for buncombe. In Pudd'nhead Wilson, published in 1894, Mark Twain writes: "He said that he believed that the reward offered for the lost knife was humbug and buncombe." The shortened form, bunk, appeared about the year 1900 and is today the most common form.

 

Clue – a piece of evidence that leads one toward the solution of a problem. The first clue ever tracked was not a murder weapon but a simple ball of yarn. The detective was not a police officer but a Greek hero out to exterminate, rather than arrest, his quarry, which was not a human being but a monster.

 

At first, clue and clew were simply two spellings of the same word which originally meant 'ball', then later, especially 'a ball of yarn or thread'. Our modern sense of 'guide to the solution to a problem' comes from a legend. According to Greek mythology, King Minos of Crete avenged the murder of his son by the Athenians by periodically sacrificing seven maidens and seven youths to the Minotaur, a monster that was half man and half bull and that lived on human flesh. The hero Theseus, Duke of Athens, volunteered to deliver the next serving so that he could kill the Minotaur. Ariadne, Princess of Crete and half sister of the monster, fell in love with Theseus and gave him a clew of thread so that he might unwind it behind him as he searched the labyrinth where the monster lived and thus find his way out. Theseus did just that, but after killing the Minotaur he abandoned Ariadne on the voyage home, in a decidedly unheroic move.

In time, clew, and later clue, came to designate anything that helps to solve a problem, particularly a mystery. In America, we still call a ball of yarn a clew. The spelling clue evokes a different image, usually of detectives attempting to unravel a mystery.

 

Cop – a police officer. Several colorful stories circulate concerning the origin of cop. One is that cop was shortened from copper, a name given because the first London police (or members of some other early police force) wore large copper buttons on their uniforms. Another version has these officers wearing star-shaped copper shields. Details of such word origins vary freely, as the stories are their own justification and people who repeat them seldom see a need to offer supporting evidence. An entirely different approach to explaining cop is through the first letters of a phrase such as 'constable on patrol' or 'constabulary of police' or (least likely of all) 'chief of police'. This story has it that, in signing reports, policemen (presumably the same ones who wore the copper buttons or shields) abbreviated the official phrase beside the name, writing something like "John Smith, C.O.P."

The truth is simpler, if less entertaining. Around the year 1700 English gained a slang verb cop, meaning 'to get ahold of, catch, capture' and perhaps borrowed from Dutch. This word is somewhat unusual in having remained slang to this day, unlike most slang words which either die out or become more respectable over time. By 1844 cop is recorded in print as being used to refer to what police do to criminals, though it is probably somewhat older in speech. In very short order the -er agent suffix was added, and a policeman became a copper, one who cops or catches or arrests criminals. This usage first appeared in print in 1846. The connection with the metal copper must have been made almost at once in the popular mind, for a British newspaper reported in 1864 that "as they pass a policeman they will exhibit a copper coin, which is equivalent to calling the officer copper." The noun cop shortened from copper appeared in print in 1859.

 

Decimate – to reduce drastically or destroy a large part of. Any Roman soldiers who pondered mutiny had good reason to think twice. A technique used by the Roman army to keep mutinous units in line was to select one-tenth of the men by lot and execute them, thereby encouraging the remaining nine-tenths to follow orders. The Latin verb for this presumably effective form of punishment was decimare, literally 'to take a tenth of', which was derived from decimus, 'tenth', from decem, 'ten'.

 

The old Roman practice has not continued into modern times, of course, but its memorable ferocity has given us the verb decimate, which has been used in English since 1600. Decimate was originally used in historical reference to the Roman disciplinary procedure, but it soon came to be used more broadly in what is now its usual sense, 'to destroy a large part of', as in "the bombing decimated the city" or "the plague decimated the population." This new sense was first attested in 1667. Although it carries no suggestion of 'one tenth', it does retain clearly the overtones of extreme violence or terror associated with the original sense.

 

The Latin decimare was also used in the less ferocious sense 'to tax to the amount of one tenth', and decimate has sometimes had this sense in English, as when the poet John Dryden described someone as "poor as a decimated Cavalier." But the usual word describing a one-tenth tax in English is tithe, which functions as both a noun and a verb and which is derived from the Old English teogotha, a form of tenth. Tithe has had a strong religious connection throughout most of its history. Early use was in reference to the ten-percent tax paid (in money or in produce) by the ancient Hebrews in accordance with Mosaic law. A similar tax, also called a tithe, was required in support of parish churches in Britain until the middle of the nineteenth century. In current usage, tithe is perhaps most familiar in reference to voluntary contributions equal to one-tenth of one's income made in support of a church.

The meaning of the verb tithe has overlapped that of decimate more than once; it has had some use in describing the practice of putting to death every tenth man. And, more interestingly, tithe has also been used in a few instances in the opposite sense, in which every tenth man was spared. Tithe is also similar to decimate in having acquired an extended sense in which the etymological connection with 'one tenth' is lost; it is sometimes used to mean simply 'a small part'.

 

Dirge – a song or hymn of grief or lamentation. The meaning of English dirge is not directly related to the meaning of the Latin form from which it is derived. Dirge and its earlier form dirige, meaning 'a song or hymn of lamentation', come from the first word of a Latin antiphon used in the Office of the Dead: "Dirige, Domine deus meus, in conspectu tuo viam meam." (Direct, O Lord my God, my way in thy sight.) This adaptation from the Vulgate Bible of a portion of Psalm 5 opens the first nocturn of the service, and the first word of the Latin antiphon became the English generic term for a funeral hymn and subsequently for any slow, solemn, and mournful piece of music. (For another word derived from the use of a foreign word rather than from its meaning see SHIBBOLETH.)

 

The Latin dirige used in the Office of the Dead is a form of the verb dirigere, 'to direct, make straight', and there are several words in English that are derived in both form and meaning from this verb. For instance, combination with the English suffix -ible gives the adjective dirigible, meaning 'steerable'. A dirigible balloon, therefore, is a balloon that can be steered or directed. From this application of the adjective, dirigible has come to be used as a noun denoting the airship itself.

Less obviously derived from dirigere is our common verb dress. The considerable difference in the forms of these two words is due to the fact that dress comes indirectly from the Latin via Middle French dresser which can be traced through a series of sound changes to a Vulgar Latin verb derived from the Latin directus, the past participle of dirigere. Dress was first used in Middle English in the sense 'to make or set straight', which is familiar to us today especially from the related sense 'to arrange troops or equipment in a straight line and at proper intervals'. The implications of arranging something in proper order or fashion led to such senses as 'to put clothes on' and 'to kill and prepare an animal for market'.

 

Dollar – any of various basic monetary units. In the mountains of northwestern Bohemia, just a few kilometers south of the German-Czech border, is the small town of Jachymov. In the early sixteenth century, when the town was known by its German name, Sankt Joachimsthal, a silver mine was opened nearby and coins were minted to which the name joachimstaler was applied. In German this was shortened to taler. Shortly afterward the Dutch or Low German form daler was borrowed into English to refer to the taler and other coins (such as the Spanish peso) that were patterned after it.

In his autobiography Thomas Jefferson tells us that he proposed "to adopt the Dollar as our Unit of account and payment." In doing so Jefferson was simply recognizing that the Spanish dollar was already an important medium of exchange here because of trade with the West Indies. Accordingly, we find that on 6 July 1785 the Continental Congress resolved "that the money unit of the United States of America be one dollar."

 

Dream – a series of  thoughts, images, or emotions occurring during sleep. Not until the thirteenth century did dream, in the Middle English forms drem and dreem, appear in the sense of 'series of thoughts, images, or emotions occurring during sleep'; however, the word itself is considerably older. In Old English dream means 'joy', 'noise', or 'music'. Yet the shift in sense between Old and Middle English was not simply the result of an adaptation and specialization of the earlier senses. Rather it would appear that after many Scandinavian conflicts, conquests, and settlements in Britain the Old Norse draumr, meaning a dream during sleep, influenced the meaning of the similar and probably related English word. By the end of the fourteenth century the earlier meanings had been entirely replaced, and the modern extended senses of dream as 'an ideal' or 'something desirable' have since developed from the sense of a dream during sleep. See also NIGHTMARE.

 

Eavesdrop – to listen secretly to what is said in  private. The verb eavesdrop first appeared in the seventeenth century and is probably a back-formation by subtraction of its agent ending from the noun eavesdropper, which in turn is derived from the Middle English noun evesdrop, now spelled eavesdrop. Dating from the ninth century, eavesdrop and its variant eavesdrip referred to the water that falls in drops from the eaves of a house. Later the term was also applied to the ground on which water falls from the eaves. In English law the term came to denote a special permit that was formerly required before one could build so that water from one's eaves could fall directly on the land of another.

The original meaning of eavesdropper, as it was used in the fifteenth century, was 'one who stood within the eavesdrop of a house to overhear what is going on inside', as is evident in the following passage from Termes de la Ley, first compiled by John Rastell in 1527: "Evesdroppers are such as stand under walls or windows by night or day to hear news, and to carry them to others, to make strife and debate amongst their neighbours: those are evil members in the commonwealth, and therefore... are to be punished." From such beginnings sprang the word which has come to be applied to the sophisticated electronic eavesdropping carried on by governmental agencies today.

 

Feisty – having or showing a lively aggressiveness. The word fist (pronounced with a long \i\ as in ice) appeared as both noun 'a breaking of wind, a foul smell' and verb 'to break wind' around 1440. Because fisting is attested as early as the year 1000, there probably was a verb fistan 'to break wind' in Old English. By the sixteenth century the participle fisting had become common in contemptuous expressions for a small dog, such as "fisting cur," "fisting hound," and "fisting dog."

 

Although fist and fisting have since become obsolete, a variant form of the noun, feist, continues in use chiefly in the Southern and Midland dialect areas of the U.S. in reference to a small mongrel dog. Since such dogs tend to be nervous and temperamental, feist gave rise to the adjective feisty, which was applied to lively, fidgety, or quarrelsome people. Such usage dates from about 1895. In general American usage, feisty is applied chiefly to someone who shows a lively aggressiveness, such as in this sentence by Sally Quinn in We're Going to Make You a Star (1975): "She's a feisty, gutsy, bright, funny dame who doesn't mince words."

 

Gossip – rumor or report of an intimate nature. In Old English sibb occurs as a noun meaning 'kinship' and as an adjective meaning 'related by blood or kinship'. A modern descendant of sibb is sibling, 'one of two or more persons who have the same parents'. By the eleventh century a compound had been formed from the noun sibb prefixed by god, the ancestor of Modern English god. A godsibb, therefore, was a person spiritually related to another, specifically by being a sponsor at baptism. Today we would call such a person a godmother or godfather, using god in the same way.

By the fourteenth century the d had begun to disappear in both pronunciation and spelling, and godsibb developed into gossib and then gossip, the form which is used today. The meaning, too, had begun to change, and the sense of gossip as a close friend or comrade developed alongside the sense of a godparent. Chaucer's Wife of Bath tells her fellow-pilgrims on the road to Canterbury of having once gone walking with a lover and "my gossib dame Alys." From there it was only a short step to the gossip of today, a person no longer necessarily friend, relative, or sponsor, but someone filled with irresistible tidbits of rumor.

 

Guy – a man or person. On 4 November 1605 in London, Guy Fawkes was arrested and later executed for having planted some twenty barrels of gunpowder in the cellars of the Houses of Parliament as his part in a conspiracy to blow up the Parliament buildings on the following day. The failure of this conspiracy, now known as the Gunpowder Plot, is still celebrated in England on 5 November, Guy Fawkes Day. On this day bonfires are lit and fireworks displayed, and on the bonfires are burned effigies of Guy Fawkes made from old tattered clothes stuffed with straw or rags. As early as 1806 these effigies had come to be called guys.

On the days before 5 November children in England can still be seen in the streets with their guys asking passersby to give "a penny for the guy" in order to buy fireworks. The use of this word was extended to other similar effigies and then to a person of grotesque appearance or dress. In the United States by the middle of the nineteenth century guy had been generalized to mean simply 'man' or 'fellow' and its pejorative connotations were lost.

 

Gymnasium – a large room or building used for various indoor sports. The ancient Greeks placed a high value on both physical and mental fitness. Each important city in Greece had a public area set aside in which young men would gather to exercise, compete in sports, and receive training in philosophy, music, and literature. Living in a warm climate and not wanting to be encumbered in their activities by unnecessary clothing, the Greeks would typically do their exercising in the nude. The name given to the exercise area was therefore gymnasion, literally 'school for naked exercise', from the verb gymnazein, 'to exercise naked', a derivative of the adjective gymnos, 'naked'.

The Greek gymnasion became the Latin gymnasium, which was used in two distinct senses to mean both 'an exercise ground' and 'a public school'. Gymnasium was first used in English at the end of the sixteenth century. As an English word, now often shortened to gym, it has entirely lost its original connotations of nakedness. Its principal use is to denote a large room with special equipment for various athletic activities (such as gymnastics, from the Greek gymnastes, 'trainer in a gymnasium') or for playing indoor sports (such as basketball or volleyball).

 

The English gymnasium has also lost the scholarly connotations of its Greek and Latin sources; very little training in philosophy, music, and literature is likely to occur in the typical American gym. In German-speaking countries, however, the 'school' sense of the Latin word has been kept alive through the use of gymnasium to mean 'a secondary school preparing students for the university'.

 

Gypsy – a member of a traditionally itinerant people who originated in northern India and now live chiefly in Asia, Europe, and North America. In the early years of the sixteenth century there began to appear in Britain some members of a wandering race of people who were ultimately of Hindu origin and who called themselves and their language Romany. In Britain, however, it was popularly believed that they came from Egypt, and thus they were called Egipcyans. This soon became shortened to Gipcyan, and by the year 1600 the further altered form Gipsy, Gypsey began to appear in print. The earliest known example is in Shakespeare's As You Like It, where two pages undertake to sing a ditty "both in a tune, like two gipsies on a horse."

In France it was thought that these same people came from Bohemia and thus they were called Bohemes. This was translated into English as Bohemian and was originally used synonymously with Gypsy. In Sir Walter Scott's novel Quentin Durward (1823) one of the Gypsy characters says, "I am a Zingaro, a Bohemian, an Egyptian, or whatever the Europeans... may choose to call me; but I have no country." The extended sense of bohemian, 'a person living an unconventional life', was first introduced into literature in William Thackeray's Vanity Fair (1848): "She was of a wild, roving nature, inherited from father and mother, who were both Bohemians, by taste and circumstance."

 

Handicap – a disadvantage that makes achievement unusually difficult. "Here some of us fell to handicap, a sport that I never knew before, which was very good," Samuel Pepys reported to his diary on 18 September 1660. Handicap, from hand in cap, was an old form of barter. Two men who wished to make an exchange asked a third to act as umpire. All three put forfeit money in a hat or cap, into which each of the two barterers inserted a hand. The umpire described the goods to be traded and set the additional amount the owner of the inferior article should pay the other in order that the exchange might be equitable. The barterers withdrew their hands from the hat empty to signify refusal of the umpire's decision, or full to indicate acceptance. If both hands were full, the exchange was made and the umpire pocketed the forfeit money; if both were empty, the umpire took the forfeit but there was no exchange. Otherwise, each barterer kept his own property, and the one who had accepted the umpire's decision took the forfeit money as well.

 

A similar exchange was described by William Langland in Piers Plowman late in the fourteenth century. Hikke the hostler traded his hood for the cloak of Clement the cobbler. Robyn the ropemaker, as umpire, declared Hikke's additional obligation to Clement to be a cup of ale. Had either refused, he would have forfeited a gallon of ale.

As early as the late seventeenth century, there was in England a kind of horse race arranged in accordance with the rules of handicap. For this handicap match or handicap race (the name is not recorded before the mid-eighteenth century) the umpire determined the additional weight that the better horse should carry. Handicap horse races are still run today in this same manner. In time the term was extended to other contests, and handicap came to signify the advantage or disadvantage imposed.

 

Idiot – a foolish or stupid person. To say a person is "his own man" is certainly not to insult him. To call him an idiot is quite another thing. The Greek adjective idios means 'one's own' or 'private'. The derivative noun idiotes means 'private person'. A Greek idiotes, however, was not "his own man" in the way we mean that phrase today. He was simply a person who was not in the public eye, who held no public office. From this sense came the sense 'common man', and later 'ignorant person'--a natural extension, for the common people of Greece were not, in general, particularly learned. The word was borrowed from Greek into Latin as idiota, whence French has idiote, which in turn became a loanword in English in the thirteenth century.

 

The milder meaning of idiot, 'ignorant person', is obsolete. But John Capgrave, in the middle of the fifteenth century, could speak of Christ's apostles as idiots and never fear the wrath of the church: "Ryght as be twelue ydiotes, sent Austin [Saint Augustine] seyth, hee meneth the apostellis, for thei not lerned were." By carrying ignorance to extremes, we arrive at the idiot who is mentally deficient. An English lawyer, Henry Swinburne, defined this idiot, in 1590: "An Idiote, or a naturall foole is he, who notwithstanding he bee of lawfull age, yet he is so witless, that hee can not number to twentie, nor can tell what age he is of, nor knoweth who is his father, or mother, nor is able to answer to any such easie question."

The word private itself, though in some uses it suggests the sign on the boss's office, has fallen to a low estate in the military sphere, where it denotes the lowest rank. Private comes from Latin privatus, which as a noun is a near synonym of the Greek idiotes. In formation the word is a past participle of privare, 'to deprive, relieve'. Privatus, used as an adjective, had already in Latin the more or less contrary connotations of our own private. It could refer to private property (cut off from the public) or to unofficial, merely individual, and thus often subordinate status (cut off from public office).

 

Jeep – a small general-purpose motor vehicle used by the U.S. army. In March 1936 in newspapers across the country, Popeye's girl-friend, Olive Oyl, was delivered a box labeled "Eugene the Jeep" and containing a small animal. Eugene turned out to be a friendly little creature which made the sound "jeep." He was able to foretell the future, and when asked a question he always gave a truthful answer, indicated by wiggling his tail. Elzie C. Segar, creator of the comic strip Thimble Theater into which Popeye was introduced in 1929, continued the story of the Jeep throughout much of the year 1936.

In 1937 work was begun by several manufacturers to develop an all-purpose vehicle for military use. When the vehicle was ready, it was apparently designated g.p. for general purpose. Probably under the influence of the famous Eugene the Jeep the pronunciation of the letters g.p. became shortened to one syllable and the spelling jeep was adopted. For a similar alteration compare the spelling and pronunciation of veep, from v.p., an abbreviation of vice president.

 

Lunatic – an insane or wildly foolish person. The ancient Romans believed that some people's minds and behavior were affected by the different phases of the moon and that they were at their worst during a full moon but normal during a new moon. The Latin adjective describing such a person was lunaticus, which was derived from the noun luna 'moon'. This adjective became lunatique in Old French and passed into thirteenth-century Middle English as lunatik. Since the eighteenth century it has been spelled lunatic. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, lunatic was used for people who were insane some of the time yet had periods of normal behavior.

 

In the medical and legal literature of the eighteenth century a distinction was often made between the lunatic and the insane. The insane person suffered from chronic dementia, while the lunatic had lucid intervals and his condition was exacerbated by phases of the moon. While it is no longer used in medical and legal contexts, in the general vocabulary lunatic remains as a common term for a crazy or wildly foolish person.

The word for 'lunatic' in several other languages has a similar etymology. The Italian lunatico, the Spanish alunado, and the German mondsuchtig all mean 'moonstruck'.

 

Nightmare – a frightening dream that usually awakens the sleeper. Because of the similarity in form between the second element of the compound nightmare and mare, meaning 'a female horse', many people have assumed a connection between the two. Actually the -mare of nightmare is a survival of another word mare found in Old English as early as the eighth century but obsolete by the eighteenth. Old English mare means 'an evil spirit or incubus thought to oppress people during sleep'. The compound nightmare first appears in Middle English in the thirteenth century, in a sense much the same as mare in Old English. Not until the sixteenth century was the meaning of nightmare extended to refer to a frightening or oppressive dream, probably from the belief or suggestion that such dreams were caused by evil spirits. See also DREAM.