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Etymology scriptorium

Welcome to the Etymology scriptorium. This is the place to cogitate on etymological aspects of the Wiktionary entries.

Etymology scriptorium archives edit
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February 2025

Could've the navajo word tłʼízí (goat), be derived from the root -TŁʼIS (to compact, to harden)?

Could've the navajo word tłʼízí (goat), be derived from the root -TŁʼIS (to compact, to harden) with the nominalizer -í? In the sense that a goat's horns are hard to the touch or when they butt you the impact feels hard? -TŁʼIS + -í. 38.43.32.97 18:15, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

You just asked this last month. It's doubtful you would get any better responses this time. Wakuran (talk) 21:57, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Ok 2600:387:15:1716:0:0:0:9 23:49, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

But, is it plausible? The s turns into z whenever there are two front vowels surrounding it in Navajo. 2600:387:15:1716:0:0:0:9 23:50, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Maybe. I just put this question out there so I could update the page for that word. 38.43.32.97 01:42, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

it needs to be more than plausible (and i don't think it is). if it is not an already established etymology you need academic sources as support. Griffon77 (talk) 22:02, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Suvla

Bay in Turkey made famous in WW1. Greek σούβλα (soúvla) means skewer, which might refer to the Gallipoli Peninsula - long, thin and pointed. w:Suvla doesn't seem to mean anything in Turkish, so a Byzantine origin seems reasonable. 24.108.0.44 01:01, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Kerdipole

could this be Sanskrit कृति (kṛti) + पालि (pāli) 203.30.15.177 05:21, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

You'd have to look at how other known Sanskrit loanwords came out, though the second part of your derivation looks pretty random to me. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:48, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

I have been looking, this one is not so clear as the other names which Adams provides something like a BHS transliteration, and I'm not an expert in Kuchean or Sanskrit lemmas, hence the question. This is the best I could find but if anyone has a less "random" suggestion I'd like to hear it. Griffon77 (talk) 06:43, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Looks similar to greek to me. Pole means town, and Kerdi seems similar to the word for victory. Also pole is always used as a suffix in town names, such as in Constantino-p(o)le.

I tried to see what Kerdipole means, but the only information I have found is that it is a Tocharian B word, and nothing else. If the meaning was similar, then maybe we could form some kind of conclusion, but without extra information there's not much I can say. 2.218.95.93 16:52, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Douglas Adams says PN in graffito, in A dictionary of Tocharian B‎^[1], 1999. I can't find any given names in -polis, nor any place Kerdipole. If there was a Geco-Bactrian Kerdipole, it may be explained as parochialism in graffiti, but no-one has uploaded it in a searchable form. Perhaps the spelling is sufficiently different. What word for victory do you mean?. While Greek name elements do appear in Kuchean graffiti, so far this doesn't appear to be one of them. Griffon77 (talk) 07:22, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

union suit

Is this so named because it's a union of a shirt and pants into one garment? - -sche (discuss) 08:39, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

I’ve only VHO the phrase ‘union suit’ but I suspect so. In any case, I have added it to Thesaurus:one-piece suit Overlordnat1 (talk) 11:17, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

What does VHO mean? Neither we nor Wikipedia has an entry for it. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:21, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

It stands for ‘vaguely heard of’, it’s part of the Times crossword blog jargon (it’s used along with NHO (not heard of) at the following website[2]). Overlordnat1 (talk) 14:49, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

अचकन (ackan)

What's the etymology for this word? Thank you. Duchuyfootball (talk) 14:54, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

I looked at McGregor's Hindi dictionary and Platt's Urdu dictionary but they don't give an etymology. Exarchus (talk) 15:13, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Latin ustulō sēmustulō

<< uro, ustus ; to burn lightly, singe, ...From a diminutive pp participle (*ustulus) ?; see acutulus, argutulus, pressulus. If so, likely through analogy with aemulor, postulo, modulor and co, though I have not yet found any other verb which shows 'diminutive' meaning with said suffixed ending but *praeustulo (praeuro?), of the same cru, see *prustulo brustolare, brûler. Saumache (talk) 16:26, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Where does the Hawaiian word "Ke" or Maori word "Te" Come from?

Is the word originated from the english word "The" or It's not from English? วัศย์รุจ ปริญญาวุฒิชัย (talk) 04:42, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

The sound changes that produced Samoan le and Hawaiian ke would have taken some time, so they aren't from English (the ancestor can be reconstructed to Proto-Polynesian, which means it's been around since before modern English existed). The Polynesian languages have very small consonant inventories and very simple syllable structures, so coincidental resemblance with other languages is even more likely than usual. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:26, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

How do you think this word in Proto-Polynesian looks like?

It might be "*te", or it's not? วัศย์รุจ ปริญญาวุฒิชัย (talk) 05:00, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

See the POLLEX entry. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:04, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Greek names beginning Ἀγησί-

If Ἡγησῐπῠ́λη • (Hēgēsĭpŭ́lē) is from ἥγησῐς (hḗgēsĭs, “command”) +‎ πῠ́λη (pŭ́lē, “gate”). then aren't all the names beginning Ἀγησί 'Agesi- (e.g. Ἀγησίλαος (Agēsílaos)/Ᾱ̔γησῐ́λᾱος (Hāgēsĭ́lāos), Ᾱ̔γησῐ́λᾱς (Hāgēsĭ́lās) —Doric /Ἡγησῐ́λεως (Hēgēsĭ́leōs) Attic) logically linked to ἥγησῐς (hḗgēsĭs, “command”) instead of ἄγω (ágō, “to lead”) as well? There doesn't seem to be any connection between ago and 'agesi- except a tenuous connection through hegesis. 203.30.15.177 20:09, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, especially if that initial alpha is definitely long, it's far more likely to be from ἡγέομαι (hēgéomai) than from ἄγω (ágō). —Mahāgaja · talk 20:15, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Tapchan

Is Turkestanian Tapchan related to Russian топчан (topčan) and Ukrainian тапчан (tapčan)? Tollef Salemann (talk) 20:32, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Probably, especially if they mean the same thing, but there's no language called "Turkestanian". Do you mean Turkmen? Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, and Uyghur are also Turkic languages spoken in the area vaguely called Turkestan. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:35, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

I mean tapchan used in countries of southern Turkestan according to Wikipedia (I haven’t seen it in real life). Not everywhere they call it tapchan maybe, but the English word for it given in Wikipedia is tapchan. Tollef Salemann (talk) 12:12, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

They are not the same thing, but you can sit or sleep on them. Tollef Salemann (talk) 12:13, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Tapchan seems to certainly be Uzbek/Tajik, тўпчон/tupchon may be a southern Uzbek dialect variant according to chat gpt, but it can't provide sources. https://ctild.indiana.edu/Main/Uzbek-EnglishDictionary is the only reliable online reference I can find. Griffon77 (talk) 13:32, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Can't find it on Google, but I'm sure that there should be some dialectal variations. Tajik is not related to Uzbek, but they share many words, and they surely have dialects. Tollef Salemann (talk) 18:04, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Tajik and Uzbek were a diglossia spoken in the same area. Shared words like tapchan are going to vary by region, not whether the user is a primary Tajik or Uzbek speaker. BTW the CTILD dictionary defines it as an earthen platform, not wooden. Griffon77 (talk) 05:45, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Read the source I added to learn the origin. Vahag (talk) 10:22, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Thank you very much for such source! It was very helpful!

MLK

brain#translations has Ugaritic 𐎎𐎍𐎋 (mlk) added by @Rudi Laschenkohl in diff.

The entry does not say so. The words for brain or marrow with Semitic cognates are 𐎎𐎈 (mḥ) and 𐎎𐎎𐎓 (mmʿ) ({{R:uga:DUL-3}}). Militarev & Kogan ({{R:sem-pro:SED}} Vol. 1, Anatomy of man and animals) do not have it.

@Rudi has ben called to attention before. I RfE this because it looks like it would be from *malk "king" and I imagine it could be a metaphor or a transparent construction from something else. I am not sure we do RfV for translations. Perhaps it should be speedied. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 20:33, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Tagus, river of gorges

Indecision on this, and none of the present suggestions very convincing. But a source shared with Welsh tagu (“choke”) (referring to the gorges present on much of the river), ie Proto-Celtic *taketi is very possible, more so than the one deriving it from the same root as stagnum (which is difficult semantically, and related Celtic words are borrowed from Latin) or Greek ταγός (tagós, “chief”), which has no Celtic cognates. Tagus, River of Gorges...thoughts? 24.108.0.44 03:54, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Δείναρχος (Deínarkhos)

The listing says from Ancient Greek δεινός (deinós, “terrible; mighty, powerful”), but the accented ί suggests it might be rather Ancient Greek δεῖνος (deînos, “drinking cup”), analogous with Sanskrit पात्र (pātra, “drinking bowl, patera”) as a name element Griffon77 (talk) 06:38, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Not really. Accent in Ancient Greek compounds is not correlated with the accent of the individual words that make up the compound. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:32, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

πειθός (peithós)

According to the entry under Proto-Indo-European *bʰeydʰ- this is a derivative of the stem with *-ós e-grade adjective suffix, but the entry for Ancient Greek πειθός (peithós) says its an Alternative form of πιθανός (pithanós), with a different etymology. Proto-Indo-European *bʰeydʰ- also gives a different range of meanings for πειθός (peithós). Now I know there are a LOT of these inconsistencies around (there are more in the derivatives of this stem alone), but shouldn't there be some agreement between them? Should this be fixed with something like (from Proto-Hellenic *peitʰós from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeydʰ- +‎ Proto-Indo-European *-ós e-grade adjective), or left alone? Griffon77 (talk) 14:50, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Saying something is an alt form of something else doesn't mean they necessarily have the same etymology. These forms are both from *bʰeydʰ-, but one is an e-grade noun with no suffix and the other is a suffixed zero-grade form. If you prefer, we could call πειθός (peithós) a {{synonym of}} rather than an {{alt form of}}, but I don't think it's a big deal to leave it as is. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:59, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

should the etymology and different range of meaning be added while leaving the "alt form" then? Griffon77 (talk) 09:32, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Ancient Greek proper nouns ending -φᾰ́νης

Shouldn't these be referred to φᾱνός (phānós) +‎ -ης (-ēs) which "forms third-declension proper nouns" rather than -φανής (-phanḗs), as the accent is on the alpha rather than the epsilon? Griffon77 (talk) 16:45, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Since they have a short alpha, they're unlikely to be from φᾱνός (phānós). I'd say we should move the entry from -φανής (-phanḗs) to -φανης (-phanēs) and give a usage note explaining that proper nouns using this combining form are paroxytones while adjectives are oxytones. —Mahāgaja · talk 18:20, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

a usage note on Ancient Greek -φανής (-phanḗs) would be sufficient, and less work. Griffon77 (talk) 05:55, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

/kælæb/kælæv/ or /kalb/?

/kælæb/kælæv/ or /kalb/ for the biblical pronunciation of כלב? There were some people edit warring over this, so, who's right? or are they both and they are both dialectal pronunciations? this warring also has been happening with a lot of nouns that start with kaph lamedh/kaph bet. See כבש, which has had it's biblical pronunciation changed repeatedly to /kavʃ/ by IP users that share my IP. 38.43.32.97 22:00, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Certainly /kælæv/ in its last centuries before dying out. I mean we have copious transcription content of proper nouns and the like. In the Septuagint time it started. We already discussed it few times. User talk:Terra-Rywko § Hebrew Pronunciation four years ago, there we have it. I am honestly annoyed that we constantly beginn from zero with people equating biblical Hebrew with earliest attested, pre-Mosaic pronunciation. Even though, as a realist, I also prefer Imperial Latin to so-called Classical Latin, this Torahist larp is patently off the wall more than just a preference. Fay Freak (talk) 22:37, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

do like they do for ancient Greek and show a pronunciation progression from Pre-Mosaic to Biblical, Mishnaic and Rabbinic so everyone is satisfied. There's probably a comparable liturgical Cyrenaic/Egyptian dialect represented by the proper nouns in the Septuagint. To be really thorough you can throw in the 1st century Jerusalem area dialect as in some inscriptions and dead sea scrolls. Griffon77 (talk) 05:18, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Is proto turkic Proto-Turkic *yaŋïl- the causative of Proto-Turkic *yan-?

I noticed that turkish yanılmak is yanmak + the causative suffix

see Proto-Turkic *-l Zbutie3.14 (talk) 00:14, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

The causative of yanmak is yandırmak. The suffix -ıl suggests a passive sense (abartmak → abartılmak; boşaltmak → boşaltılmak; canlanmak → canlanılmak; ...) But, since yanmak has only intransitive senses, it has no passive. In fact, it may be viewed itself as a passive, namely of yakmak. Note also the difference between the nasal consonants in Proto-Turkic *yan- and *yaŋïl-.  --Lambiam 20:24, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Neisse~Nysa~Naissus

The river Neisse seems always to have had a sibilant as its second consonant, both in German (Neisse) and Polish (Nysa). An interesting possibility is offered by Niš, formerly Naissus. w:Niš#Name tells us that this derives from *Nāviskos, from *Nāvia ("trough valley"). Compare Proto-Celtic *nāwā (“boat,vessel”); the Neisse source at w:Nová Ves nad Nisou is in Bohemia, which was the territory of the Celtic w:Boii, so a Celtic origin is possible. Semantics: vessel can apply to landforms, as with Naissus. Neisse=trough...? 24.108.0.44 23:24, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Anna Oczko's discussion of Toponymic unity of the Carpathian region (Folia Linguistica 2024; 58(3): 729–750) does not mention Celtic and no Neisse. There is Italo-Celtic through the Romanian language. There is one example with the preposition na still visible, "Na grapě," and Slavic *izvorъ "mountain stream", "water spring" is one of the two most common hydrographic terms under discussion. If Na might be from **neh₂- from the u-stem *neh₂u-? Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 02:38, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

The Carpathian region is nowhere near where we are taliking about, and neither is the Romaanian language. We are talking (in modern terms) about Czech Republic and Silesia (SW Poland). The Celtic Boii tribe inhabited some of this area in ancient times, and left traces in place names eg Bohemia. 24.108.0.44 06:19, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

I confused it and comitted because the error margin should be wide enough by the time you concider Celtic hydronyms. The source region called Góry Izerskie (Lusatian Neisse) in the western Sudetes, some articles claim cognateship with the IJssel. That sounds at least similar to Proto-Slavic *jьzvorъ. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 06:06, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

No problem, stuff like this can be complicated. I will post this stuff to Wiktionary presently, do you have any suggestions? 24.108.0.44 17:13, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

You are missing the caveat of potentially Albanian intermission (according to Matzinger in the Wikipedia article) and you are plainly contradicting yourself when a river in Bulgaria stands model but the northern Carpathian is too far from the Jizera mountains. German Wikipedia is unironically funny about the Jizera, too. It's not complicated, it's simply uncertain to the point of speculation. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 01:01, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Asking RfE and comitting with no source when nobody responds is not bold, it's basically spam. Saying "as discussed at Scriptorium" in the edit when there was evidently no discussion to warrant inclusion is delusional, to be frank. Admins passing by adding RfE after the RfE is petty. I would urge you to remove it but I am not going to revert @Chuck Entz and @Surjection. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 21:59, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

I can't speak for Surjection, but my only contribution as far as I'm aware was to fix a language code in one template that was mis-categorizing the entry as a Latin term. I do that all the time, and not just for etymologies I disagree with (for the record, I do disagree with this one, though). Chuck Entz (talk) 22:19, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Μαυρίκιος (Mauríkios)

this listing has a circular etymology Ancient Greek Μαυρίκιος (Mauríkios)>>Latin Mauricius>>Μαυρίκιος (Mauríkios). the related listing Mauritius (alt form of Mauricius) apparently needs to broken up into two language sections with separate etymologies. Griffon77 (talk) 04:21, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

It actually derives from the Roman name Maurus, from Greek, from ἀμαυρός (dark). The first one I can find is Saint Maurus of Parentium (3rd century). 24.108.0.44 06:35, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

With the Ancient Greek name Μαῦρος (Maûros), meaning "Mauretanian, "Moorish", as an intermediate.  --Lambiam 19:55, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Wiktionary says "late" classical for ἀμαυρός (amaurós), so did no-one realise that it's just the Amazigh word for "land, homeland"? ⴰⵎⵓⵔ (amur) Griffon77 (talk) 00:14, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Erm, what? Nicodene (talk) 00:26, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

If we can equate Mauricius and Mauritius, then, given that the first known bearer of the name, Saint Maurice, was from Roman Egypt, where Koine was the lingua franca, it is IMO more likely that Mauricius is the Latin adaptation of the Greek name than the other way around. The next known bearer, Byzantine Emperor Maurice, was even ethnically Greek.  --Lambiam 20:26, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

The progression Maurus > Mauricus (attested) > Mauricius would be quite ordinary in Latin onomastics, at least. Would it be so in Greek?

As for the interplay Mauricius~Mauritius, that would be due to ongoing palatalization.

Nicodene (talk) 01:29, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Μαύρικος is mentioned by Plutarch, so it was used at least once. Mauricius/Μαυρίκιος though is the (at least adopted) nomen gentilis of the emperor, whose regnal name is Caesar Flavius Tiberias Mauricius (or Mauricius Tiberius, as the adopted son of Tiberius). If St Maurice was a Roman general, and not a legendary figure, then it would again most likely be his nomen, not praenomen, but the details of the saints lives are vague and likely apocryphal. The names amount to no more than calling them "St. Moor, or "St. African" Griffon77 (talk) 07:29, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

This is an era when a succession of military men of humble or foreign origin rise through the ranks to magister militum or emperor. Many were not Roman in origin and adopted both a Roman praenomen (very often Flavius) and nomen as they rose in the ranks. this emperors original name may have been merely Μαύρικος, turned into a surname Mauricius to go with his new praenomen Flavius. This is just speculation however. Griffon77 (talk) 07:43, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Μενέσαιχμος (Menésaikhmos)

a variant of Μέναιχμος (Ménaikhmos)? Griffon77 (talk) 05:33, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

The harvestman ‘spider’

Harvestmen or harvest spiders are a type of arachnid, popularly called “daddy long-legs”, but reportedly also “shepherd spiders” among many other names in English. The reason for their association with harvesting farmers is not obvious and has generated a plethora of speculation, making its way into the literature where there seems to be little consensus. Whatever the explanation, it has to make sense in the context of the many European languages which also name harvestmen in a similar way; I have already listed some of these at harvestman. So, I am not just concerned with the English word here. In addition to those, note also:

• The taxonym Opiliones for the biological order to which harvestmen belong, from Latin ōpiliō (“shepherd”). At first I thought English shepherd spider was a calque of this (compare Portuguese opilião, Spanish opilión, etc.: New Latin borrowings), but, since English naturalist Martin Lister coined the word (it wasn't an original meaning of the Latin word), the New Latin was calqued from English. That begs the question: where did shepherd spider come from? Based on similar cases below, I'm forced to assume that it's an extension of older harvestman after the latter had become semantically opaque. This also fits with shepherd spider containing the additional qualifier of spider. However, it is paralleled by Dutch koewachter (literally “cowherd”).
• The taxonym Laniatores (a sub-order of Opiliones), from Latin laniātor (“butcher”); why was it named this? Probably another calque—was German the source?
• Swedish lockespindel (literally “lock-spider?”)

I'm unsure if the latter two are even relevant, but the above have ended up being some of the most mysterious parts of all this.

Explanations for the semantics of the English word have included:

• The scythe-like shape of their legs

  I find this the simplest, most intuitive and most reasonable explanation, and it fits best with the semantics for the greatest number of languages. Russian коси-ножка (kosi-nožka) (= the stem of косить (kositʹ, “to mow, cut”) + ножка (nožka, “little leg”)) appears to be a verifying example of the meronymy, and Hungarian kaszás-pók (“scyther-spider”) also at least comes close. The Slavic languages fairly consistently derive the name from *kosà (“scythe”), though more often indirectly as deverbal agent nouns via *kosìti (“to mow, reap”, etc.). German Schneider (literally “cutter”), Swiss German Zimmermann (literally “carpenter”) (coined by analogy with the former?), Welsh teiliwr (literally “tailor”) and Hebrew קוצר (kotsér, literally “shortener; (by extension) reaper”) all corroborate the notion that the central theme is the act of cutting, if not a sharp cutting edge. (Interestingly, Schneider can also mean “tailor”, like the Welsh.) It is just slightly perplexing that more languages don't call harvestmen spiders “scythe-leg” or *“scythe-spider” as you would therefore expect—just “scyther”, or more generically “reaper”, “harvester”, “haymaker”; Dutch apparently takes it to even greater abstraction with “hay-wagon”, for which I know of no explanation. The overwhelming trend is to refer to them by an agent noun for someone who cuts as part of their profession.

• The observation that they appear during the harvest season

  This is at least superficially supported by Spanish agostero, from agosto (“August”), and Irish Pilib an fhómhair (literally “Philip of the harvest/autumn”). Some sources say this explanation is unlikely because there's no particular reason to encounter the creatures more during this time of year, but this on its own doesn't rule it out. Maybe they're attracted to piles of harvested grain crops and fresh hay (which would provide a humid temporary shelter and hiding spot in which to catch prey), or they feed on other insects which are attracted to the hay (such as detritivores; note that harvestmen are themselves detritivores and will eat fungi, which would thrive in a damp hay pile, as well as dead insects which might have been living on the stalks). This or a number of other factors might make them seem to appear suddenly around harvest time in an agricultural setting, but I admit it's a stretch given the better option above.

  However, we might expect different names if this etymology is correct: why aren't there more languages that unambiguously name them directly after a word for “harvest” or “harvest season” rather than “harvester” (often etymologically unrelated, as we saw with the latter in Slavic ⇐ “scythe”), such as from Proto-Slavic *(j)esenь or Latin autumnus? It thus makes more sense to presume agostero is based on semantic extension of an earlier word meaning “harvester”, like segador, and that the Irish is calqued from English.

• An alleged superstition that killing harvestmen leads to a bad harvest (see Opiliones § Etymology on Wikipedia.Wikipedia )

  The existence of such a belief is hard to verify, and, even if did exist, was probably too regional to explain the wide-ranging semantic equivalents (Wikipedia just says “in England”—not a good sign). Also, it doesn't really explain the name; they're not called *“harvest-bringer” or anything that would imply they're the lifeblood of a good harvest, nor are they *“famine-bringer” or anything of the sort with negative/ominous connotation.

• An association with the “Grim Reaper”

  Probably even less likely than the above, considering that they do no harm to humans and are not otherwise associated with death; and they're not called “grim reaper” or even “reaper” in English.

• That they exhibit a kind of “harvesting” behavior with prey insects

  Not supported by either semantics (insects are not like crops) or ethology (they aren't known to do anything like this).

• Resemblance to stilt-walkers, which sometimes included shepherds who would use stilts to expand their field of vision (mentioned on Wikipedia at the end of the lead section of Opiliones (edit: moved to § Etymology))

  For a brief moment this seemed surprisingly promising, as this practice really did exist in southwestern France. But it does not appear that the stilt technique used to be any more widespread than the Landes region or its immediate vicinity, and it's about shepherds, not harvesters. Plus, if stilts used to be a commonplace sight, why not *“stilt-leg” or *“stilt-spider”? Finally, the obvious (and far more widespread, better historically attested) user of stilts is a performer, not a farmer.

Anyway, I hope something will come out of posing the problem here, though I might not have left much to say… but if you have any good etymological sources, or answers to my questions at the top, that would be greatly appreciated and justify this silly post. Maybe someone finds this useful someday. A Reddit thread from the Pandemic era generated some discussion and a handful of comparanda but has been otherwise disappointingly unfruitful. I'm somewhat surprised it hasn't been discussed on Wiktionary before. And I'm annoyed that dictionaries haven't reached a consensus (nor has Wikipedia internally). Surely it can't be such a mystery, when so many languages do it! — Ganjabarah (talk) 07:22, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Edit: In hindsight, the superstition about killing harvestmen is pretty clearly based on the word itself. And it may have originated as a joke or folk etymology. — Ganjabarah (talk) 07:54, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

After you figure this one out, maybe you could turn your attention to the question why ladybugs/ladybirds have names associated with the holy or divine in so many languages. Most European languages as well as Japanese name them something associated with God or the Virgin Mary, Hebrew and Yiddish name them after Moses, Korean names them after shamans, etc. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:46, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Oh yeah, that's bugged me for a while… pun unintended. I think the “harvestman” question is solved and it was just a matter of seeing past the pervasive folk etymologies—but there are other words for this arachnid that are much more opaque and interesting, some of them with a similar religious overtone. I'm finding that many words for critters have Biblical names, but I'm guessing it's just because those are the most common names (e.g. English naming lots of plants and animals “John” (more often “Jack”) or “Joe”; Irish doing the same with Pilib (“Philip”)). It could be that the Holy Mary ladybug was originally just a townsfolk-level “Mary”, but that people couldn't help but generate a superstitious narrative given the spiritual importance of the name; I'm not sure. But yes, that is a good suggestion. :) — Ganjabarah (talk) 09:02, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Edit 2: I think I had an epiphany about shepherd spider: it could be confusion with the imagery of a shepherd's crook, which can be similar in shape to a scythe. (See here for the scythe shape on a harvestman's legs.) So the semantic development could just have been from one type of “farmer holding a long stick with an inward-curving end” to another. — Ganjabarah (talk) 09:29, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Same goes for Dutch koewachter (“cowherd”), though it's getting harder to make my case. These semantic shifts must have happened centuries ago. — Ganjabarah (talk) 10:01, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

I recall an explanation that "lockespindel" isn't derived from "(hair)lock" (Swedish has lock and hårlock), but that it was an old nickname for the Devil. I can see if I can find a good source. Wakuran (talk) 11:45, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

In that case, I guess there could also be a connection to the Swedish verb "locka" ("lure, tempt"). Wakuran (talk) 11:51, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Looking it up, it was Loki, not the Devil. Loki's name is obscure, itself, but it might refer to knots and tangles. Wakuran (talk) 00:31, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Very interesting, thank you! That would surely explain it—they look like a tangle of hair. — Ganjabarah (talk) 22:29, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Loki is just one of the theories. Loki Lockaramm, having a spider skin (ramm), flying on its webs (which harvest spiders do not have), made out of magical formulas of fire offering. See more at Sophus Bugge (1909) Danske studier and also Axel Olrik (1908) Loke i nyere folkeoverlevering. Also by Hans Jacob Wille in his travel book from Seljord. Also see Riccardo Ginevra (2018) Old Norse Brokkr, connecting Loki to the fire. Loki having a flying costume is also attested in Norwegian songs from 1800-s, without connection to spiders. Tollef Salemann (talk) 08:16, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

The Etymology as it is now gives undue weight to one random folk etymology out of many. The many supporting examples are if anything not enough to support the claim. You have completely missed the obvious cognate Old Armenian սարդ (sard, “spider”), Proto-Indo-European *ḱer- (“to plait, weave”). Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 06:49, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Undue weight how? What I have shown is that, based on evidence from other languages, it's the only explanation that is not just a folk etymology. I have found no support whatsoever for another explanation, but if you have, please let me know!

Old Armenian սարդ (sard) is not an etymological cognate with any of the words above. What are you proposing? — Ganjabarah (talk) 22:14, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

By that messure the Armenian word has no "etymological cognates". The remaining evidence is circumstantial. It's not just one but multiple folk etymologies to distract rather than to explain. These names are passed among children, the folk beliefs tag on and they try to fill gaps: woodchuck is a good example. I simply do not see an argument, no logic because harvest does not simply mean scythe, no proof of a common origin, no sources. "Cutter" just doesn't cut it. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 02:01, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

What? Name one cognate of the Armenian word that is relevant to this discussion. You're being ridiculous; there's no other Germanic evidence that the "harvest" in "harvestman" is a corruption of some other, much older word and coincidentally got changed due to folk-etymology. It's extremely obvious that "harvest" is just the same English word as in "harvest spider", chosen for the same semantic reasons as in the semantic relatives (etymological non-cognates) I mentioned. Semantics do matter, especially in a case like this where obviously there's no reconstructible PIE term and innovative new names are frequently made to replace older ones. A root *ḱer- “spider” that somehow narrowed specifically to a word for harvestman arachnids in English—magically without leaving a trace in the history of English or Germanic—doesn't even make sense on its own, because harvestmen don't make webs. That's enough shoehorning in of bad ideas from you. — Ganjabarah (talk) 05:43, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Agree to disagree. Setting it straight would need more space. To point out all the flaws in your argumentation is hopeless if you add only more nonsense in response, like you keep calling it a spider despite the claim that it does not spin webs–would have to be a spinach harvester. I'm not even mad, that's a mazing. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 06:00, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

A minor etymological addition – not directly about the Opiliones. The common German term for “tailor”, Schneider, is not alone in literally meaning “cutter”: the etymon of English tailor, Old French taillour, also literally means “cutter”.  --Lambiam 19:55, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

I am aware of that, thank you; that's why the Welsh example (a word borrowed/calqued from English tailor with the suffix changed to -wr) is given as evidence for “cutter”. — Ganjabarah (talk) 22:15, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Regarding Zhengzhang's Reconstruction of 葻、齔 and 掮

I was playing around with OC pronunciation and came across a few character whoses pronunciations are "weird". Today, I had a chance to check the reconstruction in Zhengzhang Shangfang's 上古音系 and I found out two characters that seemed to have a typo on Wiktionary:

葻：*b·uːm > *b·ruːm

齔：*spʰrins? > *spʰrinsʔ

And there is one that, although is written in the book, I don't think belongs to the reconstructed pronunciation.

掮：*ɡren* > *ɡren

Would anyone mind confirming if the pronunciation should be revised for me? Much appreciated. 140.114.123.101 11:41, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Cruz in Iberian Romance languages

The Spanish and Portuguese word for cross is "cruz" and they come from Latin crucem. However, /ŭ/ generally yields /o/ when stressed while /ū/ remains /u/. Was there a Vulgar Latin variant crūcem? Wikipediæ philosophia (talk) 21:49, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

There are sporadic exceptions to the lowering of Latin -ŭ- in Western Romance languages. Sometimes a phonetic conditioning factor can be identified, such as a following palatal sound, but sometimes it's unclear why it failed to lower. The absence of this sound change does not by itself provide strong support for reconstructing a long-vowel variant in Latin.--Urszag (talk) 21:59, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

However, I'm not familiar with the history of this particular word. There might be other evidence that points towards the development of a long vowel. After doing a quick search, I found that Herbert Sauren interprets "crouce" in an inscription he dates to around 100 AD (in what seems to be a Paleohispanic language) as evidence for a pronunciation with long ū. Others may be able to answer your question.--Urszag (talk) 22:09, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't know how significant it is (given that it doesn't indicate the quality of the vowel, which is what is important for explaining the Spanish/Portuguese forms), but a search in PedeCerto turns up a couple of examples of crūc- having long scansion in epigraphic poetry, namely "CE CLE 00770, Ī́nsēgnḗm gĕnĕtū́m crūcḗs mūnī́mĕnĕ sḗptum" and "CE CLE 00770, 7[Prǣ́]fīxū́mst crūcḗs, Chr(īst)ī́quĕ uŏcā́uĕtŏr hḗres." Most Christian Latin authors in that corpus observe the vowel's short Classical Latin quantity, which again may not have much significance, since that is the convention for poetry written in hexameter/pentameter. This book says the long scansion crūcem can also be found in hymns attributed to Ambrose, but the wording used implies it is just one example of the general tendency to scan CL short vowels as longs in stressed syllables.--Urszag (talk) 22:18, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, the Germanic and Slavic borrowings listed at crux also seem to have been borrowed from a crūc- form. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:19, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, but this is not very significant. The Germanic vowel probably reflects the later pronunciation of Latin with lengthened open syllables. That it cannot be a very early borrowing is already shown by the affrication. The oldest Germanic word for the Christian Cross was that in "gallows". (You may be aware of this, but I just want to obviate misinterpretation.) 2.201.0.109 16:02, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

заняття - Questionable origin

The citation for the origin only describes its borrowing from Russian as self-evident, but the combining form -йняти is a common feature throughout slavic languages, and a cognate of this word is in common usage in Poland with the same specific usage (zajęciach), whereas the Russian counterpart is a collective noun.

I've only recently started feeling comfortable editing Ukrainian entries, I don't think my doubt alone is enough to justify changing this on my own. Could someone with more linguistics experience weigh in?

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%8F%D1%82%D1%82%D1%8F Proudlyuseless (talk) 17:54, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Both are anyway calques of French occupation, maybe through Polish. Tollef Salemann (talk) 19:05, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

That would be my guess. Proudlyuseless (talk) 21:23, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Calque or semantic loan? Voltaigne (talk) 09:19, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

I believe calques are compounds, such as loan-word. the elements may (or may not) exhibit semantic loaning. and a folk etymology is where you think you're making a calque, but completely !@#@$ it up. Griffon77 (talk) 00:16, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Oh, I get it now: it is probably because заняття is directly from Russian, while зайняття is from Ukrainian зайнятий (zajnjatyj). Tollef Salemann (talk) 07:17, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

The Ukrainian combining form -йняти yields зайня́ти, whence the verbal noun зайняття́, which generically denotes the act of occupying or taking up a space, position, etc.

The infinitive form заняти is not regarded as having currency in modern Ukrainian (it's absent from both editions of Словник української мови), although it seems to be well attested in prior centuries (see examples at Hrynchyshyn, D. H., editor (2003), “зайняти, заняти, занят, занѧти”, in Словник української мови XVI – 1-ї пол. XVII ст. [Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language of 16ᵗʰ – 1ˢᵗ half of 17ᵗʰ c.] (in Ukrainian), numbers 10 (загонъ – затрачаючїй), Lviv: KIUS, →ISBN, page 44).

Given that:

• зайняття́ exists as a clearly natively-derived verbal noun of зайня́ти (formed in like manner as вийняття́, прийняття́, сприйня́ття́),
• заняти is not reckoned to be part of the modern language (unlike, say, поня́ти which is given in [СУМ] as a dated alt form of пойня́ти),
• and that the meaning of заня́ття is limited to senses that relate to 'an activity which occupies a person's time and attention'

this all probably pointed in Melnychuk's mind to the latter having been borrowed into the language to serve this semantic function.

Incidentally, this seems to raise an analogous question about поня́ття (“concept, conception, idea”), cf. Russian поня́тие, but Melnychuk doesn't appear to have addressed this directly. Voltaigne (talk) 10:05, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

P.S. another relevant consideration is the syllable stress. In відняття́, зняття́, підняття́ and розняття́ (derived from відня́ти, зня́ти, підня́ти and розня́ти respectively), the stress falls on the final syllable. By contrast, in заня́ття and поня́ття the standard stress is on the penultimate syllable (according to the 20-volume СУМ), which is suggestive of influence from Russian -ня́тие. Voltaigne (talk) 14:41, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

The Russian meaning was incorrect, you can definitely say занятие in the singular for a class: "проводить занятие", "быть на занятии" etc. Thadh (talk) 10:43, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Does the word circle have no vowels?

One of the phonetic transcriptions of circle on the page is /ˈsɹ̩.kɫ̩/, which has no vowels. Is this true? 38.43.32.97 02:30, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

It's phonetic [ˈsɹ̩.kɫ̩] (indicated by the enclosing square brackets), not phonemic /ˈsɹ̩.kɫ̩/, which is an important difference. The classroom rule that "every English word (or syllable) must contain a vowel" (ignoring the many onomatopoeias, clitics etc. for which it fails) is meant as either phonemic or orthographic. Since [ɹ̩] and [ɫ̩] are just syllabic allophones of (generally) original/underlying vowel-consonant sequences /əɹ/ and /əl/, they can be analyzed as containing vowels. However, linguists may also choose to analyze them as genuinely vowelless, because the aforementioned rule is not really grounded in linguistic theory as understood today. — Ganjabarah (talk) 04:33, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

I have yet to hear an American rendition of circle without [ə]~[ɚ] in the first syllable.

(I am using ⟨ə⟩ to encompass both ⟦ə⟧ proper and any vowel in its vicinity.)

Nicodene (talk) 10:56, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

yes the sonorants ɹ̩ and ɫ̩ take the place of vowels. the audio is an example. various qualities of [r] are almost indistinguishable from [a], some pronunciations of silk [sɫ̩k] will be vowel-less as well. Griffon77 (talk) 23:54, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

There is a difference- a vowel and an approximant are not phonetically the same. Nicodene (talk) 09:27, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

How would you differentiate between English [ɚ] and [ɹ̩] phonetically? What is the physical difference, difference in sound quality or whatever? If English can have [l̩] then it can surely have [ɹ̩]; the two are close parallels and behave the same way in terms of phonotactics, emergence, allophony and so on. — Ganjabarah (talk) 01:11, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Approximants, but not vowels, are characterized by a narrowing of the vocal tract at a given point of articulation. By definition [ɹ] involves such a narrowing at the alveolar ridge, and by definition [ɚ] involves no such narrowing.

So long as one takes care not to confuse matters of phonology (English-specific phonotactics and allophony) with matters of phonetics, there is no issue. Nicodene (talk) 02:23, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

I disagree. I would say that there is no phonetic difference between [ɚ] and [ɹ̩]; they're just two different possible transcriptions of the same sound. Whether you choose to consider that sound an r-colored schwa or a syllabic [ɹ] is a matter of interpretation. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:48, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

You can disagree all you like; the fact remains that [ɚ] is transcribing a vowel, and [ɹ] is transcribing an approximant. The articulatory difference has already been explained above. Nicodene (talk) 08:08, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

[ɚ] is transcribing a vowel with a rhotic constriction, and [ɹ̩] is transcribing a syllabic rhotic approximant. Those are exactly the same thing. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:30, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

You are literally claiming that a vowel and an approximant are the same thing. Kindly refer to a basic introduction to phonetics.

ETA: [◌˞] isn’t ‘rhotic constriction’; r-colouring involves (e.g.) partial retroflexion. Nicodene (talk) 09:18, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't think there is any technical difference between ⟨[ɚ]⟩ and this ⟨[ɹ̩]⟩ in the context of rhotic English dialects. I would imagine the latter is to avoid the use of an extra symbol or to avoid some controversy/implication about its schwa-ness. — Ganjabarah (talk) 03:31, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I've unified the transcription, as it's very confusing to use different transcriptions to indicate the same pronunciation. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:00, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Seriously dude, don't remove dialect pronunciation information just because you are confused. Do you understand at all how much variation there is within the US? If someone gives information on a variation in US pronunciation who are you to say there isn't any? at the VERY least there is a difference in length of the phone [ɚ] in one it is short but clear, in the other it has become vanishingly small or completely absent. this is not simply a transcription choice. Griffon77 (talk) 16:55, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

I am not confused. Listing both [ˈsɹ̩.kɫ̩] and [ˈsɝ.kəɫ] as American pronunciations is redundant, because they say the exact same thing. Those are not two different pronunciations, they're the same pronunciation transcribed in two different ways. Sure, there's variation within the U.S. between rhotic and non-rhotic speakers, and among non-rhotic speakers there's variation between those who say [ˈsɜːkl̩] and those who say [ˈsɜɪkl̩], but the two pronunciations listed at the moment are making a distinction without a difference. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:06, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

No, they don't. the fact that you do not hear or understand the difference is immaterial. The articulation is completely different. Your personal opinion is not a valid reason to remove the second pronunciation guide. Griffon77 (talk) 18:26, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

The articulation is exactly identical. That's a fact, not my personal opinion. What is my personal opinion is that listing both transcriptions makes Wiktionary look amateurish, because people will think we don't understand either English phonology or how the IPA works. —Mahāgaja · talk 18:33, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Apparently you’re under the mistaken belief that even [kɫ̩] and [kəɫ] are the same phonetically, as if the syllabicity diacritic is just a shorthand for ‘preceded by [ə]’. As mentioned, a basic introduction to phonetics would resolve your confusion. This is what happens when you confuse the phonology of your native language (both of the above are phonemically the same in English) with phonetics. Nicodene (talk) 18:39, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

@Nicodene Are these allophones that are specific to this particular word or a class of words? I'm struggling to see what value is added that doesn't just amount to the fact that a schwa followed by an approximant is sometimes articulated as a syllabic approximant, which is a matter of English phonology. Theknightwho (talk) 20:19, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

@Theknightwho

Are these allophones that are specific to this particular word or a class of words?

It’s part of a larger pattern of variation across English dialects, and even idiolects, of the type [CəC]~[CC̩]. Cf. cotton, pattern, rhythm, shuffle.

I'm struggling to see what value is added that doesn't just amount to the fact that a schwa followed by an approximant is sometimes articulated as a syllabic approximant, which is a matter of English phonology.

Yes, that’s what it means to say that they’re phonemically identical in English.

Mahagaja insists that [kɫ̩] and [kəɫ] are phonetically identical, which is incorrect. Phonetics is a matter of actual sound, not of language-dependent phonological rules. Nicodene (talk) 20:58, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

@Nicodene Yes, I understand the difference between phonemes and phonetics, but my question was "is this relevant information?" In other words, does the entry actually benefit from displaying this regular variation? I don't think it does. In actuality, it's a spectrum between the two in most idiolects, but unless there are certain phonetic conditions which predispose speakers one way or the other, I don't think it warrants adding this to every entry, as it conveys nothing useful. Theknightwho (talk) 21:07, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

@Theknightwho I didn’t say it would? I agree that there’s no point. Nicodene (talk) 21:12, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

the question wasn't whether it should be added to every entry, but do some people actually say [ˈsɹ̩.kɫ̩] at all as previously listed in the entry. and later whether [ˈsɝ.kəɫ] should have been removed. there was no discussion of it being normal variation within dialects or idiolects. if we remove all phonemic allophones there is no point listing most dialect pronunciations at all (which may be fine, especially without defining the dialect). Griffon77 (talk) 11:09, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Would you mind pointing to audio recordings that demonstrate the pronunciation differences that you have been referring to? Nicodene (talk) 19:22, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

especially as one of them also has a second syllable which you completely forgot about Griffon77 (talk) 18:34, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

No, it should be clear by now that it is only your opinion. Can't produce the different articulations? poor you, I can. you want to debate the correct representation with linguistic dialect experts, go ahead, there are many, many such arguments about how things are pronounced and should be represented that are generally only resolvable with wave files and cat scans. these are still two different pronunciations because one is TWO, longer syllables. conflating them in the entry because you disagree about the quality and length of the first syllable is an abuse. You do NOT have a valid reason to change it. Griffon77 (talk) 18:47, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

chaste tree

Looks like a calque of Ancient Greek ἄγνος (ágnos, “chaste tree”), which is associated with ἁγνός (hagnós, “holy, pure, chaste”), or maybe a Latin / New Latin term itself calqued from the Greek. — Ganjabarah (talk) 04:24, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

@Ganjabarah Well, it certainly had a reputation in Mediaeval Europe as an anaphrodisiac (hence the name monk's pepper), and it was known in Latin as agnus castus. It's a kind of chicken-and-egg puzzle: did the name come from the beliefs about its properties, or did the beliefs come from folk etymologies about the origin of the name? Chuck Entz (talk) 04:47, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Yup, I was hoping you would have the answer (lol). We may never know with regard to the Greek word's origin, but at least I can say it's unlikely that English speakers came up with this semantic construction of the name independently. I'm not sure that the tree is native to the British Isles; if not, it would of course be even less likely. — Ganjabarah (talk) 04:55, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Beekes calls the connection of the tree with the notion of chastity (ἁγνότης (hagnótēs, “purity, chastity”)) “folk-etymological”, implying that ἄγνος and ἁγνός are not etymologically related.  --Lambiam 12:42, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Indeed and that is what I meant by "associated". We don't know whether they are related or not. — Ganjabarah (talk) 02:58, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

With all due respect I think you and Chuck are missing my point, in that I made this post about the English word. Whether or not we follow Beekes and start with the (plausible, logical) assumption that the cultural associations with chastity came about by folk etymology (as I had already added to the Ancient Greek entry), this cultural association is real and must be the source of both New Latin agnus castus and English chaste tree. But rather than an indirect, cultural relationship of the semantic parallelism, I'm wondering if there was a direct calque involved. Calquing can absolutely be based on folk etymology or misinterpretation, and the Ancient Greeks themselves certainly regarded their word as analyzable with the semantics required for such a calque to be even a “correct” interpretation. — Ganjabarah (talk) 03:10, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

While we're on the subject, I need help verifying the noun use of ἄγονος (ágonos) mentioned by Beekes; only the adjective seems to be cited in every other source. — Ganjabarah (talk) 05:35, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

LSJ has “IV. ἄγονον , τό, = μυρσίνη ἀγρία, Ps.-Dsc.4.144; ἄγονος , = ἄγνος, Id.1.103, Sch.Nic.Th.71.”  --Lambiam 12:53, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. Embarrassingly I did check LSJ but overlooked it. — Ganjabarah (talk) 02:56, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Fusca and related names

Forstemann, in Altdeutsches Namenbuch‎^[3], 1900, suggests fuscus (“dark, swarthy”), "or an as yet unknown German stem?" 100 years later I can't find anything better, but I don't access to much more recent research. Anything better? Griffon77 (talk) 02:10, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Mostly throwing out guesses here, but might it be a metathesis of PWG *fuhs (as in fox, Fuchs)? Although metatheses might be more common in English than in German, and then rather the other way around, with [sk] -> [ks]. I guess -sc- is to be read [sk] rather than [ʃ] ~ [sx]. Might -ca be a diminutive ending, or is that unlikely for the period? Wakuran (talk) 11:37, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

I considered fuhs, but I don't think the morphology works, and a diminutive still leaves us with an obscure stem *fus- or *fu Griffon77 (talk) 15:54, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Was she a princess and talked to birds? I have looked up Aschenputtel and now I am just confused. Old High German *fus- should be expected from *putōną, that requires a different stem perhaps. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 00:09, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Shouldn't that be *pf- rather than *f-? Wakuran (talk) 00:31, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

At least Proto-West Germanic *palancijā and *puti are giving Old High German f: falenza, fuzze. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 11:05, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

There are about ten different dialectal variants for the roots you are listing. I don't see why the *f- examples should be singled out. It's apparently near universal in Yiddish, but in German, it's just dialectal. Wakuran (talk) 11:34, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Or, if the name was found in one dialectal area where it was a common phonetic shift, I guess it could be a viable theory. I don't know if the source would provide information of regional occurrence. And if so, I guess it would probably be loaned, anyway, since *p- was such a rare native phoneme in the early Germanic languages. Wakuran (talk) 12:03, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

And there are several attestations with ph-, although since ph read as [f] basically is a marker of etymological Greek spelling, I somewhat doubt it is supposed to be read [f-] here. I'm far from an expert on Old High German phonology and orthography, but I would suppose something like [p-], [pʰ-] or [pf-] would be more likely. Wakuran (talk) 12:43, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Well, it seems Forstemann was being a bit over eager. These are primarily Latin names from 9th C. Paris, and Medieval Italy. Italian Wikipedia has a section dedicated to them. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fosco Griffon77 (talk) 17:06, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

The only certain exception is Fuscildis, which can be explained as a Latin version of Funs-hildi (-ns to -s is a thing in medieval Latin as well) Griffon77 (talk) 17:16, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

What would "Funs" mean? Fire? Wakuran (talk) 17:33, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

quick, ready, eager Proto-West Germanic *funs, althopugh i only know it as a deuterotheme, in Alfonso, Sigifuns, Garifus, Ricifus Griffon77 (talk) 18:09, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

FYI, Seibicke's Vornamenbuch has names from the 14th century and later: Fischel m. Jewish, literally "fish" seems unlikely. Fisse f., from Fried-. Foske, -ēa, Fosse f., from Folk-, also once glossed "ein Fuchs" but nothing like it for Fulk-. Fuchs m. with hedging and further references "soll über Faiox aus Fiacrus entstanden sein", here perhaps Fuscus [?] (Seibicke refers to Stadler/Heim, Volksheiligenlexikon III: 333). Fiacrus appears to be some Irish saint. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 19:44, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

In any case none of them are Old High German, as the attestations referenced by Forstemann (who never claims they are OHG) are all in Latin from France. Fuscildis possibly has a basis in West Frankish (Old Dutch/Proto West Germanic dialect), but the first part may still be Latin Fuscus. Griffon77 (talk) 03:42, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

विवेक etymology missing

The etymology for the word विवेक is missing. Please add it. 2601:2C7:4400:5210:A570:D134:1826:F96A 05:09, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

विवेक्ति (vivekti, “to sift”) is listed here. Likely related. Wakuran (talk) 11:31, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

I've edited the etymology (older sources seem to interpret it as prefix वि- + वेक, but Mayrhofer doesn't use a hyphen). Note that विवेक्ति (vivekti, “to sift”) probably doesn't exist, see my edits at *weyk-. Exarchus (talk) 16:39, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Sundanese awi

Meaning "bamboo". Attested in Old Sundanese in Naskah Bujangga Manik (c. 14th-mid 15th century). Is it possibly a doublet of haur ("bamboo") through changes from *R to y (as seen in palay or lini, hypothesized: *qauR > *qauy > *a(w)uy > awi). However, this wouldn't explain the elision of h (or perhaps this phenomenon is common?). Any comments/corrections/opinions on this one? Udaradingin (talk) 03:24, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

loss of both /q/ and /R/ in this root (unavoidable double entendre) are both common in Malay-Polynesian, but since both are contemporary and compounded in "awi haur" you'd need to explain why one is affected and the other is not, such as by borrowing from another branch (where h and R are kept or not) or derivation from a particular inflection or position in a clause. Austronesian does love to repeat lexemes to alter the meaning (and then get lazy and drop the repetition), but usually they're in harmony. The morphology of the second isn't usually affected or protected by the first. Griffon77 (talk) 15:12, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

@Udaradingin: Loss of initial *q is rare in Sundanese but not entirely unseen. It is however odd that the *q is preserved in the loan from Malay (haur) while it is lost in the directly inherited lexeme.

Otherwise, your proposed sequence of sound changes makes perfect sense, including the resyllabification of the high diphthong. –Austronesier (talk) 19:15, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Ingeida

checked the reference and whoever created this page clearly misread Ingelda as Ingeida. How do we fix this?

The Reference Forstemann cites is Traditiones Corbeienses, Wigand, Paul. - Leipzig (1843) http://sammlungen.ulb.uni-muenster.de/hd/content/titleinfo/596668Griffon77 (talk) 10:58, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

As Ingelda lacks an entry, yet, is it possible to move the entry to a new title, as on Wikipedia? Any relation to the Swedish name Ingela? Wakuran (talk) 11:42, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

false alarm, he's put in the wrong column reference, probably copied from another entry, Ingeida is on a different page. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_LeuhuxTk2CEC/page/n411/mode/2up. I'll fix the reference. Ingela is a diminutive of a large number of names which could include Ingeida. Griffon77 (talk) 16:04, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Forstemann references the Polyptyque de l'abbaye de Saint-Remi de Reims for Ingeida, so I'm checking a copy of that at the library of congress: "Mansum ingenuilem tenet Tetmarus ingenuus; uxor ejus Ermengardis aneilla; infantes eorum Teudrada, Ermhildis, Ingeida, Tethildis, Tetlindis. Ermherus." If there's an error it's Guerard's, however, this is a record of the tenants of the Abbey in Reims, and so Latinised West Frankish (Old Low Franconian) names, not Old High German Griffon77 (talk) 17:09, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

The 18th. C manuscript copy at the BNF (one of three) has Iringardis, which Guerard corrects to Ermengardis, but does appear to read "Ingeida". I'd take it as a copyists error for Ingelda, but that is what it says. He also expands the Latin abbreviations, mostly reasonably, although for aneilla it should probably be ancille. Griffon77 (talk) 19:00, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

getting off topic, but it should probably be read as "Free-born Tetmarus unbendingly holds the manse; his wife is Iringard the handmaid; their children are..." Griffon77 (talk) 19:21, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

There is an Inguaid listed by Forstemann from Bavaria (thus OHG), so this corroborates the reading Ingeida, with loss of initial [h] in the second element, Eastern (high) and Western (low) forms of Frankish "Ingu" + "haiþi" Griffon77 (talk) 04:16, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

injectif

etymology Krania1130 (talk) 12:00, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Bilitteral roots in Hebrew

What are they? I have heard that they could be primitive hebrew roots from which hebrew triliteral roots stem from, but is this plausible? If so, should we include them in the etymology of descended triliteral roots and the descended triliteral roots in the derivatives of the bilitteral roots? 2600:387:15:1714:0:0:0:8 22:16, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

You are asking the wrong question. To be something "from which hebrew triliteral roots stem from" is backwards. ... The current best practice in Proto-Semitic is to make lemmas from reconstructed words or stems rather than roots. Roots are a grammatical abstraction. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 23:26, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

It depends on the root. Of the Semitic triliteral roots that have a known (or suspected) Proto-Afroasiatic precursor, most of the latter were themselves triliteral, but a few were extended from a possibly biliteral root. In other cases we do know of triliteral roots extended from biliteral ones within Semitic or Hebrew itself. When it comes to an attested language like Hebrew, we can say that many roots are back-formed (reanalyzed) from inflected or cliticized words, and many of those terms are borrowed from other languages. Your question suggests a universal answer, but these occurrences are best understood on a case-by-case basis. — Ganjabarah (talk) 04:27, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

rip-roaring

— 2605:59C8:142C:3910:185D:F61:8CD5:28 00:12, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

added Leasnam (talk) 00:20, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

mahogany

RFV of the first part of the etymology. — Ganjabarah (talk) 03:55, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Foldulf

More problems from Forstermann. This is plausibly OHG for a change, and his citations would place it in the right time and place, but they don't pan out, at least when searched in the MDZ the texts he cites have no mention of Foldulf, and the only texts searchable there or on Google that do all reference Forstemann. I don't think I'm reading his citations incorrectly, and the MDZ is superb for searching of scanned texts. If it was mentioned I'm sure they'd find it. Any ideas? Griffon77 (talk) 03:55, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

благодаря

Russian Wiktionary says it's a calque from Ancient Greek εὐχαριστέω (eukharistéō, “to give thanks”), but neither page provides proper sources to verify the etymology. JimiY☽ru 09:51, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

This is likely an "internationalism-semantic loan", a few such as exist, including "international" itself. I think it's likely Russian loaned it from a few languages. Vininn126 (talk) 09:54, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't think the semantics fully match up, though. Wakuran (talk) 12:15, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

I am not arguing for it being from Ancient Greek at all, though? Vininn126 (talk) 12:27, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

We still need references to back this up JimiY☽ru 05:20, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

That is true. Vininn126 (talk) 08:32, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

First Etymology of Banh incorrect

The word banh for ball in Vietnamese is not borrowed from French. Not anywhere close to the phonology of balle. 174.112.26.104 17:30, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Proto-Athabaskan

what is the proto-athabaskan word for dog? All the descendant languages have the word for dog but not Proto-athabaskan. why is that? 38.43.33.127 19:28, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Maybe it's just that there are so few editors here having deeper knowledge of Athabaskan languages, that no one has gotten around to create an entry. Wakuran (talk) 03:21, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

You have a vivid imagination- where are all of those entries? We have good coverage of a couple of Southern Athabaskan languages, but the vast majority of other Athabaskan languages have only a few entries- and most of those languages don't have the translation for "dog" (for instance, Category:Hupa nouns contains just 3 words). The indigenous languages of northwestern North America tend to be very hard for non-natives to work with, so it's probably better that there haven't been a lot of entries created.

On top of that, proto-languages are a LOT harder than regular languages to work with, Regular languages come from recorded usage by speakers, but proto-languages have to be reconstructed by people who know what they're doing: first you have to have accurate lists of cognates in the daughter language, then you have to learn the sound correspondences between the daughter languages, and finally you have to apply those sound correspondences, taking into account all kinds of irregularities and missing information in your data. That means there just aren't as many words published for proto-languages.

Of course, dogs are important to all of these cultures as the only truly domesticated animal from before European contact, and are well represented in word lists due to being familiar to everyone compiling the lists. I'm sure the raw material is out there for good comparative work, and it's quite likely that one or more Proto-Athabaskan words for dog have been published ... somewhere. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:58, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Ok thanks! Gallus lafayettii (talk) 18:13, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

i was going to answer IP's question but you said what I was going to say but better. Gallus lafayettii (talk) 18:14, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Origin of persian and turkic intro to folk tales

Folk tales in persian and some turkic languages start with the phrase "biri varmış, biri yokmuş" (in persian "یکی بود، یکی نبود"). Can the origin of this expression be traced to either language? Krister torneke (talk) 22:48, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

See the translations at once upon a time for the entries we have for several terms along those lines. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:22, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

What with the Ottoman Empire and other Turkic dynasties being Persianate societies, it is plausible that the Turkish intro bir varmış, bir yokmuş is a calque of Persian یکی بود یکی نبود, while the literal sense of Greek μια φορά ήταν δεν ήταν (mia forá ítan den ítan) seems to blend the literal Turkish sense – plausibly copied from Ottoman Turkish – with the “once”, “at some time” literal sense of Ancient Greek ἦν γάρ ποτε χρόνος (ên gár pote khrónos).  ​‑‑Lambiam 22:48, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

STAND as in military courage

"They look good but will they stand?" --- Cornwell's Richard Sharpe, speaking of new troops.

I don't know where this usage would fit. If someone can figure this out it would be useful to have an example such as the above. Humphrey Tribble (talk) 05:55, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

A qualified guess is that it would be short for the phrase stand one's ground. Wakuran (talk) 13:33, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Or sense 2.4, “To maintain an invincible or permanent attitude; to be fixed, steady, or firm; to take a position in resistance or opposition.”  --Lambiam 16:31, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Accuracy of the etymology of Silesian 'przŏć'.

I'm not confident in the particular Old Polish form this word is purported to have descended from - 'przyjajać'. If anything, it would be 'przyjać'.

However, the problem with 'przyjać' is that its conjugation pattern is inconsistent with what we see in Silesian. 'przyjać' conjugates to 'przyjam', 'przyjasz', 'przyja', etc., meanwhile in Silesian we see 'przajã', 'przajesz', 'przaje'. This isn't a big deal-breaker because we also have 'trzimać' that conjugates to 'trzimiã' instead of 'trzimōm', which is also something that happens in Polish.

On the other hand, Czech 'přát' looks interesting. The infinitive 'przŏć' corresponds nicely with 'přát', but unfortunately the further conjugations aren't quite right - Czech 'přeju', Silesian 'przajã' (notice e <-> a). It's possible that the infinitive was influenced, but I'm not confident enough in this theory to claim that.

vxern (Dorian M. Oszczęda) (talk) 02:50, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

https://spjs.ijp.pan.pl/haslo/index/13243 Vininn126 (talk) 17:21, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm aware, but this form is inconsistent with what the Silesian form is. vxern (Dorian M. Oszczęda) (talk) 18:37, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Not sure that it is. Words of frequent use often undergo irregular changes. Vininn126 (talk) 18:43, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Sure, and this makes sense with 'przyjać' -> 'przáć' -> 'przŏć', but what about that 'ja' there in 'przyjajać'? Do we just write that up to this irregularity of certain change? vxern (Dorian M. Oszczęda) (talk) 20:37, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Old Polish przyjać is unattested. Contraction here on the -aja- would be effective though. Vininn126 (talk) 10:36, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Ingudis

doing some minor housekeeping of references (adding links, ids and additional source info), but can't find this name listed in Forstemann at all. could be an error in the column number originally given, but MDZ is down and the less reliable OCR in the internet archive copy can't find it. anyone else have more luck finding it? Griffon77 (talk) 08:01, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

In column 785 we find Ingundis,^[4] created by the same editor as Ingudis, ten minutes later.  --Lambiam 16:29, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

so you think it's an error that should have been requested for deletion? Griffon77 (talk) 18:11, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

every so often

Do we have an etymology for this? PUC – 20:14, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Probably a fossilized use of an adjective as a noun, as for example "all of a sudden". Vininn126 (talk) 09:44, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

The template that this follows is ‘every X’, where X indicates the frequency with which something happens. Options for X include:

• day, month, year
• time that she sings, moment that I stay
• once in a blue moon

(etc.)

For the phrase every so often, you can think of so often as having its basic sum-of-parts meaning (‘so frequently’, ‘with this frequency’) but with an added sense of approximation. A bit like saying ‘the fish I caught was yea big’, except that there aren’t any suitable hand-gestures for it. Nicodene (talk) 17:48, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

Shouldn't that be 'yay big' rather than 'yea big'? But maybe your dialect doesn't distinguish between them? Wakuran (talk) 21:16, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

⟨yea⟩ /jeɪ/ ‘so, this’ [+adj.] versus ⟨yeah⟩ /jæ/ ‘yes’ for me. Nicodene (talk) 21:33, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

fly window

Which sense of fly does this derive from? Father of minus 2 (talk) 09:29, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

I assume it's based on airplane windows. Wakuran (talk) 12:13, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Another suspect is “5. A piece of canvas that covers the opening at the front of a tent”. The 1933 OED has a generic sense “something attached by the edge”,^[5] of which the tent sense is an instance.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:52, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Such as fly meaning zipper? Wakuran (talk) 00:04, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

fan-in

Which sense of fan does this derive from? Father of minus 2 (talk) 09:29, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

"3. To move or spread in multiple directions from one point, in the shape of a hand-held fan." Same as fan out, fan-out. Hftf (talk) 18:25, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

spatial computing

According to the beginning of wikipedia:Spatial computing#History:

The term apparently originated in the field of GIS around 1985 or earlier to describe computations on large-scale geospatial information. This is somewhat related to the modern use, but on the scale of continents, cities, and neighborhoods. Modern spatial computing is more centered on the human scale of interaction, around the size of a living room or smaller. But it is not limited to that scale in the aggregate.

Said article is also in wikipedia:Category:1985 neologisms. 67.209.130.155 08:37, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Corallomyxa (protist)

Hello all. Corallomyxa was the original type genus of the family Corallomyxidae, although this genus has been removed from this family. The name seems to mean "coral mucus", but I don't understand what this "coral" refers to. Do you have any other explanations on this "Corall" - "myxa". Thank you. Gerardgiraud (talk) 12:40, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Is it known in which habitat members of the genus were first identified? Could it have been on coral reefs?  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:32, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Not at all, Corallomyxa is a parasite of the Malpighian tubules of several species of insects of the genus Melanoplus, notably Melanoplus differentialis. Gerardgiraud (talk) 06:46, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

What's the deal with φ and ϕ?

Is φ some kind of cursive variant, or is it the original and ϕ was created later to match to uppercase Φ? Ioaxxere (talk) 01:34, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the Greek alphabet has never really had any widespread alternative to φ. Wakuran (talk) 02:28, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

In the context of Greek as a language, they're just variant forms of the letter, like "one-story" and "two-story" a. The code point φ, which represents the Greek letter, can have either form depending on the font. Apparently, mathematicians prefer to use specifically the version with a straight vertical line, and Unicode decreed that the code point ϕ should be used to represent that symbol in mathematical contexts where that specific variant form is required.--Urszag (talk) 05:02, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

For lower-case Greek letters, the mathematical convention is to use italics. I am not aware of a clear preference for $\phi$ over $\varphi .$ In some contexts, depending on the typeface, the former may create confusion with $\emptyset$ (also rendered as ∅) for the empty set, or the symbol ⌀ for diameter. For uses of $\varphi$ in mathematical texts, see for example here or here.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:05, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. I am not very familiar with the usage in mathematics, and after looking into it more, it seems like there may not be any common established use where the straight-line variant form is particularly established as mandatory. Considering some fonts don't observe the distinction, or distinguish the codepoints in the opposite direction, it seems like having separate encodings for these variants did not turn out to be a very useful or necessary situation.--Urszag (talk) 19:21, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Like Roman inscriptions, Ancient Greek inscriptions use only one case, whose forms became what we now call majuscules or upper case. The minuscules arose later in writing with pen and ink (compare the “written” form ξ with its original, engraved or chiseled form Ξ). As is to be expected for writing, various variant forms developed, some more cursive than others, such as $\varpi$ next to $\pi ,$ still seen today in Modern Greek cursive writing.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:22, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

亂龍

RFV of the etymology: 龍 (lung4) is a corruption of 弄 (lung6). — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 16:42, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

барити (baryty) - to chat or to delay

One of the linked references in this entry attests that this word comes from Proto-Slavic *bariti (literally “to chat”),(link), which is its current etymology. However, a presumed cognate, незабаром (nezabarom), is attested as from *baviti (literally “to delay”). I'm assuming that both of these share the same root so it seems like the question is whether the semantic shift happened in Proto-Slavic with a subsequent phonetic division, or if both of these words shifted meaning independently. The former seems more likely to me. Proudlyuseless (talk) 20:20, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

Mindah

Germanic etymologies have been created for this name, but I believe it's actually Jewish. The sources say it's a variant of middah, and no erarlier than 16th C.

This whole tree seems to be spurious - the cited reference for Mendach, quoting Zoder, Rudolf (1968): Familiennamen in Ostfalen. B. 2. says only Mindach, patronymic of a variant of Meindag, which he then proceeds to completely ignore. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Familiennamen_aus_Rufnamen/m34oDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA397Griffon77 (talk) 10:54, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

March 2025

gangbusters

— 2601:240:8002:E690:D88C:DA3C:A38B:53BC 10:15, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

From like gangbusters.  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:03, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

Albanian neth

Rfv for etymology. This doesn't seem to be mentioned in any cognate list for English nest, Latin nīdus etc. Exarchus (talk) 15:10, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

Pinging @Etimo as the person who added this.

Are there parallels for the vowel outcome neth < *nisdós?

The semantic development would seem a bit odd (‘sprout’ < ‘nest’).

Nicodene (talk) 23:54, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

mister

Etymology: "Unaccented variant of master".

Why would it be an unaccented version? In modern English I don't detect any difference in accent, or stress. Perhaps this could be explained better. Mihia (talk) 22:59, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

Unaccented, as in not having the primary stress in the sentence. I would assume that "Master so-and-so" as opposed to plain "Master" would draw enough of the focus from "master" that the vowel might be less carefully enunciated by some people. It might be that in some dialects or registers the first vowel might have become more schwa-like (or even have disappeared into the following "s"), and the distance between a schwa and a short "i" isn't that far. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:53, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Convincing. So the path would be /ˈmastər/ > unstressed /məstər ˈ.../ > by reapplication of stress /ˈmɪstər/. I agree that this should be made clearer in the entry. 2.202.159.64 02:47, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

In a sentence such as "Can I introduce you to Master/Mister so-and-so", I still don't see any difference in stress. I say that with the primary stress on "so-and-so" in both cases. Mihia (talk) 09:37, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

That's because today, they're two distinct lexical items with two different meanings. But etymologically, mister started out as a weakened/reduced form of master before taking on a life of its own independent of its etymon. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:10, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Dutch meneer developed analogously as an unstressed version of mijnheer, from a univerbation of the address Mijn Heer (“My Lord”).  ​‑‑Lambiam 21:29, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Claimed cognates at ker- and char (etym. 3)

It would seem to me that the Celtic word cannot be related to the Germanic word nor to Ancient Greek γῦρος (gûros), can it? As far the relation between the latter two is concerned, I don't find it mentioned anywhere either. 2.202.159.64 02:38, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

They definitely can't be related to the Greek at least. Removed but kept the Celtic for now. The etymology of ker- still strikes me as suspicious in general though. — Ganjabarah (talk) 01:24, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

@Ganjabarah Thanks :) However, regarding the Celtic: What the entry claims is that English "char (3)" and Irish cor are cognates. I'm not sure how that's possible. Does Germanic *k ever conincide with Celtic *k? Whether English ker- is from the Celtic at all is of course another question. 2.202.159.64 19:34, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

zero point

Requesting etymology, especially for sense 2. — Ganjabarah (talk) 01:18, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

In regard to sense 2, according to this, "Each member of the team will shout 'Zero Point' as they cross over the rope. When the whole team has crossed, all will shout 'one point'", i.e. it apparently refers to the game's scoring system and would be "zero points" in standard English. Mihia (talk) 19:20, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

The etymology of 'ciŏrać' seems outright wrong

The etymology is given as 'trzić' + -ać, and I've got two questions to do with that:

1. How exactly does 'trzać' become 'ciŏrać'? 🥴
2. Why would an already imperfective verb be suffixed again with an imperfective suffix? That seems counterintuitive unless the end result was a habitual.

vxern (Dorian M. Oszczęda) (talk) 13:26, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

It's the same as Polish ciorać, which is sourced. It's likely that originally you had a long a there placed from -ać (which often adds vowels). IIRC, Bańkowski also mentions it was a dialectal realization at first. As to -ać being added, forms in Middle Polish such as wijać are attested, these are often frequentative in nature. Vininn126 (talk) 13:29, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

I've checked the source, but there is nothing to be found about 'trzeć' there. It just claims that the word was formed the same way 'ziarać' was, but that doesn't explain the initial ciŏr-. vxern (Dorian M. Oszczęda) (talk) 15:15, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

I've still addressed your two other points. I'm not curious what other option it could be. Vininn126 (talk) 15:25, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

My question about how 'trzać' became 'ciŏrać' wasn't explained. How did 't' become 'ć', 'rz' become 'r', and where did this random vowel 'ŏ' come from? This is really an abnormal amount of change, I would say. vxern (Dorian M. Oszczęda) (talk) 15:35, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Did you look at any of the mutations listed at -ać, which shows numerous vowel inserations and consonant mutations, hardening among others. I did link this in my first comment and even said the fact this suffix causes these things in my first comment. I did address it. Vininn126 (talk) 15:37, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

I see now. Thanks, it all makes sense now. vxern (Dorian M. Oszczęda) (talk) 15:55, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

moscabada

Spanish. RFV of the etymology. "From mosca (“fly”) and bada (“bad”). Would also benefit from less encyclopedic content in etymology. Purported definition is also hard to attest. DCDuring (talk) 16:34, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

"unrefined brown sugar" being "excreted by sugarflies" seems like total nonsense to me. The ety used to be longer, including the claim that this substance is "a great alternative to both wood varnish and it has been known to be used as a substitute for blood in an IV drip". Someone made up some nonsense, I would guess. Mihia (talk) 18:51, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

It certainly could be nonsense but some animal (also fungal) excretions are eaten: castoreum (beavers), taxea (badgers), and honeydew (aphids, etc.) are examples, though honeydew is usually converted to honey by bees, not eaten by humans directly. I looked for some mention of moscabada with sugarfly/sugar fly without joy. DCDuring (talk) 19:10, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

I hadn't checked but no Spanish translation of bad is bada or has bad as a morpheme AFAICT, so the etymology is highly likely to have been someone's idea of fun. We've had the entry, including this etymology, since 2017. DCDuring (talk) 19:17, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

More specifically, Wonderfool's idea of fun. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 19:42, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Oh. DCDuring (talk) 21:56, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

(out) of

We list an obsolete/dialect sense of of meaning "from", as in, to quote one of the examples, "vapours which ascend forth of the stomach". Is it reasonable that "out of" meaning "(out) from", as in e.g. "Take the chicken out of the freezer", is a modern relic of this sense? Mihia (talk) 18:36, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

-osa

According to our main dictionary here in the Spanish-speaking countries (RAE) -osa doesn't come from "glucosa" as the Wiktionary article on the suffix, but from the French suffix -ose. 31.177.52.129 13:49, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Ukrainian adverbs in -(ов)о

Hitherto, when a Ukrainian adjective ending in -овий begets an adverb ending in -о (e.g. терміновий → терміново), we have analyzed this in the adverb's etymology section as {{af|uk|терміновий|-о}}, {{af|uk|цілодобовий|-о}} (etc.), because such formations are analytically no different from any other adverb formation where the adverbial suffix -о replaces adjectival ending -ий. This is consistent with our established treatment of, for instance, Belarusian -(ов)ы → -(ов)а, Czech -(ov)ý → -(ov)ě, Polish -(ow)y → -(ow)o, Russian -(ов)ый → (ов)о.

78.37.216.35 (talk) (@78.37.216.35) has rebracketed this formation as {{af|uk|термін|-ово}}, {{af|uk|ці́лий|-o-|доба́|-ово}}, etc, i.e. as a noun suffixed with -ово, and yesterday made this change to almost all such Ukrainian adverbs ending in 'ово', thereby categorizing them in Category:Ukrainian terms suffixed with -ово and removing them from Category:Ukrainian terms suffixed with -о.

I propose that these changes be reverted as they are analytically superfluous, are inconsistent with established practices on Wiktionary, and even subtract value from our entries because we end up losing the link to the root adjective in the etymology section of the adverb. As argued above, XXXовий (adjective) → XXXово (adverb) is just -ий → -о and doesn't differ analytically, orthographically, or in any other respect that I can think of.

I am raising this here for discussion because it would be good to get other contributors' thoughts about how this kind of formation should be treated in etymology sections and etymological categories. I also believe that this question has implications for other rebracketings, e.g. -іст (agent-noun suffix) + -ка (feminine suffix) rebracketed as concatenated suffix -істка. Notifying @Eilaiyas, PhoenicianLetters, PUC, Underfell Flowey, Vininn126 who work on Ukrainian/Slavic word formation and/or may be otherwise interested. Voltaigne (talk) 17:13, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

You are being too polite. I think this is obvious and is not even up for debate, considering all the sources on Ukrainian morphology. It's just that 78.37.216.35 (talk) has been making a lot of incompetent unsourced edits, while ignoring all the warnings and criticism, even after getting blocked 3 times. I would just permablock them already. Eilaiyas (talk) 17:57, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

I agree that this doesn't seem useful. Deriving adverbs from adjectives is the much more straightforward rule, I'm not sure what the point of this would be.

Compound suffixes make sense when they don't necessarily imply the existence of intermediate forms. PhoenicianLetters (talk) 18:39, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Why did he did it? Tollef Salemann (talk) 21:13, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Nothing more I can add to this. This IP has added many such bad affixes. Vininn126 (talk) 22:41, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Thank you all. I've gone ahead and reverted the edits in question (x19). Voltaigne (talk) 11:49, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

κάνθαρος

Could someone take the trouble to clean up the copyvio? Notice has been there since September. See WT:RFC#κάνθαρος for more. DCDuring (talk) 01:27, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

 Done. Somebody might pick out the convoluted Egyptian terms from Bernal’s book, which can be disappointing enough. Fay Freak (talk) 01:43, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Albanian jetë

Rfv for etymology "Related to the participial form of jam and to eshë (“period of time, span, space”)." Exarchus (talk) 19:17, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

урод

RFV of the etymology.

This is supposedly both inherited from Proto-Slavic and reborrowed from Russian. It's not clear what "reborrowed" means here, because there's no indication of the Russian having anything Bulgarian in its history. On top of that, this is said to be an alternative form of ю́род (júrod). A usage note says:

Inherited form ю́род (júrod) is used predominantly in poetic or ecclesiastical context. Russian loanword у́род (úrod) is used in standard (everyday) speech.

The impression I get is that the part of this etymology about inheritance is referring to Bulgarian ю́род (júrod), and only the part about "reborrowing" is referring to Bulgarian урод (urod). The other alternative is that Bulgarian урод (urod) was replaced by borrowing from Russian урод (urod), or maybe it disappeared before the Russian borrowing came in and picked up where it had left off.

Either way, nothing completely adds up between the two Bulgarian and the single Russian entries, and reading them has just left me confused. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:06, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Old Irish “sinnach”

The entry requests a citation for the etymology. Please see “6 Prehistoric layers of loanwords in Old Irish” by David Stifter 2024

“ OIr. sinnach 'fox' is not a substratal loan, but finds a perfectly language-internal explanation in PC *senunako- 'old one', an adjectival formation in

• -ako-from the on-stem *senu, *senon- 'old one', with generalised full grade of the suffix as a morphological marker of high animacy. This is a noa word that replaced the inherited word for the 'fox', probably PC *loperno, for taboo reasons.”

172.56.109.222 17:25, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Stifter really has a remarkable talent for grasping at straws, doesn't he? —Mahāgaja · talk 21:27, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

But *senonakos cannot phonetically yield sinnach; there is nothing to raise the *e. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 21:47, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

True, but are there any other examples of a generalized full grade of a suffix being used as a morphological marker of "high animacy", whatever that is? And then there's calling an animal that's known for being energetic and sprightly "the old one", not to mention applying taboo avoidance to an animal no one is afraid of. Taboo avoidance for lions and tigers and bears and wolves, sure, but foxes? I think Stifter is suffering from male answer syndrome, a pathological inability to say "I don't know" when one doesn't know. —Mahāgaja · talk 22:08, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

In modern Europe, the phrase "old fox" to refer to someone sly with age seems fairly common, but it might not have been the way the Old Irish saw things. Wakuran (talk) 22:47, 9 March 2025 (UTC)