This two words ‘gaunt’ and ‘gauntlet’ sound similar and have a common root. But their meanings are unrelated. Can it be that gauntlet is somehow derived from gaunt? If yes, then I want to know etymology. Answer Gauntlet: protective gloves used as a form of armour: late Middle English: from Old French gantelet, diminutive of … Read more
I usually get confused between those words, when I want to use them while speaking. They are very close to each other, yet they have completely different meaning (at least from my mother tongue perspective) I’m sure that if we dig into the roots of these words, we will find something common either from a … Read more
All the standard dictionaries–with the notable exception of the OED–seem to trace the etymology of fairy through Old French fae to Latin fata, meaning “the fates” or “the goddess of fate”. As a classical languages major with primary focus on Latin, I find this etymology of fairy doubtful. I can buy the origin from French, … Read more
Plasmid is a biological word, so I guess most people don’t know about the word, but I also heard ( I can be wrong ) native English speakers can presume a word’s meaning by the roots. As the roots of Plasmid are “plasma” and “id”, where “plasma” can be blood plasma or physical-state plasma (as … Read more
The latin root of the word egregious is grex meaning flock which is also the root of many other English words that deal with groups or “flocks” (usually of people): aggregate, congregate, segregate, gregarious… But I don’t see how the definition of egregious has anything to do with a flock or group. egregious [ih-gree-juh s] … Read more
In my native language, words are created using ‘Root Words’ + ‘Prefixes/suffixes’. Also the root words make sense for us. Is English the same? For example I think the word ‘crete’ is the root and ‘dis,con & …’ are its prefixes creating the words ‘concrete’ or ‘discrete’. And does the word ‘crete’ have meaning related … Read more
What roots does the word paradice have? Why has it been changed to paradise and since when? Are there any other English words that had such a transformation? Answer Paradise was sometimes spelled with a C in Middle English, though it usually was spelled with S: I wold not be in a folis paradyce. (Paston, … Read more
The easy picks: greed avarice They get the message across, but are too general. I want a word that narrows the meaning to only gold — not just desire for wealth / material gain. I tried a neologism: aurumphelia but google only turned up 7 results, leading me to conclude it’s too much of a … Read more
If hyper essentially means excessive and hypo means the opposite then how does this word make and sense? It seems like some people decided to improperly make a word out of Greek terminology but admittedly I can’t translate it very well or find a good source. I did read something about it meaning under the … Read more
I’m confused why homosexual is used to refer to gay people. From my understanding homo means human? As in homosapien. Also is there a term like misandry specifically for gay men? Answer Homo means “man” in Latin and “same” in Greek. The former is used in homo sapiens as referring to our species and translates … Read more
