Today in “Surprisingly Connected Etymologies”, we’re taking a close look at some creepy
crawly critters.
First of all, you better check your pockets for bugs!
For such a simple-seeming word, bug has a remarkably complicated origin story—coming,
it seems, from at least two sources, the first being British folklore.
In Middle English, the word bugge referred to a terrifying creature out of folklore,
like a hobgoblin, and this sense is still preserved in the related terms like bugbear.
As to where this Middle English bugge comes from, one possibility is that this supernatural
creature was once some kind of goat-like being, not uncommon in many folklores, and thus the
word comes from the same Indo-European root *bhugo- that gives us the word buck.
Alternatively, bug may come from the Proto-Indo-European root *beu- which means “to boil, swell,
or puff up” which lies behind many other English words, not only boil and puff, but
also pocket.
The sense of “a frightening creature” has evidently been watered down to mean something
simply annoying, something that bugs you.
And this less frightening sense may have something to do with another similar sounding word that
seems to have merged with bug.
Old English budda meaning “beetle” sounds enough like bug that the two may have fallen
together, and by 17th century the word bug starts to be used to refer to insects, initially
bedbugs, and eventually any insect.
It’s also uncertain where Old English budda comes from, but it might be connected with
our modern English word bud, as in a shoot or seed pod, and might ultimately come from
that same Proto-Indo-European root that means “to swell”.
They always say cockroaches would survive a nuclear war, but really it’s beetles you
should connect with nuclear fission, at least etymologically speaking.
Beetle is literally “little biter” from Old English bitela “beetle” related to
the verb bitan “to bite”.
The Proto-Indo-European root that lies behind these words is *bheid- “to split, crack”,
which comes into Latin as fissio “a breaking up, cleaving” from the verb findere “to
split”, the modern sense being the splitting of the atom.
Have you ever noticed the colour of a flea?
Etymologically it’s puce.
Puce, a brownish-purplish colour, comes from pulex, the Latin word for “flea”, which
comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *plou- which also gives us the word flea.
Puce describes the colour of a crushed, fully fed flea–so basically, blood.
A wrench and a worm don’t seem to have much in common, but it turns out that etymologically
they both turn!
Wrench comes from Old English wrencan “to twist”, which can be traced back to Proto-Germanic
*wrankjan and Proto-Indo-European *wreng- “to turn” from the root *wer- “to turn,
bend”.
This root probably also leads to Proto-Indo-European *wrmi- “worm”, which becomes in turn Proto-Germanic
*wurmiz, Old English wyrm, and Modern English worm.
And finally, turning to an animal that is technically another kind of bug, though most
people prefer not to think of that when they eat them: When cooking shrimp, be careful
not to scorch them, or perhaps you should!
Scorch comes from Old Norse skreppa “to shrink, be shriveled” from the Proto-Indo-European
root *(s)kerb- “to turn, bend”.
This root also gives us the word shrimp through a Low German word perhaps similar to schrempen
“to shrink, wrinkle”.
We also get the word rumple from this root through Dutch rompelen “to wrinkle”, which
is what you’ll do to your face if you scorch the shrimp too much!
Thanks for watching!
This is one in a series of occasional short videos about connected etymologies; to see
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