Today in “Surprisingly Connected Etymologies”, we’re biting into some fruit!
The words apricot and precocious would seem to have little to do with one another.
But in fact they both come from Latin prae- “before” + coquere “cook, ripen”.
An apricot is an early ripening fruit, and a precocious person is a metaphorically early
ripening person.
The unusual form of the word apricot is due to the circuitous path it took in getting
to English.
Latin (malum) praecoquum “early-ripening (fruit)” became Byzantine Greek berikokkia,
which became Arabic al-birquq, which became Portuguese albricoque, which eventually came
into 16th century English as abrecock, eventually becoming apricot.
The cranberry and geranium plants aren't related botanically, but etymologically they are!
The cran in cranberry comes from low German kraan “crane” because of the resemblance
of the flower’s stamen to the bird’s bill.
The bird’s name comes from Proto-Indo-European *gere- “to cry hoarsely” because of its
call.
This led to the Greek name for the bird geranos “crane” and thence to geranium from the
resemblance of the plant’s seed pod to the bird’s bill.
Can a nectarine be a nuisance?
Well, etymologically it can.
Nectarine is formed from nectar which comes ultimately from Greek nektar, the name of
the drink of the gods, made up of the elements nek “death” (from Proto-Indo-European
*nek- “death”) + tar “overcoming” (from Proto-Indo-European *tere- “cross
over, pass through, overcome”).
Thus nectar means literally “overcoming death”.
That death root also came into Latin as nocere “to hurt”, producing Old French nuire
“to harm” and nuisance “harm, wrong, damage”, which obviously softened over time
to give us the current sense of English nuisance.
That Latin verb nocere, by the way, was also combined with the negative prefix in- to eventually
give us the word innocent, so perhaps we better leave the innocent nectarine alone.
You’d probably be grossed out to think of marmalade and mildew together, but etymologically
they're connected.
Marmalade originally referred to a quince jelly, from Portuguese marmelo “quince”,
originally from Greek melimelon, literally “honey-apple” from meli “honey” +
melon “apple” (yes, a melon was originally an apple).
Greek meli comes from Proto-Indo-European *melit- “honey”, which also made it into
the Germanic branch of languages, where it becomes the first element of Old English meledeaw,
literally “honeydew”, the sticky substance left on leaves by aphids, earlier thought
to form out of the air like dew.
Later on the word mildew was used to refer to a type of fungus because it was sticky
and found growing on plants.
What does curling have to do with grapes?
Etymology!
Curling gets its name from the way the stone curls on the ice, and can be traced back to
the root *g(e)r- “curving, crooked”.
This also produced Germanic *krappon “hook”, and from that Old French graper “catch with
a hook, pick grapes”, so basically the word transferred from referring to the vine hook
used for picking grapes to the grapes themselves, replacing the Old English word winberige,
literally “wine berry”.
Thanks for watching!
This is one in a series of occasional short videos about connected etymologies; to see
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