Hi this is Tutor Nick P this is Word Origin 70. The word origin today is
minion. Okay. And you know, minion ... I mean nowadays when people hear minion you
probably think of the cute little yellow guys. So the cute little yellow people
from the cartoon movies minions. You know, with the ... their boss or their leader of
GRU. I think is his name. So we often think of like this , this little sort of
character here. These are minions today. But the original meaning of minion was
very, very different. So let's let's look at the note here. So this is what we
would mean. Today, the word minion means an unimportant person who is merely a
follower or a servant of a more powerful person and will do ... will often do
whatever is asked of them, especially dirty deeds. Now even though, in the movie they
made a cute. Actually movie did kind of copy this idea. That's what minions do
they, they look for some sort of an evil or bad person that they're supposed to
follow. They made that joke about them and in the second movie where they went
through a lot of different bosses. All right. But anyway. Let's continue here.
The word seems to have a long history. Originally it was more positive. It came
from middle French meaning a favorite darling or someone who is beloved. So it
had a very positive meaning to begin with. It also had an adjective use
meaning dainty, pleasing, gentle, etc. The adjective use is also connected to the
expensive steak filet mignon. That's where we got filet mignon is. Filet
of course, the piece of meat. But mignon meaning well some people said it came
from the idea of like the steak was was dainty or soft or maybe it was just
very pleasing in that way. So that's where .... So this origin is also connected
to filet mignon, the steak. Okay. Let's continue. The noun meaning was especially
used for a favorite of a sovereign. A sovereign meaning like a king or a
queen or another important person. Somebody really high up. Perhaps this is
how he took on or it became... it took on its more negative meaning. Perhaps
those sovereigns or important people wanted them to do dirty deeds for them
Or perhaps the sovereigns or important people just favored those that were too
dirty deeds for them. So that that's probably one of the ways that it worked
out to eventually have it's more negative meaning. Okay. And we just have a
few examples here to cover this. Example number one. The mafia boss sent some of
his minions to knock someone off. Remember, knock someone off means to kill someone.
So we'd often hear that. Like the mafia boss may have his minions. They
would say. Or number two. We've often heard it this way. The devil sent his
minions here. We often think of the devil having minions. You know, having you
know, followers that will just do whatever they ask him to do. To do his
dirty deeds. All right. And the last one is really to do mostly with the filet
mignon. Her favorite dish is filet mignon. Okay. And so these all come originally
from me the minion. You know originally coming from Middle French. Okay . Anyway I
hope you got it. I hope it was clear. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye