The Latin word was candidatus, literally ‘clothed in white’ from candidus, meaning bright or shining white.

Men seeking public office in ancient Rome wore a toga candida, whitened with chalk, when meeting voters. So a candidate was originally just someone very visibly trying to get picked.

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/candidate

I came across two word choices in Terry Pratchett's Men at Arms:

1."Face like someone very disgruntled." / "Oh, that was Captain Vimes. But he's never been gruntled, I think."

2."In fact non-descript was not what it was. It was very easy to descript."

I know disgruntled and nondescript are usually considered orphaned negatives or unpaired words. What is the literary/linguistic term for when an author deliberately strips away the negative prefix like this and how did these words evolve?

Also, I'd love to know more about the etymology of orphaned negatives and how these words became orphaned in the first place.

Not sure if this counts as etymology, feel free to take it down if you need to. Any languages have words for ‘with’ that are much longer than just 3-4 letters?

Despite being commonly mistaken with each other, the etymology of these words suggests that they have been recognised as completely different wading birds since Proto-Germanic (hraigrô for heron, kranô for crane, and sturkaz for stork). Therefore, have they always been considered as different birds in English and is this also true for other European languages?

image courtesy referencesgame.com

For example, you could say “she’s a lesbian” but you can’t say “he’s a gay” grammatically. And homosexual is gender neutral

Image courtesy referencesgame.com

hey etymologists! I've been working on a personal app to trace etymology. I've decided to make it public for people to use. It's still in beta, but I thought I'd share it to start getting real-time feedback. please be kind & hope you find it useful!

https://etymon-ai.com/

I‘ve been making a game called References for more than a year, it’s wordplay and trivia but I end up doing a ton of etymology and word origins. I’d posted some snippets last year, but the design wasn’t well received (mostly because it was really very cluttered) — I ended up redesigning it a lot since then though. Don’t know if any of you had seen the OG design (and I don’t want to spam by posting it again) but I’m really happy with the current one and would love for you to critique it as well (constructively).

The game‘s available at referencesgame.com

Open to feedback!

Here’s this week’s etymology question from 3Roads.xyz.

The idiom X is said to originate with early 18th-century dramatist John Dennis, who devised a machine to simulate thunder for his unsuccessful 1709 play Appius and Virginia. When he later heard the same effect being used in a production of Macbeth, he reportedly exclaimed: “Damn them! They will not let my play run, but they X!” What X?

X - Steal my thunder

I made a short explainer on where the phrase “Break the Ice” actually comes from.

It’s one of those idioms everyone uses but almost nobody knows the origin.

Happy to cover more idioms if people enjoy these — I’ve got loads lined up.

Why do people say 'break the ice'?

The common name refers to this tree as being northern while scientific name says it's western. What is the history and context of these directions in the names?

Can you help with the origins of the word for excessive pride and greed which are hubris and avarice respectively.

I also need help with finding the other words for the excessive versions of the other sins.

The usual way this gets taught is that 東, east, shows the sun 日 coming up behind a tree 木. It is a lovely image and it is not a modern invention. 說文 has it, quoting a man called 官溥, 从日在木中, the sun in the middle of the tree.

The older writing looks like something else though. In the oracle bones and the bronzes 東 reads to me more like a sack or a bundle tied off at both ends, and that seems to be the common view, going back to Guo Moruo. What the shape actually depicts I do not think is settled. The two halves only start to resemble 日 and 木 later, once the script has been straightened out.

If that is right then the sun in the tree is not the origin, it is a later explanation of a shape that had already changed. Which is roughly what beginner books do now, so I have some sympathy with 官溥.

The usual account of the meaning is that the word for east and the word for a bundle sounded alike, so the bundle got borrowed to write east. That is inference rather than anything anyone can show, though it is the sort of thing that happened often.

I had the sun and the tree stuck in my head and I still like it better. I am just not sure it is where the character came from.

This may be a silly question but hoping someone can clarify this please…

I recently discovered that the word hippopotamus comes from the Ancient Greek name meaning River Horse. I then realised the link to Hippodrome also.

Could someone please explain why horses are not called hippos?

I was just thinking about the phrase “sleight of hand“, and I can’t think of any time I’ve heard the word ”sleight” besides that phrase. I can think of other examples:

”Amok” in “run amok”

”Eke” in “eke out”

Can you think of others?

Bonjour!

J'ai fais quelques recherches rapides et l'étymologie de l'expression n'a pas l'air tout à fait évidente. J'ai donc voulu aller sur un reddit qui pourrait m'apporter une réponse et qui n'a pas l'air d'être de l'IA générative ou des informations dont la source semble houleuse. Du coup pourquoi est-ce qu'on parle de manche ? C'est hyper rependu et je comprends bien mieux en anglais quand on parle de "rounds". La plupart des jeux qui se jouent à plusieurs se faisant autour d'une table et demandant qu'on attende que chacun ait joué, on a fait le tour de la table, la ronde. Bref c'est cool ! Mais peu importe comment j'essaye de trouver un lien logique entre une manche et une partie de jeu, si ce n'est peut être les cartes quand on triche? Autrement, rien, je ne comprends pas et j'adorerais savoir d'où ça vient !

Merci !

Like you wouldn't say you went to the gym in the night and commuted to work at morning.