Wednesday, April 1, 2015

A-to-Z Challenge: A

Whee! A solid month of not having to think up new posts etymology! I couldn’t be more excited. Well, I could, like if I sold a book or something. But barring that, yeah, this is pretty tops.



Today’s word: aim.

Aim first showed up in the early fourteenth century, with the verb form coming just before the noun. It comes from the Old French aesmer, rate or estimate, and the classical Latin aestimare, appraise. And if you’re thinking, “Boy, that word sure looks like estimate”, that’s because it is the origin word for estimate (and esteem, for that matter).

One word down. And the adventure begins!

Sources

20 comments:

  1. That is a lot of history for a very short word :) Thank you for the education.
    Tasha
    Tasha's Thinkings | Wittegen Press | FB3X (AC)

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  2. Hi, I'm just visiting from http://olivegroveview.blogspot.gr/ where I'm doing the A to Z Challenge. I love finding out about words and how they came in to being. Even little words have their own history. I look forward to the next 25! Good luck.

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  3. I guess aim and estimate are connected. Sort of.

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  4. Oh cool! I enjoyed this last year. Glad you're doing it again. I "aim" to visit every day. :)

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  5. I love learning about the history behind words. :)


    -Chrys Fey
    Tremp’s Troops - A to Z Co-co-host
    Write with Fey

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  6. I didn't know it was connected to those other words.

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  7. Aim = estimate? I guess that makes sense. As much as any of our language does.

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  8. I waiting for the word that you can say it didn't come from anywhere. Some guy named John make it up in 1471 and it spread from there.

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  9. In response to the last comment: well, if you go far enough back, somebody DID just make up every word in every language. But I'm guessing (and nobody can prove me wrong) that most of them were women, because they had better communication skills.

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  10. I was not thinking that word looked like estimate at all.

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  11. Fabulous! I love etymology. Look forward to reading the rest of your posts this month :)

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  12. Aesmer looks like the kind of word Tolkien would use.

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  13. AIM rocked great start ... like your theme and the way you presented it #Blogging from A-Z swinging by to meet and greet. I am 471 and 472 in the long list, with MOVIES & What's in a NAME Hope you swing by to 4covert2overt and Defining Ways. Hope to meet up everywhere @M_C_V_Egan
    http://4covert2overt.blogspot.com/
    http://mariacatalinaegan.com/
    .⋱ ⋮ ⋰.,;***;,.⋱ ⋮ ⋰
    ⋯¤♥¤⋯.(^_^)⋯¤♥¤⋯
    ⋰ ⋮ ⋱..._/l\_...⋰ ⋮ ⋱
    ♫ ƤҼƌҪҼ ƌƝƊ ĻƠṼҼ ॐ βԼƐֆֆїɳɠֆ ƌƝƊ βԼїֆֆ ♫...

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  14. It's cool that aim and esteem are connected!

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  15. As an archer, I approve of this word. :)
    Happy A to Z!

    @TarkabarkaHolgy from
    Multicolored Diary - Epics from A to Z
    MopDog - 26 Ways to Die in Medieval Hungary

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  16. LOL. You do crack me up :) Hooray for etymology!

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  17. Interesting aim and estimate related, I don't see the connection, but maybe that's why I'm not a wordsmith :)

    betty

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  18. Aims should be estimates, we might miss, but then we can try again!

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Please validate me.