Today’s word is roast, and I have got to stop coming up with
things related to food because I’m making myself hungry.
Roast showed up in the late thirteenth century,
meaning to cook by dry heat. It comes from the Old French rostir, roast or burn, and Frankish hraustjan, cook on a grate or gridiron
(so, kind of like grilling). What I think is absolutely hilarious is that it’s
related to the word roster—really!
Because we get roster from the Dutch word rooster,
which means grid, not a chicken (rooster the bird isn’t related to roast…probably),
and a roster is a grid of words making a list. Rooster comes from the Middle Dutch roosten, to roast. So because we
cooked on a metal grid, we have roster and roast.
Sources
I think I follow that ... kinda :) I wonder how the whole roster thing originally came about and who thought to borrow the meaning?
ReplyDeleteTasha
Tasha's Thinkings | Wittegen Press | FB3X (AC)
But we can roast a rooster.
ReplyDeleteWe can roast chicken and roast ourselves in the sun if we aren't careful :)
ReplyDeletebetty
Darn, Alex said what I was going to say. He's sneaky. ;)
ReplyDeleteCan I have some roast rooster for lunch? Seems appropriate!
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the A to Z Challenge!
A to Z Co-Host S. L. Hennessy
http://pensuasion.blogspot.com/
Wow, I wouldn't have made the connection between those two.
ReplyDeleteBut can we roost a roaster?
ReplyDeleteYep, okay, I get it. I think.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there's roasting people live on television by having washed up comedians heckle them endlessly.
ReplyDeleteWell, that makes sense in a roundabout way. At least no roosters were harmed!
ReplyDelete