Thursday, April 14, 2016

A-to-Z Challenge: L

What a load.

The word is load. Yeah, I’m getting kind of tired.


Load showed up as a verb in the late fifteenth century but a noun in the early thirteenth century. It comes from the Old English lad, which means way or course. No, I don’t know how it got from one to the other. Maybe from the idea of carrying a load along a path to a destination? But that’s just a guess on my part.

Before that, it comes from the Proto Germanic laitho and Proto Indo European leit, go forth, the origin word for lead. Um, not the metal, the other one. And the word lode actually comes from the same place.

Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
Old English-English Dictionary
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , ,

13 comments:

  1. Kate LarkindaleApril 14, 2016 at 4:48 AM

    Interesting… Do you think maybe lad became load because of the material needing to be carried to build paths or roads?

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousApril 14, 2016 at 5:44 AM

    I think your guess is correct since it was a world without machinery or vehicles to do that carrying for them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alex J. CavanaughApril 14, 2016 at 7:02 AM

    Well, that's a load of...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Tasha Duncan-DrakeApril 14, 2016 at 7:28 AM

    That makes ... well a little bit of sense, maybe :) Sometimes word changes are just a bit baffling. Good choice for L though!
    Tasha
    Tasha's Thinkings | Wittegen Press | FB3X (AC)

    ReplyDelete
  5. M.J. FifieldApril 14, 2016 at 9:53 AM

    I think that's a pretty good guess on your part. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. William KendallApril 14, 2016 at 11:04 AM

    Interesting that load and lode have common links.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Liz A.April 14, 2016 at 11:16 AM

    I get this image of you writing all these posts in a marathon session one day. And each day the explanation for why that word gets harder and harder to come up with.

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousApril 14, 2016 at 11:20 AM

    So was load like the past tense of lead at one point?

    ~Ninja Minion Patricia Lynne aka Patricia Josephine~
    Story Dam
    Patricia Lynne, Indie Author

    ReplyDelete
  9. Susanne MatthewsApril 14, 2016 at 12:05 PM

    Interesting. Thanks for sharing. https://mhsusannematthews.wordpress.com/

    ReplyDelete
  10. NicolaApril 14, 2016 at 1:57 PM

    Interesting. I often say, 'Sit down. Take a load off'. So now I know the possible origin of that phrase. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Susan Gourley/KelleyApril 14, 2016 at 11:54 PM

    And how did we get that from that? Language is so weird.

    Susan Says

    ReplyDelete
  12. Rhonda AlbomApril 15, 2016 at 3:18 AM

    Interesting that it was a noun first. Not sure how it became a verb.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Optimistic ExistentialistApril 15, 2016 at 3:36 AM

    I plan on eating a load of ice cream this weekend :)

    ReplyDelete

Please validate me.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)