Language Of Confusion: Armed, Part I

Yep, going right into another multiparter. So many words are connected! Usually in stupid ways!
 
The words we’re looking at this time are all descended from the Proto Indo European ar-, to fit together. Some of these might make sense, but I assure you, most will leave you scratching your head. The first we’re looking at is actually arm, which I believe I’ve gone over before years ago, but am too lazy to check. There are two versions, the limb as well as a weapon, and both are ultimately from the same place. Your limb comes from the Middle English arm, Old English arm, Proto Germanic armaz, and finally ar-. The weapon has a slightly different origin, being from the Old French armes and its verb form armer, which are from the classical Latin armare, to arm, which is also from ar-. In other words, arm started out as the same word, traveled through two separate languages, and came back together in English.
 
Many other arm- words are also from the same place. Army showed up in the late fourteenth century from the Old French armée, classical Latin armata, armed, which of course is from armare. Fun fact, armata is also the origin word for armada, which came to us from Spanish. Then there’s armor, which also showed up in the fourteenth century. It’s from the Old French armeure and classical Latin armatura, from arma, weapons, which is of course from armare.
 
Armistice has a fairly similar origin. It showed up much more recently, in the early eighteenth century from the French armistice, which was a mix of the Latin arma and the back half of solstice. Armament showed up a bit earlier, in the mid seventeenth century, from the classical Latin armamentum, which means armor or implement, and yes, is from armare.
 
And it wouldn’t be etymology if we didn’t look at some words that are just weird. Armoire showed up in the later sixteenth century from the French armoire, Old French armarie, and classical Latin armarium, a cabinet or cupboard, which is from arma. Because an armoire could be used to hold tools—or implements—and those tools can be weapons. But there’s one more word we’re going to look at, one that does make sense when you think about it: armadillo. It showed up in the late sixteenth century from the Spanish armadillo, which is from the word armado, armed, and that’s from amare, too. Because an armadillo is armed with a shell, we call it that.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
University of Texas at Arlington
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English
Old English-English Dictionary

Language of Confusion: Parts

Body parts, to be specific. I guess I could have been more clear in the title.

We’ve got hands, we’ve got legs, we’ve got eyes, we’ve got toes…so many things that this is going to be another multiparter. Haven’t done that in a while. Wait, don’t leave!

Arm

Arm the body part comes from the Old English earm (same meaning), and can be traced further back to the Proto Germanic armaz and Proto Indo European ar-, which means join. There’s also the arm that means weapon. That arm comes by way of Old French and classical Latin, but before that, it also came from ar-. So the two definitions of arm started out from the same thing, became different words in different languages, only to come back together as a homonym in English. Languages!

Leg

Leg first showed up in the late thirteenth century. It came from one of the Scandinavian languages (not sure which one), which in turn came from Proto Germanic where it was lagjaz. Further back is a big question mark, but it’s worth noting that “leg” replaced another word, the Old English shank. Which today survives as a word for an improvised stabbing utensil.

Hand

Hand comes from the Old English hond/hand, which in addition to meaning hand, meant control/possession, or a side, and before that the proto Germanic khanduz. The interesting fact about this one is that back in Old English, the plural of hond/hand was handa, and then in Middle English, it was handen.

Foot

Foot comes from the Old English fot and Proto Germanic fot. They didn’t even attempt to change that. Anyway, before it was fot, it was the Proto Indo European ped, which you still see in Latin derived words like pedicure. The reason the plural of foot is feet is because of what’s called a mutation of the oo in foot. Basically, a mutation is when saying a word wrong becomes so common that it turns into the correct way of saying it. In this case, foot underwent an i-mutation, where people stopped saying oo and started saying ee—think of how you pronounce “women”; you don’t say woe-mehn, you say wim-min. In this case, the mutation was used as the plural of foot.

That’s all for this week. Tune in next week for…a bunch more of this stuff, I guess.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Omniglot

Richard Nordquist’s article at About.com

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