Language of Confusion: Whatever The Case May Be, Part II

If you’ll remember from last week, the two versions of case (situation and container) are from different origins. This week, we’re looking at words related to the first version, which descended from the Proto Indo European kad- (to fall) and also gave us casual and casualty. Because words.

First of all, a lot of words with “-cid-” in them are from kad-. Accident, incident, recidivist, deciduous… all from kad-. Accident showed up in the late fourteenth century from the Old French accident and classical Latin accidentem, from the verb accidere, to befall. The a- is from ad-, to, and the -cidere is from cadere, to fall, from kad-. An accident befalls someone.

Incident showed up in the early fifteenth century from the Old French incident (we’re just blatantly copying from them now) and the classical Latin incidentem (incident) from incidere, to fall. And again, that’s from cadere. The in- actually means on here, meaning this word is more like “to fall on”. It’s weird how words can mean the same thing when you look at the parts of them, but when you look at the whole it’s completely different.

Now, recidivist showed up in 1863, from the French (that is, Modern French) récidiver, which means something like fall back or backslide. It’s from the Medieval Latin recidivare, relapse into sin, from the classical Latin recidivus, fall back in the sense of recurring or returning. The verb form is recidere, fall back, with the re- meaning back or again. With cadere, it’s to fall back again. Pretty accurate definition of recidivism.

Now the one that I was really wondering about: deciduous. It showed up in the late seventeenth century from the classical Latin deciduus, that which falls down, from decidere, to fall down or drop. The de- means down in this case (pun not intended), and with cadere, it’s to fall down. And because some trees have leaves that fall down every year, they are called deciduous. Ugh, it’s unsettling when things make sense.

I had hoped to finish all the words related to this particular case, but after all this I’m only about halfway done. So I’m afraid we’ll have to wait until next week.

This is definitely going to be a long series. Like, if this series was a walk in the woods, I would suggest you bring a tent.

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

Dictionary of Medieval Latin

Language of Confusion: Incidences

Sometimes words just strike me as weird. Like, accident and incident both end in -cident…but what does that mean? Are they even connected? Or is it just another coincidence?

Oh, coincidence. That’s another one.

Accident showed up in the late fourteenth century actually meaning an event or incident (-_-). It comes from the Old French accident and classical Latin accidentem/accidere, which can mean accident, to happen, or to fall out or fall upon. The a- comes from ad-, which means to, and the suffix comes from cadere, which means fall. And is, weirdly enough, the origin word for case which used to mean “what befalls one”. So it went from “to fall to” to something happening to happening by chance to accident. With that fall in there, it kind of makes sense.

Incident showed up in the early fifteenth century meaning “something which occurs casually in connection with something else”. Which sounds a lot more like accident than accident does. Anyway, it comes from the Middle French incident and classical Latin incidentem/incidere, incident or fall. The in- means on in this case (don’t ask; prefixes are weirder than actual words) and added to cadere, it’s to fall on, which somehow morphed into what we know it as. Coincidence and coincide are both related, although they didn’t show up until the early seventeenth century. Those two words come from the Medieval Latin (so later than classical Latin) coincidere, which is incidere + co-, which is together. This makes the word “to fall on together”, which actually sounds a lot like what a coincidence is.

And there’s one more word we’re going to look at. Occident showed up in the late fourteenth century, meaning western, coming from the Old French occident and classical Latin occidentem, west. Occidentem comes from occidere, which can mean “fall down” or even “kill”. The fall down part at least makes sense, since the sun sets (or “falls down”) in the west. And amusingly enough, that word is also the origin for occasion, although via the Latin occasionem—opportunity. The o- comes from ob-, which means down or away. Not sure how falling away means opportunity, but there you are.

TL;DR: -cident means fall. Everything else is really confusing.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Ottawa, Canada

Dictionary of Medieval Latin