Language Of Confusion: Meter, Part II

Time to once again look at the words related to meter, which are all from the Proto Indo European me-, to measure. Last week was the normal ones. Well, relatively.
 
Like I said last week, month is related to it. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve etymologized this word before, not that I remember when. It comes from the Old English monaþ, which is just month with a letter for -th. That’s from the Proto Germanic menoth, which is from menon-, the origin word for moon. I think it’s common knowledge that a month is about equal to the cycle of the moon, so it makes sense it comes from there. Moon itself is from the Middle English mone and Old English mona, which is also from the Germanic menon-. And that’s from the PIE me-, to measure, because it is a measurement of the moon’s phases. That didn’t quite work out for calendars, but the name stuck.
 
And it shouldn’t be a surprise that measure is from the same place, too. It showed up in the early fourteenth century as a verb (spelled mesuren, actually) and earlier in the thirteenth century it was a noun, however back then, the words referred to moderation before it came to mean taking a measurement. The words are from the Old French mesurer/mesure, from the Late Latin mensurare and classical Latin mensura. That’s from the verb metiri, to measure, which is more obviously related to meter and is from me-. So Latin dropped the T and put in an N, then French dropped the N, too.
 
There’s also immense, which you can kind of see—immense means great beyond measure. It showed up in the early fifteenth century from the classical Latin immensus, same meaning. Mensus means measured, and is from metiri as well, while the prefix is from in and means not or opposite of. Immense is the opposite of measured.
 
Then we have dimension. It showed up in the late fourteenth century, from the classical Latin dimensionem. Like the previous word, the second half is from metiri, and here the prefix dis is probably intensive, because it usually means apart, away, or not, and that really doesn’t make sense. A dimension is a measurement of something finite, let’s leave it at that.
 
The last word we’re going to look at is meal, but in this case, it means the food occasion, not ground grain, which I have to inform you is not related at all. Meal showed up in the late twelfth century from the Old English mael, which means a meal, a measure, or a mark in measurement, so you can see how it’s related. It’s from the Proto Germanic mela, which is from me-. Apparently because a meal is a fixed (or measured) occasion, it is related to measure.
 
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
Orbis Latinus

Language of Confusion: The Moon

The sun had its turn, so now it’s time for the moon.

Moon

Moon used to be mona (no, not related to the name, like at all) in Old English, and before that it was menon- in Proto Germanic, and then in Proto Indo European it was me(n)ses-, which  meant both moon and month and of course is where month comes from. In fact me(n)ses comes from me-, which means “to measure”, because the phases of the moon used to be a standard of time (which you were probably aware of; one cycle of the moon used to be one month).

Lunar

Lunar showed up in the early fifteenth century meaning crescent-shaped—it didn’t actually refer to the moon until the seventeenth century! At least, not in English. It’s from the Old French lunaire, which is from the classical Latin lunaris, relating to the moon. Interestingly the word luna showed up before lunar, coming about in the late fourteenth century and actually meaning the moon, coming from the Roman goddess Luna. The word can actually be traced back to the Proto Indo European leuksna-, from leuk-, light (and the origin for most light related words). And hey, the reason lunatic is obviously related is because when it showed up in the late thirteenth century it meant someone with periodic insanity caused by the changes of the moon. In fact it comes from the Late Latin llunaticus, moon-struck.

Selene

Selene of course is the Greek equivalent of Luna and although English uses the Latin goddess more, Selene still pops up in places. Selenium, for example, was named for the moon. Selene can also be traced to the Proto Indo European swell-, to shine or beam, and gave us the words swelter and sultry. So. You know. That’s a thing.

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

Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

Old English-English Dictionary

Orbis Latinus

Encyclopedia Mythica