Language Of Confusion: Tense, Part II

We’re back looking at words related to tense by way of the Proto Indo European root ten-, to stretch. A lot of these things do stretch. But certainly not all of them.
 
The first word we’re going to look at this week is tendril, which is a neat descriptive word that literally means a “threadlike, leafless organ of climbing plants”. It’s a botany term that showed up in the mid sixteenth century from the French tendrillon, which means tendon. It’s from the Old French tendre, soft, the origin word for tender, which we looked at not too long ago. That’s from classical Latin, either tendere, to tend to, or tener, soft, both of which come from the PIE ten-.
 
Next, tenuous showed up in the late sixteenth century. It’s from the classical Latin tenuis, thin, and that’s from ten-. It actually used to literally mean thin before it shifted into the figurative meaning in 1817, and… that’s really it. This one was very straightforward. Unusual, isn’t it?
 
Now it’s time to get into the more WTF ones. Tenet, for example. It showed up in the early fifteenth century from the classical Latin tenet, which means (he) holds. That’s from tenere, to hold, which is from ten- even if it doesn’t quite make sense. The Etymology page says the connection between stretch and hold is “cause to maintain”, and then it was used in Medieval Latin in relation to doctrine, but I still don’t quite get it.
 
The word tenure is actually from the same place. It showed up in the early fifteenth century, from the Anglo French/Old French tenure, Old French tenir, Vulgar Latin tenire, and finally also tenere, because a tenure is something that’s held. Fun fact, it didn’t start being used as tenure of an office until 1957. Also from tenere is tenacity, which also showed up in the early fifteenth century, from the Old French ténacité and classical Latin tenacitas, which is an offshoot of tenere. Well, tenacity is holding onto something and refusing to let go.
 
Finally today is tetanus—yes, the infection. It showed up in the late fourteenth century from the classical Latin tetanus, which means… tetanus. It’s from the Greek tetanos, which originally meant a muscle spasm. It’s from teinein, to stretch, because of the spasms and stiffness of the muscles, and that word is of course from ten-. Another one that weirdly makes sense.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
Dictionary.com
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
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Fordham University

Language of Confusion: -Tain-ted Love, Part I

Yes, another ridiculous title and another two-parter. You wouldn’t believe how many words have -tain them.

Contain showed up in the late thirteenth century from the Old French contein/contenir and classical Latin continere, which is just contain in Latin. It’s a mix of the prefix com-, together, and tenere, hold. So, hold together. And if that’s not enough for you, tenere is also the origin word for tenet. Tenet literally means hold in Latin and means tenet in English because it was used to introduce doctrines (I could not make this stuff up). Anyway, it comes from the Proto Indo European ten, stretch and yes, that is totally a weird change, but the Online Etymology Dictionary says it’s because stretch and hold are connected by the notion of “cause to maintain”. Make of that what you will.

Obtain comes from the same line as contain. It showed up in the early fifteenth century from the Middle French obtenir, obtain, and classical Latin obtinere…obtain. Shocking, I know. The ob- prefix means to, so the word is “to hold”. I guess when you obtain something, you’re holding it.

Detain showed up in the early fifteenth century as deteynen (we totally need more Ys as vowels) before it changed to match up with the boring spellings of the other -tain words. It comes from the Old French detenir and classical Latin detinere, which both meant hold off or withhold, somewhat similar to what our detain is. The de- provides the away part and our friend tenere, making it literally holding away from.

The last word we’re looking at today is retain, which showed up in the late fourteenth century as hold back or restrain before morphing into what we know it as. It comes from the Old French retenir and classical Latin retinere, which just means retain. The re- means back in this case, so with tenere it’s hold back.

Whew! That’s part one, and there’s plenty more where this came from. Who knew tenet had such a family?

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Omniglot

Google Translate

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language

University of Ottawa, Canada