Language Of Confusion: Verse, Part VII

It’s seven, right? It’s been so long I can’t remember. There are a LOT of words that come from the Proto Indo European wer-, to turn or bend. The ones this week all have a bit of a theme to them.
 
First, wrest—and of course wrestle, which spawned from it, though back then they only meant to twist or wrench, then meaning to pull or detach in the fourteenth century and then take by force in the fifteenth. Wrest comes from the Old English wraestan, and wrestle from wraestlian, both with the same meanings we use for them. Before that, they’re from the Proto Germanic wraistjan, from wreik-, to turn, which is from wer-. Wrestling does involve a lot of bending and twisting. The word wriggle is actually surprisingly close. It has an actual time period it showed up in, the late fifteenth century, from the Middle Low German wrigglen, from the Proto Germanic wrig-. That’s from wreik-, just like wrestle.
 
And speaking of wrench, it comes from the Old English wrencan, to twist. The tool of course came after the verb, all the way in 1794, and hey, it makes sense, wrenches are for twisting things open and closed. The word is from the Proto Germanic wrankjan, from the Proto Indo European wrengh-/wergh, to turn, a spawn of wer-. There’s also wring, which comes from the Old English wringan, which is again from wreng/werg. Funny how different (well, kind of) they turned out.
 
Then there’s writhe, which comes from the Old English wriþan, same definition. It’s from the Proto Germanic writhanan, which is wreit- in PIE, from wer-. Finally, there’s wrangle, which showed up in the late fourteenth century related to wrestle, but then in 1897 started being used in American English in reference to horses. It comes from the Low German wrangeln and Middle Low German wringen, and before that the Proto Germanic wrang-, which is from wrengh-/wergh-. You know, again.
 
TL;DR: all the verse words related to twisting have very little variance in their origins.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
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
In Depth Germanic Language Studies

Language of Confusion: Rest Stop

Rest! It’s a word that’s also part of arrest, and interest, and wrest is probably involved in some way. We also have forest, but since rest is not actually a suffix in that word, it doesn’t count here.

Rest

Rest has two main definitions, one meaning sleeping or taking a break, the other a synonym for remaining. Sleep rest comes from the Old English raeste which could mean rest like we know it, bed, or mental calm. It’s prevalent across many Germanic languages, but it’s origins from there are a mystery. However, its Old High German equivalent is rasta, which meant both rest as we know it and “league of miles”, so apparently it also had something to do with distance. What that signifies is anyone’s guess.

There’s also the other rest, the remaining one, if you will. It comes from the Old French rester, to remain, and the classical Latin  restare, stand back or be left. The re is actually the prefix re-, which means back in this case. -Stare means to stand, which survives somewhat in the word stet. The reason these two definitions have the same spelling? Coincidence, plain and simple.

Wrest

We don’t use wrest much these days. It’s frequentative, wrestle, is far more common. Wrest comes from the Old English wraestlan, where it meant twist or wrench, and the Proto Germanic wraistijanan, a version of the word wrig/wreik, to turn. The idea of removing or detaching didn’t show up until the early fourteenth century, while removing by force showed up in the early fifteenth century. It has absolutely nothing to do with any version of the word rest. I’m just posting about it to fill up space.

Arrest

Arrest showed up in the late fourteenth century, coming from the Old French arester, to stop, and Vulgar Latin arrestare. The prefix ar- is a variation of ad-, which means to or at. The suffix is of course restare, which gave us the remain behind rest, so it’s the verb of to stay behind (writing “to to stay behind” is kind of weird). Basically, it’s making someone stay behind.

Interest

Interest as we know it showed up in the early seventeenth century, but it came from an earlier word from the mid fifteenth century that meant a benefit or a legal claim. Interest comes from the Anglo French interesse, legal concern, which itself comes from the Medieval Latin interesse, compensation of loss. See the evolution? Compensation to legal concerns to benefit. But what’s interesting (ahem) is that interesse comes from the classical Latin interesse, which means…interest. It went from the definition we know it as to something different and then by the time it was finally translated into English, it started to go back to the old meaning. You can’t see it, but I’m rolling my eyes right now. Anyway, interesse is a mix of words, in this case inter-, between, and -esse, which means to be. The T is just something we English speakers slapped onto it.

TL;DR: One definition of rest is related to arrest. Any other word with rest in it is just coincidence.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Dictionary.com

Google Translate

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

Orbis Latinus

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

Fordham University