Monday, April 13, 2015

A-to-Z Challenge: K

Today’s word is keep because it’s the first word I could think of that started with K.



Keep comes from the Old English word cepan, which meant seize, hold…or observe. Hm. Anyway, before that, it was the Proto Germanic kopijan and then, while there are a few maybes, there’s nothing for sure. That observe definition means it might be related to the Old English capian, to look, and from observe we got “keep an eye on” and then just keep. It’s an interesting theory, for sure, and certainly crazy enough to be true!

Sources
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

10 comments:

  1. I love how sometimes with words it is the crazy explanation that is true :)
    Tasha
    Tasha's Thinkings | Wittegen Press | FB3X (AC)

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  2. Would 'hold' be why there are buildings called keeps?

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  3. It's always neat to find out where these words we know came from, especially when where it came from had a compltely different meaning.

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  4. Seems like all kinds of interesting connections with this one.

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  5. I also thought of the structures called keeps.

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  6. It does make sense with the explanation for keep an eye on it.

    betty

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  7. It's a rather strange word if you think about it.

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  8. Sounds like "capture" comes from "cepan" as well then?

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  9. Our language, hodge-podge in the extreme. :)

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