Yes, the long awaited sequel that
really wasn’t that long after and none of you were waiting for. It’s here!
Fillet/Filet
Did you know that there are two
different spellings for this word? Because I did not. They’re related, as filet
showed up in 1841 in cooking, and it
was taken from the French word filet, which they had already taken in the
fourteenth century as fillet. Could
not make this up. They’re both from the Old French
filet, thread or strip, and the verb
form originally meant to bind with a narrow band. And the reason we call a cut
of meat a fillet is because it was hung up on strings. Just like files. Which
makes sense since it’s from file.
Filigree
Does anyone even use this word? I
know I’ve heard it (it’s ornate wires, or fancy things in general),
although I can’t think of the last time I did. It showed up in the late seventeenth century, but it was
actually a shortening of the word filigreen,
which showed up in the mid seventeenth century from the French filigrane. Before that it was the
Italian filigrana, which was taken
from the classical Latin filum, which means wire and we talked about during the File post. Since filigree relates to wires, this
makes sense! Until you find out that the green/grane part of it comes from granum, grain.
Wire grain. That… makes less sense.
Fiber
What? Fiber is really related? Yes,
it is. It showed up in the late fourteenth century as fibre, meaning entrails or a lobe
of the liver. It comes from the Medieval
Latin fibre, and classical Latin fibra, which could mean fiber,
but also entrails. It’s origin is actually uncertain, but it’s thought to be from
filum. I mean, intestines are kind of string like…
Sources
