There are some weird
words related to
mer-, the
Proto Indo European
root word that means to rub away or harm and is the origin for mortal and other
death related words. The words we’re looking at this week, however, aren’t
death related in the slightest. And maybe not related to mer-, but let’s look
at them anyway.
First is mortar—both
the short cannon, the bowl for grinding, and the building material. The
grinding bowl came first in the
thirteenth century, shortly followed by
building material, and then the cannon in the sixteenth century because it was
apparently shaped like a bowl. All the mortars come from the
Old French mortier, from the
classical Latin mortarium,
which just means
mortar.
It’s not definite, but it’s thought that it descends from mer-, probably in the
rub away sense. Which, I mean, I guess makes sense.
Next is
morsel—really. It also showed up in the late
thirteenth century from the Old French
morsel, and that’s from the classical Latin
morsum,
a bite,
another word that’s supposedly descended from mer-. Of course it’s possible
they aren’t related, but considering how many words are related that don’t make
sense, it probably is.
With that sense, we
go to look at remorse. It showed up in the
late fourteenth century from the Old French
remors and
Medieval Latin remorsum, which literally means a
biting back. It’s from the classical Latin
remordere,
to torment,
with re- meaning
again and
mordere
meaning
to bite,
another word thought to be from mer-. So how did biting back come to mean
remorse? Apparently there’s a Medieval Latin phrase
remorsus conscientiae,
remorse of conscience. If your conscience is biting back at you, you’re feeling
remorse. Obviously people wanted to shorten that, so it’s just remorse now.
Another word you’ll
never expect: nightmare. The word showed up in the
fourteenth century meaning an evil female spirit (eyeroll) afflicting men in their sleep with
suffocation (major eyeroll). In the mid sixteenth century, it dropped the
female spirit part and just meant the sensation of suffocating, and it wasn’t
until 1829 that it meant a bad dream. A
mare—not
the female horse, which is unrelated—was a word for a night goblin or incubus,
so basically the same thing as a nightmare. It comes from the
Old English mare,
nightmare, and
Proto Germanic maron, goblin. Now, that word is from
the Proto Indo European
mora-, incubus, which is thought to be from
mer-. Crazy, right?
Finally today, we’re
looking at smart, which I’m pretty sure I’ve etymologized before, but just have
to do it again because it’s so wild that it might be related to all these. Smart
showed up sometime around the
thirteenth century.
Now, there’s a couple of definitions of smart, one meaning a sharp pain and one
meaning intelligent, and yes, they are related, as in addition to pain, smart
also originally meant something done with vigor or being quick and clever.
Smart comes from the Old English
smeart,
painful or smarting,
and that word comes from the Proto Indo European
smerd-, pain. And
that’s yet another word that people think comes from mer-, but who knows at
this point? I suppose we have to blame all this on the fact that not a lot of
people recorded where they came up with words. Especially back before there was
writing.
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
Dictionary
of Medieval Latin
