Language Of Confusion: Vacation, Part III

Last part of words from the Proto Indo European eue-, to leave, abandon, or give out, which gave us vacation, vacate, and somehow want.
 
This week, we’ll start by looking at void. It showed up in the fourteenth century meaning vacant before also meaning to legally void in the mid fifteenth century. It comes from the Anglo French/Old French voide/viude, and before that the classical Latin vocivos, vacant, which is from vacare, the origin word of vacate and a bunch of these other words.
 
Plus there’s also devoid, which weirdly kind of means the same thing as void. It showed up in the fifteenth century, though the word devoided actually existed before that and had the same meaning. It comes from the Middle English devoiden, from the Old French desvidier, with the des- from dis- and meaning away, and the rest from voide. Devoid is to empty away.
 
Avoid showed up in the late fourteenth century as what we know it as, though before that in Middle English it used to mean to empty out. That’s from the Anglo French avoider, from the Old French esvuidier, with the es- actually from ex-, meaning out, and the rest is also from voide. So it means to empty out, and we just changed it to mean staying away from something.
 
Next there’s devastate, though that actually came in the mid sixteenth century while devastation showed up a whole century earlier. It comes from the Medieval Latin devastationem, from the classical Latin verb devastare, which is just to devastate. The de- means completely here, while vastare means to waste, so devastate is to completely waste! And vastare is from the Proto Indo European wasto-, of course from eue-. How sensible! And speaking of waste, it’s pretty old, having shown up in the thirteenth century from the Anglo French/Old North French waster, which just so happens to also be from vastare. Waste and devastate are one and the same.
 
The final word we’re going to look at from eue- is… vaunt. Yes, vaunt, like boasting about something, because boasting is kind of, well, vain. It showed up in the early fifteenth century from the Anglo French vaunter, Old French vanter, Medieval Latin vanitare, and finally the classical Latin vanare, which means something like to say in vain. That happens to be from vanus, the origin word for vain, from the PIE wano­-, which is from eue-. Because vaunting is vain.
 
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
University of Texas at Arlington
Dictionary of Medieval Latin
Fordham University

From The Spamfiles

Last one of the month!

No. I’ve never recommended anyone ever.

Sigh. Well, I suppose it’s better than the racist African ones.

With CarShield, your car can take one hit before it gets destroyed! But then you have to let it recharge before you can use it again.

Somewhere out there, someone keeps sending out messages to people about rewards they’ve received and wondering why no one ever responds.

Really, the only new followers I’ve gotten on twitter in months are random women with lots of numbers in their handles. Twitter is now like ninety percent bots.

Update

I definitely spoke too soon.

Yeah, Windows 11 is a great OS. The updates break my computer so much I have to start it in troubleshoot mode and roll them back.

Language Of Confusion: Vacation, Part II

More on words that are related to vacate, all descended from the Proto Indo European eue-, to leave, abandon, or give out. And somehow that gave us vacation.
 
First today, vanish, which you can at least see as being related to vacate. It showed up in the fourteenth century as a short version of the word esvaniss-, which is from the Old French esvanir, same meaning as vanish. It’s from the Vulgar Latin exvanire, from the classical Latin evanescere, to disappear. The e- comes from ex- and means out and the vanescere means to vanish, from vanus, which means empty or, well, vain. Anyway, that word is from the Proto Indo European wano-, another form of eue-. To vanish is to vanish out. But we lost the e- in front.
 
So yeah, vain. It also showed up in the fourteenth century from the Old French vain/vein, which is just from vanus. Then there’s vanity, an older word having shown up in the thirteenth century. It’s from the Old French vanite, from the classical Latin vanitatem, vanity or emptiness, and again, that’s from vanus. Because vain people are metaphorically empty, we have those words.
 
How about some words beginning with W? Wane comes from the Old English wanian, to diminish. It’s from the Proto Germanic wanonan, which is from wano, the same as vanish. Basically, this word is the same as vanish except it came to us through Germanic origins instead of Latin.
 
Also related is want of all words. It showed up in the thirteenth century from the Old Norse vanta, from the Proto Germanic wanen. That’s from the PIE weno-, which is from eue-, so a slightly different version of the word. Why is want from a word meaning to leave/abandon? Because when you want something, you’re lacking it—you’re empty of it, if you get my meaning.
 

Now if you go in another direction for meaning: wanton. It showed up in the early fourteenth century as wan-towen. The wan- was a Middle English word element meaning wanting or lacking, and kind of used the same as un-, and it happens also to be from wano-. The second half of the word is actually from the Proto Germanic teuhan, the origin for tug of all things, so wanton means “un-tugged along”, which… somehow gives us wanton.

 
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

University of Texas at Arlington
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English
Encyclopaedia Britannica

From The Spamfiles

Yes, this again.

What month do you think this is?

Yes, actually, uncertain times are stressing me out, I don’t know how to make it stop.

Okay, not only can I say for sure I don’t have a Facebook account (or FB account, eyeroll), I am one hundred percent certain my name’s not Ibrahimerouk.

Whatever her idea of fun is, I want no part of it.

 

Rajani, you’re coming off a little desperate here. You could have at least put it up on different blog posts and not in the same two minute window.

Just Figuring It Out

It’s 6-66.

Honestly, I can’t be surprised since I can be the same way, but she’s been reading this book since before I was born.

Language Of Confusion: Vacation, Part I

Gee, I wonder why this is on my mind.
 
Vacate showed up in the mid seventeenth century, from the classical Latin vacatus and its verb form vacare, to be empty or at leisure. Vacation actually showed up much earlier, in the late fourteenth century, from the Old French vacacion and before that, the classical Latin vacationem, another form of vacare. Vacare is from the Proto Indo European wak-, which from the root eue-, to leave, abandon, or give out. And a lot of words with vac- in them are somehow from those three vowels.
 
Vacant showed up in the fourteenth century (vacancy later, in the late sixteenth century). It comes from the Old French vacant, from the classical Latin vacantem, vacant, yet another form of vacare. Then there’s evacuate, which showed up in the early sixteenth century (evacuation showed up earlier, in the fifteenth century, but referred to discharge from the body… ew!). It’s from the classical Latin evacuatus, to make empty, a mix of the prefix ex-, out, and vacuus, empty. To empty out. What a sensible etymology!
 
And of course vacuus gave us vacuum. It showed up in the mid sixteenth century, but only referred to the emptiness of space since vacuums weren’t invented yet (not until 1903!). Vacuum is actually a straight Latin word meaning empty, and is the noun form of vacuus. Vacuous is from the same word, having shown up in the mid seventeenth century, though back then it was literal, not meaning empty of ideas/intelligence until 1848.
 
How straightforward this has all been. I’m sure it will be convoluted again next week.
 
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