Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2023/March

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← February 2023 · March 2023 · April 2023 → · (current)

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enough is enough

Can anyone find evidence that enough is enough is a calque of Yiddish גענוג איז גענוג (genug iz genug)? — Sgconlaw (talk) 21:38, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

John Heywood, a 16th-century English writer, recorded the phrase as being one of “the prouerbes in the englishe tongue”. (See the first citation for the entry.) I find it implausible that a 16th-century English proverb derived directly or indirectly from a Yiddish source. I find the phrase also used in a contemplation by Robert Harris D.D. from Oxford, formerly a pastor in Hanwell, entitled “A Remedy againſt Covetouſneſſe”, published in 1654.^[1] I find it hard to image a pathway from a Yiddish saying to a 17th-century Anglican pastor and consider this in fact evidence against it being a calque from Yiddish.  --Lambiam 17:19, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

There appears to be general agreement in the literature that enough already is a calque on a Yiddish expression (as discussed by Leo Rosten in Hooray for Yiddish, pp. 113–4 e.g.), but I can't find people making that claim about enough is enough. This thesis on Yiddish-origin terms in English explicitly contrasts enough already as a phrase of Yiddish origin with enough is enough as the "general English" expression (p. 56). Apart from the proverbial meaning mentioned by Lambiam, the OED also has a 17th-century example of enough is enough where it seems to serve as an expression of exasperation, so I think Yiddish origin can be excluded. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 17:46, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I also couldn’t find anything satisfactory to indicate a Yiddish origin. — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:45, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Barberry

I stumbled onto the entry for barberry while looking to add photographs. Can someone comment on whether the correct etymology is from "barb" + "berry"? They do have substantial thorns. A direct descent from "berberis" as listed in the entry page seems too simplistic. Gorillo.Chimpo (talk) 00:16, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Middle English berberie makes that unlikely. The similarity of the "-beris" in Medieval Latin berberis to Middle English berie led to a change in the Middle English ending through folk etymology- perhaps the same thing happened with the "berb-" in berberie and Middle English barbe. I should mention, though, that in Middle English barbe was the word for beard, and wasn't as widely used for spiky things as in modern English. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:19, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Huaiyang

I am very interested in this concept of "reinforced by" that the good editor @LlywelynII is proposing in Huaiyang's etymology: diff. I have often thought of doing something similar, but I never found the kind of objective criteria with which to make these judgments. In the absence of such criteria, I use citations to determine when a word originated. Sometimes, it is clearly no older than Wade-Giles- like Kaohsiung. Sometimes it is clearly no older than pinyin (Hanyu Pinyin)- Guangzhou- or Tongyong Pinyin -Cijin. Sometimes, it's pre-modern, like Shanghai. I even provisionally identified some words as coming from pre-Wade language-specific transcriptions: Xansi, Shang-hae, Chang-hai, Fo-chan, etc.

My strict mindset says: No! There is no 'reinforcement'! If it existed, later transcription/transliteration systems that mimic the results of the older systems are irrelevant! My open-minded thinking says: Of course! How could you avoid mentioning systems that are in some way a part of the history of a given word's use?

Anyway, I think this is something better for a discussion between you all. I literally do not know what to do. Once some determination is made, I will follow along with that. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 14:36, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

• It's a relatively standard concept in etymology and I'm not sure what's problematic about it. Certainly for places in mainland China the idea that "if it existed, later transcription/transliteration systems that mimic the results of the older systems are irrelevant" would just be wrong, given that there is now generally an expectation of conforming with pinyin. "Reinforcement" reflects exactly this kind of situation, where another linguistic source happens to align with some prior derivation. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 14:52, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

• Obviously it depends. In the case of Shanghai, use of that form preceded Wade being born, but its continuing use is just as clearly based on it being the atonal pinyin form of the name. It's worth mentioning, which is why I mentioned it. It's fair enough to remove it from Huaiyang, demanding to see an exact source, but that seems unhelpful and specious unless there's a good-faith reason to doubt the information. Here, it's just the PSP form created by nixing Wade's hyphens. It was neither pinyin (which didn't exist yet) nor Wade (which should have the hyphens).

Anyway, just use full-on blank lines for paragraph breaks or find a way to indent them. Don't just run things together in awkward blocks of broken text using a single < br > tag. — LlywelynII 14:58, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

I see this as an evolving situation. I am proud that Wiktionary is working on this, because I don't see anyone else doing this hard work. I am 100% open-minded to experimentation in this area. For those among you who think "Oh God, can't we just ignore the transliteration systems, bruh?", confront how the three words Xizhi, Hsichih, and Sijhih would be handled in your mindset- you would botch it. So we need to create a system that is really better than anything else that exists. UPDATE: Check out Shihlin and Shihmen. Under my understanding of the 'reinforce' theory, I would add "reinforced by Tongyong Pinyin". UPDATE: 'reinforced' is good, but what about 'reiterated'? --Geographyinitiative (talk) 15:19, 2 March 2023 (UTC) (Modified)

@Geographyinitiative: As I said above, "reinforced" is the standard word for this phenomenon, it's not something we've made up (as "reiterated" would be). —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 12:01, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Al-Muqanna-- Thank you for your comment and help. Could you give me one example of the use of "reinforced" in an etymology on Wiktionary, outside the context of Mandarin? I want to see how it's done outside this context. Also, if there are specific reference works that use "reinforced", let me know- you said it was "standard" above. Please don't hate me, and thanks again for your help. When I read the reply, I want to feel utterly BTFO, so please do not hold back the best evidence. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 16:00, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

I found fish story and mixed through a simple word search, it's also used in a lot of Esperanto entries, where words were picked primarily from a few European languages, but preferred if they also were internationalisms. Wakuran (talk) 19:02, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Wakuran. This was so far outside my conceptual framework that I didn't really know what would be a legitimate example of this way of writing an etymology. I plan to start experimenting with this immediately. UPDATE: Experimenting with this at Kaifeng, Lankao, Yinchuan Geographyinitiative (talk) 19:25, 8 March 2023 (UTC) (Modified)

bankrupt

RFV of the etymology.

see Vocabolario Etimologico della Lingua Italiano 1907 — This unsigned comment was added by Italiano10000 (talk • contribs) at 03:44, 3 March 2023.

Can you explain what aspect you want to see verified? Do you question the veracity of the entry banca-rotta in the Vocabolario etimologico della lingua italiana? Or do you doubt that English bankrupt, like Italian bancarotta, was derived from banca +‎ rotta?  --Lambiam 12:15, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Not sure but since @Italiano10000 added the source themselves and removed the RFE tag they might just be notifying that it's resolved. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 12:39, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I think, though, that it is plausible that Medieval Latin was an intermediary: bankrupt < banca rupta < banca rotta.  --Lambiam 12:24, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

So, it would have been borrowed from Italian, but then re-Latinized? (Otherwise, it seems that many languages have borrowed the French form.) Wakuran (talk) 12:54, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Is it possible that the English 〈p〉 was mute at some point, and hence at that point not spelt either, afterwards in English etymologically to ruptures etc.? In German though we find bankrutt, Bankrutt often in the mid-19th century still, so the direct Italian borrowings claimed do not wholly convince me, rather Middle French banqueroute as for Dutch bankroet is the case for these forms at least, so Wakuran’s suspicion of French borrowing seems right. (bankerott and bankerutt is also often in German, the second vowel French.) Fay Freak (talk) 13:06, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the OED has Middle French as an intermediary, with bankrupt from Middle French bancque roupte, bancque rotte, which itself is from Italian banca rotta. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 13:13, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Ok, I have looked into the OED now. The relevant spelling in various quotes is bankrout, also with ck, que, hyphen, trailing e etc., both adjective and verb from mid 16th century. Not going to clean Wiktionary’s pile of omissions here, I am just making note that the translations all have to be checked as having been added by etymological fallacy—German bankrott, I have fixed, is not used in legal parlance anymore (bankruptcy law → Insolvenzrecht) and so on; I don’t intend to check all particular legal systems of Europe, especially if I can rely upon later editors botchily amending the translation tables anyway and the next one complaining that Fay Freak has been a formatting brazenface to convey points incomprehensible for the general language user anyway. Fay Freak (talk) 15:11, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

We find the Latin term banca rupta in the book Dissertatio de foenere trapesitico, a treatise by Claude Saumaise from 1640.^[2] Saumaise first gives a Greek term meaning “the table has been upset” (τράπεζα ἀνασκουασθεῖσα ἀνασκευασθεῖσα) before writing that “our people” call this banca rupta. In the 16th century we find the spelling Bankroute^[3][4][5] next to bankrupt.^[6][7][8]  --Lambiam 05:10, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

(That's an ευ.) That's an ancient Greek expression—LSJ has "τῆς τραπέζης ἀνασκευασθείσης" in Demosthenes, and we have it as a sense at ἀνασκευάζω. I can't find any suggestion in the literature that banca rotta is related to the Greek, though, which has a slightly different semantic nuance in any case—dismantling in the first instance rather than breaking—so this might be a case of convergent evolution. The OED notes that ruptura, by itself, for bankruptcy is attested in Italy in the early 14th century. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 14:15, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

The story of these benches being immediately torn to pieces speaks to the imagination, but I somehow have my doubts that the physical benches of insolvent bankers in renaissance Florence were literally broken. Just like English broken, Italian rotto can be used figuratively to mean “useless, wiped out, ruined”.  --Lambiam 17:33, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Right, since banca must also have been figurative already, to transfer to a whole situation of a business or person. Apart from the circumstance that benches weren’t cheaply mass-produced to be thrown away when someone moves unlike today. Fay Freak (talk) 14:36, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

冇雷公咁遠

RFV of the etymology. Added by @Mahogany115. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 06:11, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

https://www.facebook.com/920473704740560/posts/3118662158255026/ Mahogany115 (talk) 06:26, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

muser (Musical.ly user)

I could not find the etymology using Google. Is it from the sense “one who muses” (although the meaning does not seem related) or from a clipping of music/Musical.ly + -er? J3133 (talk) 13:50, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Or just m(usical) user? —Soap— 16:31, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Since the last part has fallen out whether it's music, musical, musical.ly is academic, but a blend with user would also be my guess. The coincidence with muser as "one who muses" was probably intentional but not the first-order derivation. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 16:38, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

I have added “Likely a blend of Musical.ly (or music/musical) + user” as the etymology. J3133 (talk) 10:45, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

क्षण (kshana, kṣaṇa)

I have been looking for the etymology of this Sanskrit word for a long time and haven't been successful. Does anyone know what the source of the word itself?

I am studying how various languages express the concept of [moment]. Any information would be very helpful. Thanks! 188.150.0.254 12:05, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

خیلی, hayli, xeyli

These articles claim that the etymology is "[f]rom Arabic خَيْل (ḵayl, “horses”)." There is an uncited footnote explaining:

According to Dehkhoda, the semantic shift is from Saadi Shirazi's Gulistān: 1258, Saadi Shirazi, :

اندک اندک خیلی شود و قطره قطره سیلی گردد

(please add an English translation of this quote)

Nişanyan Etymological Dictionary proposes a different etymology for "hayli": https://www.nisanyansozluk.com/kelime/hayli

(Translated: A borrowing from the Arabic word ḥaylin حَيْلٍ "very, to a great degree". This word is derived from the Arabic word ḥayl حَيْل “strength, force” from the root: ḥyl. (NOTE: This word has the same root as Aramaic/Syriac ḥayil חַיִל “herd, army”. This word is also cognate to the Akkadian word ellatu of the same meaning.)

Is this enough basis to add حيل as an alternative etymology for hayli? What about خیلی and xeyli? Helenofbrooklyn (talk) 15:46, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

I added the Turkish etymology based on {{R:ota:Redhouse}}. Redhouse gets some things wrong but if he is wrong here he has company. We do not have حَيْل (ḥayl) in the dictionary yet. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 20:34, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

journal (axle-part)

Why is "The part of a shaft or axle that rests on bearings." called a journal? - -sche (discuss) 22:03, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

@-sche: OED says “[n]o explanation of its origin has been found”. It’s apparently originally a Scottish usage. — Sgconlaw (talk) 22:37, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Should probably be listed as a separate, unknown etymology in that case. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 23:30, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Interesting. I see the dsl.ac.uk Scottish National Dictionary says an axle's journal is also termed its journey. They write that the etymology is obscure but "it is just possible that the word may orig. be a corruption of churnel, chirnel, a kernel, which resembles the axle-part encased in its bearings, with formal influence from journal, journey. Cf. Jurnal." Jurnal they have as a verb, found only in the past participle, meaning coagulate(d) like pig's blood kept for black pudding; they consider this "appar. a voiced form of chirnel", the blood having kernelled into lumps.
This is not the first vehicle/transport term I've heard of with a superficially opaque relationship to an apparent homograph; in the case of commute ("change entirely, exchange" and "regularly travel to work") etymologists were able to find the links, but it'd be expected that in other cases they'd be lost to time, so although I hate to stray into pure speculation and it's unusable in our entries unless any of it leads to sources, I wonder if it could even be related to or reinforced by something like (a) that engineers' journals/records kept track of what state of repair etc these were in, so they were the journal parts, or (b) jour (“journeyman”), being something a journeyman worked on, or (c) the other jour which Century has as any of various parts of various larger designs: "In decorative art, an opening forming part of a design. In lace-making, one of the regular meshes of the ground."
BTW, Century also has a verb sense ("In mach., to insert, as a shaft, in a journal-bearing. 'The cranks are placed upon posts, rafts, or boats in the stream, and journalled at the water-line, thus keeping one-half of the paddle-serface in action.' Science, III, 606.") and some derived terms we already had entries for, the latter of which I've linked journal to now. - -sche (discuss) 19:58, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

I assumed that commute in the sense of transport was due to one interchanging one's location. Is that incorrect? Wakuran (talk) 21:56, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Our entry (and e.g. Etymonline) says the transport sense developed because a person who travelled regularly to and from work would buy a commutation ticket which permitted travel all month (or however long) for a commuted payment; such a person was a commuter who commuted in sense 1.1 (buying a month pass for a lump sum instead of a new ticket for each trip every day). - -sche (discuss) 02:31, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

If the form originates from churnel, chirnel, the origin is Scottish English, not Scots, which did not undergo the lenition and palatalization /t͡ʃ/ < /k/.  --Lambiam 14:55, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

I had originally written Scottish English but the SND entry at DSL indicates it is Scots (Sc.), citing it to the Supplement to the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language. There is a methodological problem here since I don't think it makes sense to reject empirical distinctions on the basis of sound change reconstructions. But the sound change history doesn't seem to be as straightforward as that in any case: the Edinburgh History of the Scots Language (p. 99) suggests that the reason for forms like kirk in Scots is not in fact a differential sound change reflecting retention of earlier /k/ but "patterned lexical borrowing by bilinguals" from Norse. In Insular and Northern Scots /k/ -> /tʃ/ does occur (see the SND entry on 'k', section 2), and the Edinburgh History notes that "the inventory of palato-alveolars can be added to by /k, g/-Palatalisation" (p. 500), and in some dialects these have subsequently mixed to /tʃ/ (it mentions the pronunciation of ken with /tʃ-/ as an example). The shift of palato-alveolars to /tʃ/ is apparently attested in early Scots and represents a similar outcome to northern English dialects, which seems to be implied for chirnel. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 18:14, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

sculptor etymology

https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=sculpo // sculpo , psi, ptum, 3, v. a. cf. γλύφω, to hollow out, grave; also scalpo, γλάφω, 88.251.236.99 18:12, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

See Latin sculpō. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:37, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

I have set the etymology to "From sculpō (“I sculpt”) +‎ -tor."  --Lambiam 14:45, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Caserta

A few questions here. The Italian etymology currently given for Caserta is "From Medieval Latin casa irta (“impregnable house”), referring to its elevation in relation to the surrounding area." However, we don't have an entry for a Latin word *irta. There is a word hirta, but defined as meaning "hairy, shaggy, rough, rude, unpolished", not "impregnable". The Italian word irto apparently has the meaning "steep, rough, bold, difficult"; is this the sense involved? If so, is "casa irta" actually Medieval Latin (in which case we should add an Medieval Latin entry with the relevant form and sense) or could it even just be intepreted as Italian?

The Latin entry doesn't specify an etymology, but it looks like Caserta in Latin would be a New Latin form borrowed from Italian or something like that. Given that the Italian pronunciation according to Wikipedia is [kaˈzɛrta], I find the ē in the Latin entry inexplicable: is it correct? Urszag (talk) 23:50, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

The plain fact that Caserta is called Casa Irta in Medieval Latin appears to be true: in Erchempert's 9th-century Historia Langobardorum we find "Eodem igitur tempore Landolfus frater Landonis Casam Irtam cepit" alongside two other examples of Casam Irtam [9]. Judging from the date this would have to predate the modern Italian name, but without further research I can't say whether it's the actual etymological origin and not a Latinisation of something else. As far as hirtus goes, though, dropping and adding initial h arbitrarily is pretty common in Medieval Latin. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 16:32, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

From some further research, Caserta is used in later Medieval Latin. The original name is also apparently attested with the h as Casa Hirta, and various sources gloss it as "steep house" or "house on the slope", presumably inferred from the location and the Italian meaning of irto (oddly Wikipedia glosses it as "home village located above", with no real justification that I can see). I can't find any particularly detailed discussion of the word beyond that, at least in modern sources. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 17:07, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Amphisiella

Amphisiella (protist) is the type genus of the Amphisiellidae family. Amphi means "on both sides", but what does siella mean?

Certainly ella means "small", but why sie? Thanks for your help. Gerardgiraud (talk) 10:51, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Amphisia + ella. The first vowels of endings don't fuse into digraphs like they would in French, so you should always assume "-iella" is "-i" + "-ella". It's a little easier to see in names like "Klebsiella" where there are fewer vowels.

Taxonomy is full of awkward double vowels where the first vowel is part of the base and the second is part of the ending. It's more obvious in animal names, where family-group names start with "i" ('-idae", "-inae", "-ini") and you have combinations like "Teiidae", but it happens all the time in names for algae, fungi and plants, too. Chuck Entz (talk) 12:05, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

hosebeast

Hosebeast's spelling, meaning, and etymology isn't really certain. I can't find any uses prior to Wayne's World (1992), where it was used as a word of contempt for an ex-girlfriend. A use in the blog www.nirvanaclub.com, entitled "Territorial Pissings" (1993), mirrored the previous sense as a word for a woman that the speaker has disdain for. But a use from 1996 in The Austin Chronicle refers to a "hosebeast" as a sort of poseur in the punk rock scene. At least the punk rock part aligns with Wayne's World. Monkey Tennis (1997) has an animated character named "Hosebeast" who is portrayed as a promiscuous woman. The pornographic film, Kelly the Coed 2 (1998) refers to a porn actress as a "hosebeast" because of her admiration of performing fellatio on men (sucking their penises supposedly like a hose?).

Probably comes from the punk rock scene. But since the first occurrence of it was in a movie, I guess we'd have to see the original script to know whether it comes from "hose" or "hoe's." Then it's whether "hose" refers to pantyhose, a man's penis, or something else. 2600:1700:3777:52F0:418F:E8F3:769F:4C0 05:45, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Given the context of the first usage, there's also the possibility of derivation from hoser. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:31, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

de reojo

What's the etymology of reojo? Ojo (“eye”), obviously, but is re the Spanish prefix re-, or does the whole thing derive from a Latin word or phrase, or what? - -sche (discuss) 06:05, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Is this used with any other verb? The RAE entry indexes this at mirar de reojo, by way of comparison. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:22, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

banister

I just added an image to this entry. Wondering about the etym:- No mention of romance languages of the form ebanista and similar. I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination, but the similarity is striking to my mind. And fits much more closely than ballester. Any thoughts? -- ALGRIF talk 15:33, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

The semantic shift would be unexplained. Probably just a coincidence. Wakuran (talk) 19:37, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Obviously I defer to anyone who has actual etym knowledge. However, a quick Q. The ebanista root is to do with expert woodworking and cabinetmaking. Whereas the ballester root has to do with archery bow making. To my mind the "ebanista" root is more clear semantically. Why am I wrong? Thanks. -- ALGRIF talk 10:14, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

I mean, it clearly seems to be a mangling of French balustre, to begin with. And I don't think the connections between English speakers and Romance speakers were particularly strong, except for Norman French. I see French has ébéniste, though. Wakuran (talk) 14:10, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

An ebanista is a person, a banister is not. Such a dramatic shift in meaning would be very odd. If ebanista were borrowed into English, it would be something like ebanist "worker in ebony/wood". -ist is already a productive agent suffix in English so there would be little reason to append an additional -er, which would be interpreted as "one who banists" [which doesn't make sense]. Leasnam (talk) 02:14, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

typhoon

An IP added that the Arabic word might be native rather than Chinese. This prompted me to look at sources again and update the ety, but more eyes and refs would help. What do works about Arabic take the Arabic word's ety to be? Does a Greek word τυφῶν "whirlwind" exist (prior to the introduction of the Arabic/Eastern term to Europe)? Some reference works assume such a Greek word to be the ety of at least the early uses of the English word. A lot of cognates across Wiktionary (typhon, tifón, etc) give inconsistent etymologies we should synchronize and centralize as much as possible. - -sche (discuss) 20:04, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Ancient Greek Τυφῶν (Tuphôn) goes back to at least 700 BCE, and Ancient Greek Τυφώς (Tuphṓs) and Ancient Greek Τυφωεύς (Tuphōeús) go back a long way, too. It looks to me like Τυφῶν started out as more of a serpentine god/monster associated with volcanos (see also Ancient Greek τῡ́φω (tū́phō, “fill with smoke”)), and Τυφώς had something to do with whirlwinds, but they all seem to have gotten muddled together in ways I don't know enough to sort out. So it would seem that by the time of contact with Arabic, τυφῶν probably did mean whirlwind- at least it was borrowed into Latin that way, as tȳphon.

As for Chinese 大風／大风 (dàfēng), it literally just means "big/huge wind". I notice that our entry doesn't list any Middle Chinese or older forms, and that there are several other terms in Chinese and Japanese (which would have borrowed at least the characters from Chinese). It's probably significant that Arabic طُوفَان (ṭūfān) has nothing in the first syllable to match the "a" and "i" in 大, so those probably would have had to have been picked up in some intermediate language between the Chinese and the Arabs. There's also something to consider called phono-semantic matching: if Chinese speakers borrowed a word, they often wrote it (and then pronounced it) with characters that came close to (sort of) matching in both sound and meaning. If the Portuguese called it tufão, the people they encountered in southern China might have rendered it as Hakka 大風／大风 (tai fung´), Cantonese 大風／大风 (daai⁶ fung¹), or something along those lines. In other words, the borrowing might have gone the other way. Pinging @Justinrleung, who can correct me if I got anything wrong with the Chinese. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:05, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Ah, I knew about the proper name Τυφῶν but hadn't spotted a lowercase common noun, but I now see Liddell and Scott do have an entry for τυφώς "a whirlwind, typhoon" sourced to "Aesch[ylus], etc." (and τυφῶν with -n is listed here). Interesting. The refs I've seen so far that discuss the ety seem to either (a) derive at least early uses of the English word straight from Greek with no non-European intermediaries (e.g. Etymonline), (b) derive the English word from Portuguese-from-Arabic and that from Greek, (c) derive the English word from Portuguese-from-Arabic and that from Chinese and that from [Arabic from] Greek(!), like Cannon & Kaye seem to (cited in the entry), (d) assume the line 'stops' once it reaches Arabic and it's from a native Arabic root (like the IP; Etymonline also mentions this idea), or (e) assume the line stops at Chinese (like Dictionary.com). The evolution of spellings is also noticeable; from what I've seen so far, in English (and also e.g. French) in the early 1500s the spelling is typhon/tiphon (later with f instead of ph), then in the late 1500s and early 1600s I spot forms like tuffon, tufan, but by now the spelling, in both English and French, has circled back to typho(o)n. - -sche (discuss) 18:29, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

If the vowel mismatch of the Arabic term (and not only in the first syllable) is problematic for theories of a Sinitic origin (and I agree it is), then it is also problematic for Portuguese tufão and earlier English touffon. Le Trésor analyzes French typhon as resulting from a crossing of Portuguese tufão (for the sense) with Greco-Latin Typhon (for the spelling) (Etymology and history of “typhon”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.). Earlier forms attested in French are tiffon, tifon, tuffon, tufan and tufaon. The French pronunciation of typhon is /ti.fɔ̃/.

Note that the common Chinese term 颱風 (Mandarin táifēng, Cantonesetoi⁴ fung¹) for “typhoon” means, character by character, typhoon wind; one of several competing theories is that this is a phono-semantic matching of English typhoon. To determine the relative plausibilities in the multitude of potential pathways would seem to require accurate dating of the first appearances of various forms in various languages.  --Lambiam 18:32, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Etymonline claims typhon is attested in English meaning "whirlwind" since the 1550s, but they may be referring to this, the New English Dictionary's oldest cite of typhon, which is hardly a use of an English word typhon but rather a mention of the Greek word typhon:

• 1555, Richard Eden, "The fourth booke of the fyrst decade, to Lodouike Cardinall of Aragonie", translating the Decades of the New World / De orbe novo decades by Peter Martyr, published in 1895 by Edward Arber in The First Three English Books on America, page 81:

  These tempestes of the ayer (which the Grecians caule Tiphones, that is, whyrle wyndes) they caule, Furacanes^[sic]: which they say, doo often tymes chaunce in this Ilande: […]

It would be interesting to see if a word typhon "whirlwind" actually exists prior to the introduction of the word Touffon/typhoon for "giant storm in the Pacific". The NED's next-oldest citation of typhon "whirlwind" is from 1585 and is also a mention of the Greek word rather than a use of an English word: 1585, T. Washington: "A wind called by the Gretians Typhon".

The NED does have one very early cite of the adjective Typhonic, in Wycliffe's Bible c. 1384: "the wynd Tiffonyk, that is clepid north eest, or wynd of tempest". - -sche (discuss) 23:51, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

The old NED, by now a century out of date (perhaps someone with access can check if the current OED has updated this), posits both Arabic and Chinese derivation for different forms:

• Typhoon [...] Forms: α. 6 touffon, 7 tuffon, -one, -in, tufon, -faon, tufan, 8 typhawn, 9 tuphan, toofan, touffan, tūfān. β. 7-9 tuffoon, 8-9 tiffoon. γ. 8 tay-fun, 9 ty-foong, tifoon, tyfoon, typhoon. [Two different Oriental words are included here: (1) the α-forms (like Pg. tufão, †tufõe) are a. Urdu (Persian and Arabic) [...] tûfòn, a violent storm of wind and rain, a tempest, hurricane, tornado, commonly referred to Arab. [...] ṭâfa, to turn round [...], but possibly an adoption of Gr. [...] TYPHON²; (2) the β- and γ- forms represent Chinese tai fung, common dialect forms (as in Cantonese) of ta big, and fêng wind (hence also G. teifun). The spelling of the β-forms has apparently been influenced by that of the earlier-known Indian word, while that now current is due to association with TYPHON².]

(Our Portuguese and German entries have different and inconsistent ideas about their etymologies.) - -sche (discuss) 01:24, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

So, instead of a Wanderwort, we have a Winderwort?... Wakuran (talk) 04:41, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

😂 - -sche (discuss) 04:59, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

The NED does seem to be correct that some forms look to be (more directly) from Chinese, e.g. ty-foong, ty-fung, which match Chinese (and differ from Arabic) in both the vowels and consonants. - -sche (discuss) 04:59, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

The etymology is basically the same in the present OED, just with updated transliterations. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 14:14, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• FWIW, I had a look to see what I can glean from Japanese sources.

The Japanese term is first attested in the Meiji period (1868–1912) with the katakana spelling タイフーン (taifūn), with a Japanese intellectual providing a formal definition in 1907, at which point the 颱風 spelling became more common, later superseded by the simpler spelling 台風. The fū pronunciation of the 風 character likely contributed to the loss of the final nasal in Japanese.

The NKD entry available here at Kotobank notes that a "Medhurst" (sp?) Chinese-English dictionary from the 1800s listed the spellings 太風／太风 (literally “fat wind”) and 颶風／飓风 (jùfēng, literally “hurricane wind”).

(Side note -- what is this double-fetching behavior from {{m|zh}}? I don't want both, I want just the spelling I entered...)

Way back in the Heian period (794–1185), the term for these storms was the native Japanese term 野分 (nowaki, “field splitter”, in reference to the way the strong winds flatten rice crops in irregular ways, a bit like irregularly parted hair).

I don't have access to any Chinese-language etymological resources, so I must leave it to others to trace the Chinese term any further back. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:42, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Mount Everest

RFV of the etymology.
(1) Did 'Mont Everest' or 'Mount Everest' exist in the notes of Waugh & co. before the 1 March 1856 letter?
(2) Did Everest say he didn't want the mountain named for him?
(3) What specifically (and when) did the Royal Geographic Society say about 'Mount Everest' in 1865?
(4) Is the wording of the etymology up to the best Wiktionary standards?
--Geographyinitiative (talk) 20:30, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

(2) Yes, his words are reprinted here ("Sir George Everest was present, and stated […] 'he must confess there were objections to his name being given to this mountain which did not strike everybody'", namely "his name was not pronounceable by the natives of India" etc.), corresponding to what modern sources say (e.g.: "Everest himself was not flattered: he pointed out that speakers of the local Persian and Hindi dialects would have trouble with his British surname").

(3) I do not see any evidence that the Royal Geographical Society made any "official" decision about the name in 1865. The first link I give above is an article in the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society in March 1886 recounting the history of the name up to that point, and the article does not mention anything happening in 1865. There's nothing about the name in the relevant volumes of the Proceedings for 1865. As far as I can tell from tracing the history of the claim of an "official" adoption, this seems to have come from a spurious attempt to reconcile the fact that some history books, going back to at least the 1940s, wrongly give 1865 as the year in which Waugh proposed the name instead of 1856.

What is true is that the name 'Everest' was challenged soon after Waugh's proposal, and the RGS—contrary to what many current sources claim—agreed unanimously with the principle that a European name should not be imposed if an Indian name already exists (see the footnote here excerpting a letter by the secretary of the RGS). The question was rather whether Mount Everest was actually identical with any of the peaks designated by the native names that had been suggested, and while one suggestion had been rejected by 1860, others were still debated by the RGS in the 1880s and no particular conclusion seems to have been made in 1865.

As for (1), I have no idea how you would go about verifying that given that Waugh's personal papers have not been collected anywhere as far as I can tell. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 13:39, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks so much Al-Muqanna, it has been a real treat getting these helpful responses from you.

(1) I think there is an air of conspiracy around the discovery of the mountain. The same impluse that led them to say the mountain was 29,002 ft high (the lie) instead of 29,000 (as calculated) may have led to Waugh's papers, if any, being put out of sight and out of mind. You would imagine that the papers of the man who discovered the highest mountain on Earth would be in a collection.

(2) The wording that I've hidden on the page is ", who opposed the proposal." I like that quote from 1857 because he, in a very indirect wording, brings up a point against the proposal (poronunciation issues). But that quote, alone, is not strong enough to sustain what I see as a postmodern deconstructionist hagiographic claim that implies George Everest was handing out pamphlets in Speakers' Corner denouncing colonialist nomenclature. I would want to see specificalyy a statement: "I oppose this naming" or some solid, long-term antipathy or similiar, not merely a mention of what he sees as a valid point against the naming (that he says other people had mentioned). Modern sources count for less than nothing in my eyes- see also Wake Island. Authors of all religions, politics, philosophies and ideologies love to read modern views into the ancients.

(3) I love this analysis of the 1865 issue! I will totally get rid of it on this basis.

(4) If (2) were even true, would it be included in a normative etymology on Wiktionary?

--Geographyinitiative (talk) 14:28, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative: I think you're right, the record doesn't actually imply that Everest himself was fired up over it, it looks more like routine modesty (the 1886 article calls it a "deprecatory suggestion"). He said it's an objection that could be made, not that he himself objected to it. I think it can still be mentioned, though it would probably need to be something more neutral on the lines of "named after Sir George Everest, though Everest himself noted possible objections to the name". I did another search and Waugh's papers do actually seem to be collected at the Oriental and India Office Collections of the British Library, so it might in theory be possible to do some archival research there on the origins of the name, but this might be a bit much for a dictionary entry. (I also made a mistake in one detail for (3): the footnoted letter expresses the position of the Royal Asiatic Society, not the RGS, but the overall point that the debate was about trying to verify if a name already existed still stands—it's detailed at length in the 1886 article.) —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 15:06, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

teyrn & tyrant unrelated??

I was floored to see that the Welsh term teyrn (“sovereign, tyrant”) comes from Proto-Celtic tigernos, and apparently has a completely separate etymology from English tyrant coming from Ancient Greek τύραννος, which is of uncertain origin. The Ancient Greek entry has cf. to Philistine Philistine 𐤈𐤓𐤍 (ṭrn, “lord, ruler”), which says it may be linked to PIE. Despite the etymyology for Proto-Celtic tigernos hinting that the root of that word may have little to do with kings, I'd be extremely surprised to see that these two were unrelated. – Guitarmankev1 ^(talk) 12:46, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Why do they have to be related? Sounds like it's a coincidence. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 13:46, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, similar coincidences seem to be fairly common. As for the sense of the bird, it might likely be a calque. Wakuran (talk) 16:11, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

To suggest that they might be related is not flat-earth level of paranoid.

"Completely unrelated" is simply incorrect when the etymologies are all so incomplete as to necessitate the mark of {{unc}}.

The assumption that the root of Celtic *tēgeti (“to go”) had little to do with kings is mere speculation and fairly irrelevant. The Greek tyrant stands in contrast to the legitmate king (basileus, which had largely replaced the Mycennaean wanax). In Luwian, it functions as an adjectival epithet of at least three socially defined roles: servant, wife and king (Melchert in FS Salvini 2019). Högemann and Oettinger (Lydien, de Gruyter, 2018, with reference to Melchett) suggest Greek borrowed from Lydian, because of a Hesychian gloss and the fact that the Lydian tyrant Gyges in Archilochos' writing is the first so called (p. 48-50). They say that it equates functionally to Lydian *lailaś (λαίλασ), in accordance with Hesychios, and only in form to *trwannaś because there is precedent with the Hittite epithet of Tudhalija II. laḫḫiyalas as military leader, cp. laḫḫa- (“campaign”) (p. 257-259), which could in conclusion apply to Gyges as well (pg. 453). It would also be borrowed in "the Hebrew transposition srnym of Philistine princes and military leaders," (Melchert with further references to Pintore) apparently some time before s < ṭ, not sure. Archilochos himself is mentioned in old testament.

Kloekhorst shortly discusses laḫḫiya/e- (“(intr.) to travel, to go on an expedition, to roam; (trans.) to attack”), cp. λα(ϝ)ός, λεία, láech, arguing that *i is not part of the root, and a homophone bird to rejecting the onomatopoeic etymology. Not sure.

It might be a stretch but entirely possible that they can be connected to Celtic through a series of changes, if the wanderword is as old as it is said to be widespread. 185.109.152.13 16:24, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

戀人

I wonder if the Mandarin word 戀人 is a borrowing from Japanese 恋人. It seems likely since 恋人 uses kun'yomi and according to the entry for 戀人, the word "is popular among young people." I think Japanese loanwords are usually popular among young Chinese speakers, so it fits the bill. But the entry for 연인 just says that it's a Sino-Korean word. FunnyMath (talk) 16:50, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Actually you know what, I think it's almost certainly a Japanese loanword. The Chinese, Japanese and Korean versions even share the definition of a word relating to a specific card game. FunnyMath (talk) 17:16, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Initially, I find that the construction looks simple enough, as the words might have been coined independently. But then, I know that there are other instances of Chinese having borrowed Japanese Kanji-constructions and applied their own pronunciation of the characters, anyway. Wakuran (talk) 13:58, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Neprilysin

Neprilysin, also known as membrane metallo-endopeptidase (MME), neutral endopeptidase (NEP), cluster of differentiation 10 (CD10), and common acute lymphoblastic leukemia antigen (CALLA), is a zinc-dependent metalloprotease that cleaves peptides at the amino side of hydrophobic residues and inactivates several peptide hormones. With that said, I believe the following:

1. "ne" is based on the abbreviation NEP for neutral endopeptidase (i.e., one of few other names for neprilysin mentioned above). Although the "p" of NEP can explain "p" of neprilysin resulting in the etymology being more elegant than otherwise, it would be offset by the difficulty to explain the following "r" of neprilysin. This explains what I propose in the following point (i.e., point 2.).

2. The "pr" is for protease since the enzyme is a protease.

3. The "i" is a "enunciatory linker" of "nepr" and "lysin".

4. The "lysin" is a reference to the lysis of peptide bonds or proteolysis, the defining feature of a protease. 76.69.72.23 23:02, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Do you have a citation for this? — Sgconlaw (talk) 05:28, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

saba

Persian and Turkish have a word saba meaning a light east wind, from the Arabic root ص ب و (ṣ b w). The etymology of Persian صبا (sabâ) does not give the original Arabic. {{R:ar:Wehr-3}} defines a word صَباً (ṣaban, “east wind”). {{R:tr:Nishanyan}} has instead صَبَاء (ṣabāʔ) as the origin of the Turkish word, which in Wehr means only childhood. What is the correct Arabic word from which saba is derived? Vox Sciurorum (talk) 17:25, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

aerogel

I'm fairly sure we can track down who coined this, do we have any sources? Vininn126 (talk) 11:30, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

@Vininn126: See the sources I've added, though as usual Google Books has some spuriously dated hits before the 1920s. Unfortunately I can't find an original source by Donnan; since neither of the sources cites a specific paper it may have originally just been a verbal suggestion by him. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 12:07, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Cheers! Vininn126 (talk) 12:08, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

In the "Smokes" article I only see “Aerosol is a convenient term ... suggested to us by Prof. Donnan.” The terms aerosol and aerogel are clearly modelled after the earlier hydrosol and hydrogel.^[10]  --Lambiam 12:33, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

@Lambiam: It's on page 613, 7–8 lines from the bottom: " […] the term “aerogel” suggested by Prof. Donnan is not inappropriate." Donnan is indeed credited with coining "aerosol" too, here and in other sources. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 13:06, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Ukraine

(Inspired by recent edits which tackled this unprofessionally and were reverted, but touched on a substantive issue we could find a better way to cover.) The widely accepted etymology is that Ukraine comes from a word meaning "borderland(s)", but for about a century Ukrainian linguists and scholars have put forward an alternative theory that it comes from a word meaning "region/country" instead. (Wikipedia summarizes this decently.) I think it would be worthwhile to mention that these people have advanced this alternative theory, even if in the content of characterizing the other interpretation as the (more) accepted one. Ways of wording this? - -sche (discuss) 01:49, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Retarded, irrelevant debate and false dichotomy, which again Wikipedians pursue because they dismiss the original languages for translations. While the basic meaning of *krajь also in its descendants is “border, edge”, it as well means “land, region” because what characterizes a delimited area is its having (at least roughly imagined) borders—the very property of it being a specific concept denoting one thing but not the other. The term could always mean both at the same time, which is what we also write for *krajina, while adding *u or *u- does not change anything. For historical sources you won’t regularly know the prevailing exact connotations of words. But on (English) Wikipedia they will continue to argue in circles because being reasonable in handling differring sources is frowned upon per w:WP:SYNTHESIS. Fay Freak (talk) 08:07, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

@Fay Freak I have nothing to add regarding the etymology, but I did want to say it would've been better had you left the first word of your response out. It's needlessly offensive and inflammatory; it also does nothing to further your argument. Outside of technical terms like "flame retardant", there's really no reason to ever use it. Megathonic (talk) 20:37, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

When they took it to the US Supreme Court, the words shit piss fuck cock cunt motherfucker and tits, part of normative English usage, were allowed, despite the Puritans. Update: Oops they were not allowed. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 20:47, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

What exactly is your point? Did I say that words should be banned? Megathonic (talk) 21:54, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

I added some language about this. Revise as needed. (I notice україна already lists both senses.) - -sche (discuss) 20:28, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

A Croatian Glagolitic form is recorded with Sprossvokal in the Baška Tablet: ⰽⱏⱀⰵⰸⰰⰽⱉⱄⱏⱞⱏⱅⱝⱉⰱⰾⰰⰴ ⰰⱓⱋⱝⰳⱉⰲⱏⱄⱆⰽⱏⱃⱝⰻⱀⱆ (kъneza kosъmъta obladajućago vъsu Kъrainu, „count Cosmas who ruled over the entire province“, en.WP). Do I understand that correctly? I have basicly no idea about Slavic but a) oblast alone means "province", b) *vьśь (“all”) and *vьsь (“hamlet”) have different sibilants, except that they merge in Old Church Slavonic вьсь, c) the fact that Kъrainu follows immediately after u is outstanding. Following the modern Croatian translation (en.WP), vladao is a verb but krajina means my reading of Kъrainu is accidently correct. 88.128.92.115 17:29, 10 April 2023 (UTC)