That’s a good one. In school they had me memorize a novel of Latin root words, which is where things can get frustrating. You take a word and piece together the meaning, only to find out the definition has changed so drastically over the years that the root words are now nonsense. Both of our examples fit this description.
Yeah, I’m prone to go down rabbit holes looking at the etymology and origin of related words for hours. Latin was one of my favorite classes in high school. It’s great for world building and stylizing prose when writing fiction.
Sometimes the etymology is just weird because the current meaning is from an abbreviation of a phrase and the roots don’t make sense in isolation, such as perfidious, from the roots per fidem “through faith” but its meaning is from the larger phrase “deceiving through faith.”
My usual example is manufacture — to make by hand, but it’s more commonly used now to mean machine manufactured and made by hand is called handmade.
Mine is electrocuted which means to die or get executed by electricity but people say “the person got electrocuted and is recovering in the hospital”.
That’s a good one. In school they had me memorize a novel of Latin root words, which is where things can get frustrating. You take a word and piece together the meaning, only to find out the definition has changed so drastically over the years that the root words are now nonsense. Both of our examples fit this description.
Yeah, I’m prone to go down rabbit holes looking at the etymology and origin of related words for hours. Latin was one of my favorite classes in high school. It’s great for world building and stylizing prose when writing fiction.
Sometimes the etymology is just weird because the current meaning is from an abbreviation of a phrase and the roots don’t make sense in isolation, such as perfidious, from the roots per fidem “through faith” but its meaning is from the larger phrase “deceiving through faith.”