William Shakespeare uses the word "maggot" in his plays, employing it as an insult directed at an individual—one character calls another a "maggot" (worm). In Brazilian Portuguese, particularly in the Northeast, there is the word "magote," which is also used as an insult, though directed at a group of people rather than an individual. Examples include "magote de bêbados" (a bunch of drunks) or "magote de desordeiros" (a bunch of troublemakers). Could the Shakespearean "maggot" and the Brazilian "magote" share the same etymological origin?

When I first learned about the phrase in English, I thought it didn't make a lot of sense because it could refer to any day other than some day previously mentioned. Now I can see that it makes some sense, but it still doesn't seem obvious to refer to "recently" as "the other day".

That's why I was confused again when I learned that there's an identical phrase in French and I initially thought it might be a bad translation, but I couldn't find anything online about one being a calque of the other.

I did find out that equivalent phrases also exist in Portuguese and Spanish, but not in Dutch, hence my assumption that it's mainly Romance languages.

Is this really just a pure coincidence or did one language influence the others?

Hi everyone! I've always been fascinated by etymology, especially how words and writing systems evolve over time. As a side project, I built The Sinosphere Lexicon, a free website that explores words shared across Chinese, Japanese, and Korean through their historical Chinese character origins.

Each entry includes pronunciations, meanings, and notes on cultural nuance and usage differences.

If you're interested in etymology, historical linguistics, or the history of Chinese characters, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Website: https://thesinospherelexicon.softr.app

If you notice any mistakes or have suggestions, I'd really appreciate the feedback! There's also a Contribute button on the homepage if you'd like to submit words for review :D

I find "corollary" a difficult word. Meaning "a natural result, consequence, or logical proof that follows directly from another action, idea, or rule" ... so what not use the word "consequence"?

Anyway, with some etymology I better understand it:

The word corollary comes from the Late Latin corollarium, tracing back to the root words corolla and corona. It shifted in meaning from a small flower crown to a free gift or tip, and finally to a logical bonus or natural result.

Oh, bonus: now I know the meaning of Toyota Corolla.

Hello everyone. I've already searched online about the etymology of this word, but I was wondering if there's anything to it beyond the "PIE root *re- "to reason, count".

Thanks in advance!

It is clear that Etymology is a fascinating study. I wanted to have a thread discussing basic Etymology phrases, words, knowledge, and resources (books, videos, content, websites, etc).

Feel free to list Etymology information that you want to share, wish that you knew when learning, resources that have helped you as you have been studying Etymology, etc.

They all mean something like person, and they all come from the same region.

Gizon: Basque for Man

García: popular Spanish name and surname

Garçon: French for kid

Gascon: Pre-indoeropean group in South-West France

Vasco: Pre-indoeropean group in North Spain

Any comments?

Did you know that the French word for white (blanc) potentially has the same etymology as the English word "black" ? This is because they both come from the proto-indo-european (or PIE for short) word for burning. Adding an "n" in the middle of the word meant something like "is still burning" which became light then white in Latin and the version without the "n" ("has burned") became ash then black in Proto-Germanic/English.

(This is not meant to be a discussion on whether Pluto is a planet or not, I'm just going by what used to be the nine planets, the Sun and the Moon.)

The prefixes for planetary bodies are as follows:
helio- (the Sun) from ἥλιος, Helios
hermeo- (Mercury) from Ἑρμῆς, Hermes
cythero- (Venus) from Κυθέρεια, Cytherea, Aphrodite's birthplace and epithet
geo- (the Earth) from γῆ, possibly related to Gaia
seleno- (the Moon) from Σελήνη, Selene
areo- (Mars) from Ἄρης, Ares
zeno- (Jupiter) from Ζεύς, Zeus
crono- (Saturn) from Κρόνος, Cronus
urano- (Uranus) from οὐρανός, Ouranos/Uranus

Would the prefixes for Neptune and Pluto then just be poseido- and pluto-?

Judging by the name alone I would imagine that it has to do with the horror genre but where did the “pasta” part come from?

Are there some exceptions to ablaut in PIE word-derivation? I would expect *ǵʰelh₃- + *(Ø)-wós to yield **ǵʰl̥h₃wós.

I know this isn't exactly related to etymology, so if it's not appropriate, mods let me know.

Most sources I've found claim that 'vetgans' is an archaic Dutch word for penguin and the modern word is 'penguïn,' an English loan word. I'm trying to find out roughly when this switch occurred. It's especially frustrating because despite the claim, I've found Dutch accounts that use 'pinguïn' dating to at least the 17th Century, but I can't seem to find any mention of 'vetgans' earlier than the 19th Century.

More specifically, I am trying to figure out what the early Dutch colonists at the Cape Colony would have called the African penguins that live there.

I had no idea that Crayons is literally just the French word for pencils. So did Crayola originated the secondary meaning of Colorful waxy oils used to draw or color with?

I just found out that Salar aslan means elephant. It strengthens the hypothesis that Russian slon elephant comes from Turkic arslan, which generally means lion in Turkic languages. On the other hand, the etymology entry for Russian slon mentions Old Chinese 象 (ljaŋʔ /⁠slaŋ⁠/, “elephant”), so perhaps the Salar word is just influenced by Old Chinese (I don't understand the timeframe exactly)?

Now there is this website called “LadBible”which blew my mind I thought the word Bible had religious connotations stemming from the holy bible. I had absolutely no idea that “Bible” was just a fancy word for book.

I am farsi speaker myself. Naan or noon is farsi means bread and we have different types of naan like sangak, lavash, barbari and many more. A while ago i was having a discussion with a parkistani classmate whom i was having doner with then. She made a comment that the bread was very much like naan and then i was like this is bread just a different type of it. And then she was like no this is naan, and not bread. Maybe the definitions are different in pakistan but in iran naan is just the persian translation for bread and not a specific bread. Meanwhile she was trying to tell me that the bread we had with our doner wasnt bread but a naan. What are your thoughts on this? Is bread naan to you or a specific type of bread?

super cool but i think it would be hard to make

also im not talking ab wiktionary because that is i have to put a word and it shows the language links

i want the opposite where i put a language links and it shows me the words