Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2024/May

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etymology of French comment

The entry for French comment itself states that the second syllable is the French suffix -ment. However, the entry for comme states that the second syllable of comment is the conjunction et. (Both entries agree that the first syllable of comment is comme.)

Bizarrely, both claims are cited to the same work. This can't be right. What's going on? 71.198.233.25 12:15, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

The second element of comme (not of comment) is etymologically et. That is, Latin quomo(do) + et > French comme, also Italian come. To that combination was later added the adverbial suffix -ment in French, hence comment. Nicodene (talk) 21:25, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

etymology of English grovious

Does anyone know or have any ideas on where this word came from? Could it possibly be related to grievous? Cheebow8 (talk) 16:53, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Let's take a step back. Does an adjective *grovious even exist? Nicodene (talk) 21:27, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

You're right about the smudged E's, and thus, the word never existed. How can its deletion occur with haste? Cheebow8 (talk) 23:37, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Probably the fastest way would be replacing my {{rfd}} with a simple {{d}}. Nicodene (talk) 03:29, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Deleted as an entry created in error. — Sgconlaw (talk) 04:49, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Etymology of Spanish proteles

According to the entry for Spanish proteles, "From New Latin proteles, from Ancient Greek πρῶτος (prôtos) + τέλειος (téleios)."

Are we sure this is the right etymology? Seraphinanewt (talk) 17:23, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Certainly the Spanish name comes from the genus name Proteles. w:Aardwolf § Etymology, citing Grzimek's Encyclopedia of Mammals, says this comes from πρῶτος (prôtos) + τέλειος (téleios), but one would expect that to give *Prototelius or the like. Merriam-Webster, on the other hand, gives the more plausible etymology προ- (pro-) + -τελής (-telḗs), and in fact there is an Ancient Greek word προτελής (protelḗs). Unfortunately, it's an adjective meaning "offered before a wedding ceremony" (referring to an animal sacrifice) and has nothing to do with aardwolves or hyenas at all. But it's possible some Enlightenment-era biologist re-coined pro-teles to mean "complete in front", possibly without even knowing the original Greek word (which is a rather obscure hapax legomenon). —Mahāgaja · talk 19:23, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

melenite

I cant find this word on the web except in dictionaries. merriam-webster 1913 defines it very similarly to the more common word melinite, except that it derives it from Greek méli "honey" instead of mēlinos "quince-colored". mel-enite would be quite a weird derivation from méli and melinite definitely looks more like quinces than honey, so I would assume that melenite is just a misidentification of melinite; could we just make it an alternative form entry of melinite? Anatol Rath (talk) 10:33, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Sibelius

I was curious about the name, and went digging. w:Jean_Sibelius#Life says it a Latinization of Sibbe, a family estate. This turns out to be Sibbo (Swedish) or w:Sipoo (Finnish), which are pet-forms of Sigfrid, w:Sigfrid of Sweden being the patron saint. 24.108.18.81 04:56, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Russian разрез

Could Russian разре́з ("cut, section") be from Proto-Slavic *rězati ("to cut, slice")? Seraphinanewt (talk) 13:36, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

@Seraphinanewt Added the etymology. Vininn126 (talk) 13:38, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Tea room? Seraphim. 2607:FB90:3529:365:747C:B7FF:FE06:42ED 01:29, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

a*teri*k in etymologies

The following entries need fixing, I don't like the * in the etymology section

eggler

links to *eggle

voicening

with *voicen P. Sovjunk (talk) 17:35, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

These seem fine to me. What's bothering you about them? —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 17:02, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree it's weird to provide a link to Reconstruction:English/voicen, as it is not really a reconstructed form. It's not like we believe that voicen formerly existed or currently exists but happens to be unattested. It's different with *eggle; since eggler and eggling themselves are archaic, it is possible that eggle existed at the time but isn't attested. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:34, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm agnostic about whether *voicen exists but happens to be unattested. If you think it exists, writing "*voicen" is the correct way if saying so. If you don't, then we need a better account of the form voicening. Perhaps it arose in analogy to words like softening, lengthening. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 18:01, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

I do think analogy is a better explanation, especially using lengthening since length and voice are both nouns (length : lengthening :: voice : X = voicening). I'm tempted to just call it a mistake as the actual word is voicing. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:06, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Mahagaja. I have also labelled it nonstandard, and would consider labelling it a non-native speakers' error (most of the hits seem to be by non-native speakers) or even a misspelling (one work does use "voicening" multiple times, but others use it only once and otherwise consistently use "voicing"). - -sche (discuss) 15:00, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Origin of becocked

I'm pretty sure the term is ultimately related to German kacken, but I'm not sure whether bekackte or bekackt are a match semantically since we don't have those entries. Could a German speaker give their input? Maybe @Fay Freak, Jberkel. Ioaxxere (talk) 18:00, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Added the entries, the adjective is quite common, not so much in print. Jberkel 18:40, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

An alternative form, becacked, also exists. I've added it. Leasnam (talk) 22:51, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm finding cites for becack'd dating back to 1711; and it seems this is a tense of the verb becack (“to cover or smear with cack (shite)”), which goes back in English to 1598; so the German may merely be a cognate. Leasnam (talk) 22:54, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Based on the spelling of becocked I would say this was indeed from Yiddish/German. I'll create a separate entry for becacked. Leasnam (talk) 23:04, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Then there's cacked up, which seems to be closer to this than plain cacked.Chuck Entz (talk) 02:29, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks everyone! Ioaxxere (talk) 15:45, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

ˈpæləˌstiːn

1. When is Palestine (in any pronunciation) first attested in English? On the citations page, I put a use from 1650, but I can find French books using it even earlier. I can find some modern books which imply the term existed in Middle English: did it, in some spelling?
2. What's the history of the pronunciation /ˈpæləˌstiːn/ used for some US places named Palestine? Was it formerly also used for the pronunciation of the Middle Eastern area?

- -sche (discuss) 22:36, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

It's attested in Old English as Palestina. Leasnam (talk) 22:48, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

The MED doesn't have an entry for it, but under Jeuerī(e n. 2.a it has a quote: (a1398) *Trev.Barth.(Add 27944)166a/b : "Samaria is a cuntre of palestyne and..is to Jewriward [L iudee vicina]." Chuck Entz (talk) 01:00, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you both; I've add those missing links between the Latin and modern English to our entry. Interestingly, the 1909 OED does not have either Palestine (which tracks, because it seems to exclude placenames, e.g. it has Panama only as the attributive for things relating to Panama) or Palestinian (for reasons unclear to me, as they have e.g. Peruvian), and Etymonline, perhaps because it draws on the OED, therefore claims the term was "revived" by the British in 1920, but this must be wrong given all the use before 1900. - -sche (discuss) 14:49, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

For the pronunciation, so far what I've found is /aɪ/. Baldwin's 1851 Geographical Pronunciation has Pal'es-tīne, and though he never explains his notation beyond saying ī is "long" (ambiguous as some people use that to mean /iː/ and some to mean /aɪ/, and the other words he notates with -tīne have both, e.g. Argentine), Goodrich's 1856 Pronouncing and Defining Dictionary of the English uses "ī" here but in other words, which have /i(ː)/, uses the respelling "ee", which means I take their "long i" to mean the diphthong rather than a long i. And Funk and March's 1897 Standard Dictionary of the English Language confirm, respelling it "pal'es-tain". I wonder if the US pronunciation is a spelling pronunciation by the original settlers, a vowel shift that happened over time, or a shift that made to distinguish it from the Middle Eastern place. I spot a Jewish News Syndicate article asserting Today's residents pronounce East Palestine “Palesteen,” but the original settlers undoubtedly pronounced it the more common way. but if that's based on anything other than gut feeling or guesswork, they don't seem to cite it. - -sche (discuss) 14:56, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

@-sche: my understanding is that there was a lag between migration to those areas and the setting up of schools, so most of the early population would have been farmers with no formal education. Under such circumstances, if it wasn't in the Bible or a few other sources that were commonly available they would have had to figure out for themselves how such vocabulary would be pronounced- so my money is on spelling pronunciation. This isn't the first such ad-hoc-sounding pronunciation of a small town named after a well known place that I've encountered, but I can't think of another one off the top of my head. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:27, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

@-sche: Is it possible that the US place names are conserving a pre-Great Vowel Shift pronunciation? Maybe the original settlers were from Northern England or Scotland. But if I had to guess I would say that /iː/ is a spelling pronunciation. Palestine was probably a very obscure word prior to c. 1900 so I doubt the pronunciation was even consistent. Ioaxxere (talk) 15:45, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

@-sche: The current version of OED Online only lists attributive uses of the word. However, it notes in the etymology that Palestine as a place name is found from Late Middle English onwards; before that, as Leasnam pointed out, the Latinate form Palestina was used. — Sgconlaw (talk) 20:50, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

līso (Old High German)

Origin? 90.241.192.210 15:13, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Added @līso. Leasnam (talk) 17:31, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

No article on līsī yet, 90.241.192.210 21:36, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

For OHG no, but please see Proto-West Germanic *līs(ī) Leasnam (talk) 22:29, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Latvian pārmaiņa

Is it related to Russian перемена? Shoshin000 (talk) 16:04, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/nagorda

Despite the rather detailed information already present, which is generally well done (I'd change a few stylistic things but w/e), I marked this with {{etystub}} because I'm seeing a lot of conflicting information.

When checking Polish dictionaries, Boryś and Mańczak both claim this is internal derivation, ultimately from the same etymon (nagrodzić). The shift of grodzić > nagrodzić is baffling me a bit, but I think {{R:pl:WSEHJP}} might give some explanation. Bańkowski seems to waver, he says it seems somewhat like Proto-Slavic, but as we can see a lot of forms might be borrowings. Furthermore, the earliest attestastion for Polish is 16th century, so Middle Polish, which while possible for some inherited terms, does reduce the chances. @AshFox @IYI681 and @Sławobóg, input requested! Vininn126 (talk) 15:37, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Just for information, Old Ruthenian нагрода (nahroda) is first attested in 1614. AshFox (talk) 16:02, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

That would certainly point to a Middle Polish, in my opinion. Especially with the sound laws. So that seems solid. Vininn126 (talk) 16:06, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

It is possible that it is an internal post Proto-Slavic derivation. Back when I created the page, I didn't take EssJa into consideration, a mistake on its own, it's not listed there, so that lends credibility to it. IYI681 (talk) 16:05, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

I've updated the Polish entry nagroda for now - someone let me know if something looks wrong. Vininn126 (talk) 18:37, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

I also saw that the paragraph in the reconstruction is now handled by the Russian etymology. My intention is that it should be clearer now, there's no need to have it twice. Vininn126 (talk) 18:53, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

One thing that could be could is moving the semantic shift information from the Polish entry to the PS entry, if that's something we believe. Vininn126 (talk) 18:56, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

verlegen

Origins of Dutch/German word? 90.241.192.210 17:12, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Will someone respond? 193.39.158.203 14:00, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

English 'quad'

At present English quad is divided into four etymologies, but one is dubious and the other three are all rather similar.

In 2016 @Equinox changed Etymology 1 from "pertaining to 4" to "Latin". While quattuor is Latin for 4, and these English words are at least indirectly related to it, I don't know that they come directly from Latin and not from, say Italian quattro, Old French quatre, or even other English words such as quartet or the like.

Etymology 2 is given as "Clippings" (of various English words), while Etymology 3 is "Abbreviation" (of two English words). Is it fair to say that e.g. quad from quad bike is an abbreviation and not a clipping, while the opposite is true of quadcopter? Maybe so, but they are pretty similar. Likewise, while Etymology 4 is specifically from quadrat, it is shortened from that word, or in the words of the OED, "Formed within English, by clipping or shortening. Shortened < quadrat n. (originally as a graphic abbreviation)" (emphasis added). Maybe all of these senses should be grouped by the word they are clipped / abbreviated / shortened from (per Etymology 4)? Or would that just create an excess of sections with one or two senses each?

Fun fact: quad from quadrat is the oldest Latin-related (probably via French or Italian) quad in the OED (c. 1781), but there are three homographs from Old English: variants of hwæt (what), cwæþ (quoth, said), and cwead (excrement). Cnilep (talk) 06:11, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

The words in Etymology 1 are all likely to be clippings of quadruple or quadruplet in my opinion. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:29, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I doubt that there are any definitions of quad as an adjective that attestably meet the requirements to be considered adjectives, rather than attributive use of a noun. Some may not be attestable at all. DCDuring (talk) 18:05, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Here's what I'm thinking: put these into a single etymology section and organize them chronologically, mentioning the (known or probable) English etymon in the definition. The etymology would be something like, "Shortened, via clipping or abbreviation, from various English terms. Ultimately related to Latin quattuor “4”. See quadri-, quadruple." Then noun glosses would be something like:

1. (typography) Originally abbreviation of obsolete quadrat. [from 1780s]
   1. A blank metal block used to fill short lines of type.
   2. (slang) A joke used to fill time.
   3. (phototypesetting and digital typesetting) A keyboard command which aligns text with the left or right margin.
2. (colloquial) A quadrangle, a square courtyard. [from 1780s]
3. (colloquial) A horse, from colloquial or humorous quadruped specifically for horse. [from 1850s]

[…]

Opinions? Cnilep (talk) 02:18, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

This seems sensible to me. If necessary any relatively long information like what is present about the typography senses can still be in the etymology, introduced like "The typography senses are from..." or something. - -sche (discuss) 02:50, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Lisbon

A suggested etymology is Phoenician 𐤏𐤋𐤉𐤑 𐤏𐤁𐤀 (ʿlyṣ ʿbʾ /⁠ʿaliṣ-ʿuboʾ⁠/, “safe harbour”), but I can't find such words anywhere...any Phoenician specialists out there who can testify to ʿaliṣ-ʿuboʾ? I would like to propose another solution, but I'd like to hear from the experts first. 24.108.18.81 16:01, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

I have come across ܒܐ (ʿubbā), which might be interpreted as "harbour". עלי could be translated as "superior", but the "s" is still a problem. 24.108.18.81 19:01, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Aborigines

How do people feel about this? I was under the impression that we do normally include macrons when mentioning Latin words in etymologies, and that we try to use more specific templates than {{der}} when possible. (OTOH the "possibly" Gluepix added and P Aculeius removed does indeed seem to be unneeded.) Is there a better template than {{lbor}}? - -sche (discuss) 02:47, 9 May 2024 (UTC)