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Etymology scriptorium

Welcome to the Etymology scriptorium. This is the place to cogitate on etymological aspects of the Wiktionary entries.

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September 2026

Copacabana, Bolivia ~ Qapaq Qhawana

A sacred sanctuary which has given its name to many other places! The existing entry says that it is Aymara Kotakawana (“God of Fertility”), but I find no evidence for this in Aymara dictionaries. Spanish wikipedia has some useful clues, and I have followed up on them. The Quechua words qapaq (Lord) and qhawana (seeing, viewpoint) are of interest. Qhawana is the future participle of qhaway, to observe, and AMLQuechua-Dic.pdf tells us that it means Mirador (viewpoint). Thus we have a name meaning "vision of the Lord" or "place to see the Lord", which tallies with the reputation the place has acquired since the 16th century, when prince w:Manco Capac was struck by the visions he saw there w:Copacabana,_Bolivia#History. ~2026-42733-52 (talk) 04:40, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

Indonesian skidipapap

This might be one of the weirdest entries that I've ever made so far. The word means "sex" or "something sexual" in the Indonesian slang. Judging that the word was attested and get popularized starting from 2018, I am very sure that this word comes from that one very famous part of Man's Not Hot by Big Shaq. Although I'm not really sure whether it is directly taken from this song. Perhaps there is another song, perhaps something 'thirst-trappy', that sampled the lyrics and made its way to Indonesia. What do you think? Udaradingin (talk) 12:18, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

The song was released on 22 September 2017 and the music video was uploaded to YouTube on 4 October 2017. If the slang term was then used as early as 2018, it is IMO much more likely to have found its way into Indonesian slang from this wildly popular music video than from a later song.  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:47, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

grenadine

Etymology #2 lists French grenadin as from grenadine "pomegranate" but grenadin lists the derivation from the city of Granada. Is there a source which confirms the flower (carnation is possibly the better gloss) is given the name based on the pomegranate rather than the city? Griffon77 (talk) 12:59, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

More precisely, the etymology section has: ‘from ... French grenadin from Middle French grenade (“pomegranate”)’.

I found, in a book from 1863 with the title Les Fleurs de Pleine Terre, volume I, the following passage:^[1]

Les Œillets grenadins ou à ratafia (Oeillet rouge, Dianthus ruber, Desf.), ainsi appelés à cause de leur emploi fréquent pour colorer et aromatiser les liqueurs, sont généralement très odorants;

“Grenadin or ratafia carnations (Red carnation, Dianthus ruber, Desf.), so called because of their frequent use to colour and flavour liqueurs, are generally very fragrant;”

This does not make sense if grenadin means Granadan.

BTW, Dianthus ruber is not found on Wikispecies. I think the term refers to a variety of the maiden pink, one that betrays this common name by being embarrassingly red.^[2]

 ​‑‑Lambiam 17:26, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

Then doesn't grenadin need a second etymology and definition in reference to the flower? Griffon77 (talk) 11:51, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

The use for flavoring points to Dianthus caryophyllus, which was a single flower called the clove pink before all the double "florist's carnation" varieties were developed. Back when spices were extravagantly expensive, it was used as a substitute for cloves. I think the confusion here stems from grenadin and grenadine being different gender-forms of the same word when used as adjectives, but different words when used as nouns. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:23, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

I would add that there's nothing that particularly associates the flower with the city, as far as I can tell. It's been known and in use throughout southern Europe for at least a couple thousand years. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:34, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

There's a problem there, if the flower is so named from the liquor it was used in, the liquor can't be named for the flower. Griffon77 (talk) 11:49, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

My best guess is that the liquor is named after pomegranates, which are named because their edible part looks like seeds of some sort of grain (see Latin granatum), and the flower is named for the resemblance of its color to that of either pomegranates or the liquor. Although the flower has been in use as a species for millenia, the named variety is relatively recent- a few centuries old. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:22, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Turkish zıbarmak

Two different sources give two different etymologies on this lemma.

Nişanyan states that zıbar- is of unknown etmology, that Turkish yor- "to tire" has the Chuvash reflex śıvăr- which means "to sleep, to be very tired" and that it is unlikely that Turkish borrowed this lemma from Chuvash. In the meanwhile, Ötüken states that it is derived from zıb-, which is, in turn, onomatopoeic.

Also, should I keep (vulgar) for sense 1 (to die (miserably), to croak)? TDK lists this word as KABA KONUŞMADA, which means in vulgar speech; Ötüken lists this word as {ağız}. I presume ağız in Ötüken means colloquial (I've edited büzük in this way: (colloquial, slang)), even though words and spellings used primarily in dialects (other than standard Istanbul Turkish) are also labeled as ağız. This could make an argument for (colloquial) or (colloquial, vulgar) for the sense "to croak". Sense 2 remains (colloquial). Californium-252 (talk) 20:16, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

I don’t know how TDK uses the term, but kaba, applied to speech, can also mean vulgar in the sense of “as used by the common people”. In particular, this is the usual sense of kaba Türkçe, which refers to the spoken form of Turkish used by the 99% of Ottoman society (and which, much more than Ottoman Turkish, forms the ancestor of present-day Turkish).  ​‑‑Lambiam 13:46, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

TDK uses it in (roughly) the same way as implied by (vulgar): göt, bok (sense 2), sıçmak (sense 1), sik, am, well known vulgarities, are marked KABA KONUŞMADA.

Compare HAKARET YOLLU, literally in an insulting way, which corresponds to (swear word), used for insults. As an example, deyyus "cuckold" is marked HAKARET YOLLU. Californium-252 (talk) 14:25, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

Whatever the origin, it is cognate with zəvərməxʼ (“to lie”) in the dialect of Getabek. See page 111. Vahag (talk) 20:38, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. I've edited the etymology section and added the reference for the cognate. Californium-252 (talk) 12:29, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

I also found the word in Crimean Armenian, Crimean Tatar (Gypsy argot), and Urum. Vahag (talk) 13:30, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

Polish nasienie

It says it comes from Proto-Slavic *nasěnьje, but where does that come from then? If we back-form it as a verbal noun, we would get something like *nasiti as the verb, but that's not really a thing AFAICT. Dijacz (talk) 20:48, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

Same root as siać, I'd assume. Vininn126 (talk) 21:13, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

Unclear suffix component in Pannonian Rusyn?

There are a series of neuter nouns in Pannonian Rusyn that end in -aче (-ače), that clearly derive from some verb in -ац (-ac), e.g. цагац (cahac, “to drag, to draw”) -> цагаче (cahače, “creeper (plant)”), жувац (žuvac, “to chew”) -> жуваче (žuvače, “chewing gum”), плївац (pljivac, “to swim”) -> плїваче (pljivače, “life ring, buoy”). The problem is, 1) I can't figure out the exact suffixed component, and 2) I have no idea what the etymology would be.

My best guess right now is that this is an irregular variant of the -aце (-ace) verbal noun ending, descended from Old Slovak -(a)tie and Proto-Slavic *-tьje before that, as seen with words like шаце (šace). Two problems with this: 1) those verbs don't use this verbal noun ending, they use -анє (-anje); and 2) I could find absolutely no parallel on the Slovak dictionary site, which records dialectal words as well. I've also considered the -че (-če) baby animal ending, but these nouns mentioned above decline like any other neuter noun, and not with the t-stem.

Frankly, the closest thing I've found is Serbo-Croatian -ача / -ača, considering плїваче (pljivače) finds a parallel in плутача / plutača, but this suffix is feminine, not neuter, and it doesn't solve the "don't know etymology" problem either. Any suggestions? Serbo-Croatian -ача / -ača does have a nominative plural in -аче / -ače, so could it be possible that somehow the Rusyns re-interpreted it as a singular neuter suffix?? I have no clue, I'm just spitballing here. Dijacz (talk) 22:27, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

antipodes

Etymology 2: /ˈæn.tɪ.poʊdz/, as a normal plural for the back-formation antipode /ˈæn.tɪ.poʊd/? JMGN (talk) 09:21, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

I agree this warrants a separate etymology section.  ​‑‑Lambiam 23:47, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

Latin usurpo

the currenly listed etymology is taken from Lewis & Short and is noted as "perh." there. formally it seems a bit difficult with the loss of a and the change in conjugation class. have these been accounted for or are there better etymologies for this word? ragweed theater _{talk, user} 11:46, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

What about (praps) “from ūsus +‎ turpō ”? Compare ūsūra < ūtor +‎ -tūra”, with progressive assimilation of the [t].  ​‑‑Lambiam 18:53, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

-ate

Please review the etymology of the -ate suffix in chemistry. It seems to go back to Latin -as (masculine) as seen in literature up to the 19th Century. ~2026-37983-55 (talk) 12:20, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

Pannonian Rusyn гаче (hače, “foal”)

Ideas? Onomatopoeic maybe? Dijacz (talk) 13:00, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

From this document on page 49, it suggests an East Slavic loanword (probably from Ukrainian лоша (loša)), which is of Turkic origin, supported by the recent age of its introduction in Slovak, not being attested before the 16th century. Xwefeld (talk) 13:01, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

East Slavic loanword, sure. I happened to find Carpathian Rusyn гача (hača). But from лоша (loša)? Just because both terms have two syllables doesn't mean there's necessarily a feasible borrowing pathway. Dijacz (talk) 13:21, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

In my short research it seems that I was uncareful in my propositions. It obviously isn't from лоша, the author of the source doesn't even mention the word it could have been borrowed from, silly me!

On this Ukrainian website, it seems more unclear as to what origin the word has. It claims that the word could have Slovak origins, ultimately from haća, but that the form haćka maybe in turn borrowed from Ukrainian гатта (hatta), a command to turn horses to the right.

The theory regarding the Turkic origin also is included in the book Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der slavischen Sprachen by Rudolf Aitzetmüller on page 35-36 in the first volume; there he supposedly shows how the word could possibly be from Turkish atče, although I do not have access to the book. Xwefeld (talk) 19:14, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

The most popular theory is from Turkish atçe, as if at +‎ -çe, but I couldn't find such a Turkish word. Smal-Stotsky derives from hață, hățаș. Note that there is also Bulgarian атче (atče), Serbo-Croatian ȁče. Vahag (talk) 17:23, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

@TomášPolonec: You need to provide your theory since I am not the only one who've asked this question :D

fi: Jamaican for "to"

Is it related to finna < fixing to? JMGN (talk) 09:36, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

I guess not, as there doesn't seem to be any direct relationship between Jamaican Creole and African American Vernacular English. Wakuran (talk) 11:58, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

Probably related to Sranan Tongo fu (and also Antigua and Barbuda Creole English fu), which I’ve always thought to come from English for.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:16, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

Table 1 in the article “Trans-Atlantic patterns: the relexification of locative constructions in Sranan”^[3] gives English for as the source of Sranan Tongo fu.  ​‑‑Lambiam 12:02, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

Χάρυβδις

RfE not listed yet. Because of its similarity to μόλυβδος I wonder, is it an Anatolian toponym? ~2026-48930-81 (talk) 04:41, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

The Greek Wiktionary has an uncertain etymology for el:Χάρυβδις from ῥοῖβδος (rhoîbdos), which appears to be deverbal of ῥοιβδέω, onomatopoeia, that cooccurs in the Oddyssey with Χάρυβδις (Od. 12.104-6) and most often prefixed ἀναρ(ρ)οιβδέω (Od. 12.73, 12.104-6, 235-6, 12.430-1), considered to be "pre-Greek". ~2026-50169-61 (talk) 15:24, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

Reading Beekes helps. The figura etymologica is commonly understood by readers of epic Greek, it merits inclusion, but it does not explain khi, liquid vexillation, or diphthongs.

Greek ρουφήχτρα (roufíchtra), which defines el:Χάρυβδις, has a similar derivation from Ancient Greek ῥοφέω (rhophéō) with PIE *srebʰ- (“slurp”) at the root. ῥυβδέω (rhubdéō, “slurp”) is "without doubt" related to ῥυφέω (rhuphéō) as an onomatopoeic form of Ancient Greek ῥοφέω (rhophéō). A variant with οι in the manuscripts is contaminated by "analogy" with ῥοῖβδος (rhoîbdos, “noise”). The cluster βδ proofs "pre-Greek". The "word-play" with Χάρυβδις proofs the ypsilon variant. Analogy justifies the cluster in ῥυβδέω, provided that -δος / -βος is a suffix. Beekes cites Tichy's dissertation (1983) on onomatopoeia and Bechtel (1914) and Wackernagel (1916) on the vowel and word-play.

This would benefit from a comparison to Proto-Indo-European *srew-, IMHO. ~2026-51052-37 (talk) 14:15, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

pruvvie

South Sami, meaning bridge. Obviously from Germanic. But is it from Norwegian or Old Norse or Proto-Germanic? Tollef Salemann (talk) 18:20, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

Probably not Proto-Germanic, at least. It seems as if the Sami words for "bridge" generally are borrowed from one or another source. Wakuran (talk) 19:59, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

Álgu shows equivalents to include as far as Northern Sami rovvi (“small bridge, duckboard”), Inari Sami rouve (“rollers for transporting a boat”). At least these, and probably also all others, would be in the layer of post-Proto-Sami but still relatively old loans, where Germanic *Cr is preserved only in South, Ume and Pite Sami and which Aikio 2012 dates as Proto-Norse. --Tropylium (talk) 09:56, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

plaguey

Plague + ey? Compare plaguily, plaguing, etc. JMGN (talk) 09:09, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

I think people tend not to elide the silent ⟨e⟩ in the spelling for combination plague +‎ -y because plaguy looks as if uy is a diphthong, as in gilguy /ˈɡɪl.ɡaɪ/. That said, plaguy occurs as an alternative form.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:24, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Etymology of the Kodava word for language- ತಕ್ಕ್ (takkŭ)

For ತಕ್ಕ್, our clue is takka , which across the South Dravidian mean fit/suitable, but could there be more to it? CreatorLang (talk) 11:07, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian -ska

Should this be considered a productive suffix? In the sense of creating country/region proper nouns from their adjectives, e.g. hrvatski -> Hrvatska. I'm creating Pannonian Rusyn entries which use the same principle, where the feminine form of the adjective is nominalized to form the proper noun for the country. So far I've been putting "ellipsis of xxxxска жем or держава", but this is clearly systematic enough (Bavarska, Francuska, Nemačka, Švedska just to name a few) that one could make a case for it being a productive affix that produces this result. But then would the affix be -ska, or -a, or would it be most appropriate to just keep calling it an ellipsis, or even just say "derived from xxxxski adjective"?

I ask this, because similar entries from other Slavic languages (Polish -ska, Ukrainian -ська (-sʹka)) have been marked/requested for deletion, yet this nominalization is a lot more productive in Serbo-Croatian it seems. So if anyone involved in those decisions could chime in here, that would be appreciated. Dijacz (talk) 13:28, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

That's usually the result of ellipsis (Ziemia Polska, Polish land), and could be understood ask -ski + -a, so adjectiveski + -a, as opposed to it being its own suffix. Vininn126 (talk) 13:59, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

So the etymology of Bavarska would be bavarski +‎ -a for example? Dijacz (talk) 14:22, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

That's one analysis. However, I will note that "affixes arising from ellipsis" do occur, compare -ówka. Vininn126 (talk) 14:25, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

做 (RFV for glyph origin)

No source provided in the edit summary. --ItMarki (talk) 05:28, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

-er

Ety 3 definition states "added to certain adjectives and adverbs", and the associated usage notes refer a number of times to use with adverbs. However, then follows Ety 4 which states "added to certain adverbs". Either these should be combined, or they should be properly separated. To me it seems to make common sense to combine them, but I'm not sure whether a significant etymological distinction should override this, so someone else can decide. Mihia (talk) 11:14, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

The etyma given are different; for Ety 3 this is “Proto-Germanic *-izô or Proto-Germanic *-ōzô”, while Ety 4 has “Proto-Germanic *-ōz ”. I don’t know if there are actually -er adverbs in both classes; if there are, this would be an argument against merging. (I have my doubts though that the suffix in for example the adverb faster can be meaningfully traced back to any PIE suffix.)  ​‑‑Lambiam 13:45, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you mean. If there is such a valid distinction -- some "-er" adverbs derive via one ety and some via the other -- then I think an explicit note in the etymology sections would be helpful. Mihia (talk) 13:58, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

मीढ (mīḍh)

Sense three under etymology 1 looks like it belongs as a noun under etymology 2. Griffon77 (talk) 11:55, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-West Germanic/pikkōn and Reconstruction:Proto-West Germanic/pūkijan

Inter-page conflicting etymologies. Both words claim to be the source of Old English pȳcan. Graearms (talk) 12:43, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

less

Described in the definitions as "comparative degree of little", but the etymologies of "less" and "little" look unrelated. How is this explained? Mihia (talk) 13:30, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps as being one of two suppletive comparatives of little, just like better is the (single) suppletive comparative degree of good? When little can be replaced in the context by small, I’d generally use smaller. But when that does not work (as in “little time remained” or “a matter of little importance”), I use less.  ​‑‑Lambiam 14:03, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Somewhat interestingly, English seems to be about the only Germanic language who doesn't use a word derived from *minnizô. Wakuran (talk) 23:06, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

And although the tree doesn't show it, I suspect the modern Scandinavian form mindre might be due to Middle Low German impact. Wakuran (talk) 14:35, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

authalic

RFV of the etymology. Ancient Greek αἶλος (aîlos) doesn't mean 'area'; it's the Arcadocypriot dialect form of ἄλλος (állos, “other”). Even if it did have that meaning, we'd expect the resulting word to be "autaelic"/"autelic". I can't find any Ancient Greek word meaning "area" that's even remotely similar. If anything, it looks like αὐτο- (auto-, “self-”) + ἅλς (háls, “salt; the sea”). Unfortunately, this word is so rare I can't find it in any paper dictionary (not even Webster's Third); online all I can find is repetitions of Wiktionary's own questionable etymology (added by an editor who disappeared from Wiktionary 20 years ago). (Notifying workgroup: Sartma, Theknightwho, Graearms, Exarchus, Victar): —Mahāgaja · talk 18:07, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Wouldn't this suggest that 'authalic' is simply fake? Exarchus (talk) 18:10, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Not necessarily. It does happen that words get coined on the basis of an etymological misunderstanding but nevertheless catch on and get used with the assigned meaning. —Mahāgaja · talk 18:44, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

I basically just suggested that at the rfv. Exarchus (talk) 18:47, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

I started an rfv. Exarchus (talk) 18:15, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

According to an old 1934 article from the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, the word—specifically in the collocation authalic latitude—was adapted from French authalique, which was apparently first used by a guy called Tissot. The same reference to Tissot is found in a 1922 article from Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, which states "Authalic latitude is connected with the ‘equal area”’ representation of the earth upon a sphere (authalic from Tissot)." So, the word might have entered the English language via French authalique. Graearms (talk) 23:07, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Assuming this term is either borrowed from Ancient Greek or from a learned ‘Ancient’ Greek neologism, the ⟨th⟩ combination implies that the etymon of the second compnent starts with an aspirated alpha. Compare αὐθαίρετος (authaíretos) < αὐτο- (auto-) +‎ αἱρέω (hairéō) +‎ -τός (-tós). In this case, we’d expect an etymon like αὐθαλικός (authalikós) < αὐτο- (auto-) +‎ ἁλ... (hal...) +‎ -ικός (-ikós). A semantically promising candidate for the middle component is ἅλως (hálōs, “disk”). The literal sense would be “disk-preserving”. (There is no Ancient Greek word for “area” in the modern geometric sense, so Tissot had to come up with some substitute. Considering Tissot's indicatrix, one might understand the choice.)  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:32, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

That seems like the most likely explanation. Still, when coining scientific words indicating equal things, people usually use the prefix iso- rather than auto-, but that's Tissot's problem, not ours. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:00, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

Tissot was apparently autoprefixal: he used autogonale for angle-preserving projections.^[4]  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:21, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

-ied

Should this show up in the etymologies of monied or honied? JMGN (talk) 18:38, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

The description mentions it's applicable for verbs, whereas your examples are for nouns. So I guess it either isn't applicable, or the description needs rewriting... Wakuran (talk) 19:27, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

No. This is just what happens to an -ey ending when you add -ed to it. The "i" is just "ey" in a different environment. Or are you suggesting that baked has a "-ked" ending? Chuck Entz (talk) 20:33, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz What -ed exactly? We have moneyed, honeyed, bogeyed, gooeyer and gooier, etc. JMGN (talk) 20:41, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

These are alternative spellings. Some people use ...ey + -ed = ...ied. Others prefer ...ey + -ed = ...eyed.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:23, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Kodiak Island etymology

I tried to look this up and my computer froze, but thankfully it did not destroy my operating system. George Eastman invented the word Kodak using an anagram, and I have seen a very vague reference to Captain Cook. The island was named after the bear, and Captain Cook may have used a similar name for a bear? Could someone come up with better references? ~2026-49918-88 (talk) 19:06, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

The game Anagrams is played with letter tiles, like in Scrabble. Eastman was just playing with these tiles, shuffling them around until he came upon a nice combination.

Kodiak bears are named after the islands where they live, not the other way around. As you can read at the section Kodiak § Etymology, this name for the island is borrowed from Russian Кадьяк (Kadʹjak), which took it from Aleut qikertaq (“island”). (The Russian Wikipedia also mentions the Eskimo name Kyktak, stating it means “tip” or “edge”.)  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:17, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Ok. Thank you. ~2026-49918-88 (talk) 17:39, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

Maine in the US

What's the ety? Collins says it's "orig. after Maine, region in NW France, but later interpreted as signifying its status as the main part of the New England region". It was changed recently to say there is no evidence of a connection, citing a book from more than century ago. Any more recent research out there? - -sche (discuss) 21:56, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

@-sche Fwiw, Wikipedia links to this. Exarchus (talk) 19:04, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Turkish sürtük

Nişanyan states that this word meant lesbian in Old Turkish (one who rubs/is rubbed). He gives a definition by Sami Frashëri of "Bütün gün taban sürten serseri ve namussuz karı." I do not know what taban is supposed to mean here. Are there any other sources that say it used to mean this? And even though this word for lesbian clearly sounds derogatory to me, I do not see how it could have come to mean "vagrant woman" or "slut". Other Ottoman Turkish dictionaries (that I can read) tend to give definitions meaning "vagrant or dishonest woman". Wreaderick (talk) 15:23, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

In English, it is Old Turkic ("Early Old Oghuz", Karakhanid etc.), not Old Turkish (we use Old Anatolian Turkish for this one). But I do not have any very good idea about the etymology yet :( 고위얗믖후 (talk) 08:42, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for your valuable input regarding the etymology of the word. M Ali Kara (talk) 12:49, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

This sounds sarcastic, considering that I have not yet contributed anything to the etymology of the word... 고위얗믖후 (talk) 12:55, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

You are indeed true to your keenness. Best wishes. M Ali Kara (talk) 13:02, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

It does indeed mean "lesbian" (more accurately translated by Dankoff 1982 as fricatrice/tribade) in Old Turkic (specifically, Karakhanid). It might have evolved a different semantic connotation in Anatolian Turkish however. AmaçsızBirKişi (talk) 05:51, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Hi, I was able to find that sürtmek can mean "to vagabond, to gad". Did it perhaps gain this meaning as a semantic back-formation from sürtük? Wreaderick (talk) 07:25, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Hey... it could be either, honestly. I think it was probably by analogy from sürtük that sürt- became associated with "vagabonding, gadding", or these could be semantic parallels.

In either case, the etymology is crystal clear to me, sür-t-ük (rub.CAUS.DENOM). Maybe we can add the colloquial meanings of sürtünmek, sürtmek in the passing.

Also note that Karakhanid is not the ancestor of Anatolian Turkish, it should be given as a cognate anyway. I can help with the script if you rewrite the etymology.

AmaçsızBirKişi (talk) 07:33, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Russian ничто́жный (ničtóžnyj), уничтожа́ть (uničtožátʹ)

Are we sure that these are internal formations in Russian? I'm starting to wonder whether this is from the Old Church Slavonic *ничьтоже (*ničĭtože), cf. Russian ничто́же сумня́шеся (ničtóže sumnjášesja). I'm asking this, because Carpathian Rusyn also has something similar, albeit spelt ништожный (nyštožnŷj) and уништожати (unyštožaty) (ништожити (nyštožyty) also exists), and I'm wondering if it's a formation in Old East Slavic or something, that borrowed the term ничьтоже (ničĭtože) from OCS and then created nouns and verbs with it, or equivalently Russian and Carpathian Rusyn derived the terms in parallel, but again, from OCS, and not from native ничто (ništo) +‎ же (že) +‎ -ный (-nyj) or something. That being said, I couldn't find any sort of *ничьтожьнъ (*ničĭtožĭnŭ), so make of that what you will. If someone could search for any possible Ukrainian or Belarusian cognates, that would be greatly appreciated. Dijacz (talk) 17:15, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

I can't find direct Belarusian or Ukrainian cognate (only recent Russian borrowings in Surzhyk/Trasianka).

The closest thing is Belarusian зніштожыць (zništóžycʹ), but it's equivalent to изничтожить (izničtožitʹ), with a different prefix. There's also

its imperfective counterpart ніштожыць (ništóžycʹ) (but it seems to have been used exclusively by Janka Kupała?). Хтосьці (talk) 23:30, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. Then I wonder if OCS maybe formed some sort of verb *изничьтожити (*izničĭtožiti), which was then borrowed into Old East Slavic and subsequently back-formed to remove the prefix. Because Carpathian Rusyn has зништожити (znyštožyty) and ништожити (nyštožyty) as well, which were also borrowed into Pannonian Rusyn as знїчтожиц (znjičtožic) and нїчтожиц (njičtožic), of which the former is more commonly used. Dijacz (talk) 09:30, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

Regardless, the question remains, as to whether the -ніштож- (-ništóž-) component in зніштожыць (zništóžycʹ) is some sort of internal formation within Old East Slavic, or if it's a borrowing from Church Slavonic. Dijacz (talk) 09:36, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

There's also Latin annihilo and annullo, but maybe there isn't a direct connection, just a similar way of thinking. Wakuran (talk) 10:51, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

Latin consuētūdō

How is it possible that this word begot French costume, English costume, Portuguese costume, Spanish costumbre, etc.? I mean, where is the m in it? What happened in Vulgar Latin? Was it a mix-up (i.e. a conflation) with words ending in -men (like acumen, examen, bitumen, libramen, munimen)? Possible evolution (from the usual accusative form): consuetudinem > *consetudinem > *constudinem > *constumen. Maybe such evolution was contaminated by the -men words‽ Who knows‽ — I certainly can't find any hint anywhere I looked, either in the Latin entry (which doesn't have even information on any Vulgar forms) or in any of its descendants and borrowers. Does anyone know of any source that talks about this? ～ bytekast ^{[talk • cont • logs]} 03:17, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

Classical Latin -tūdo (oblique stem -tūdin-) appears to have become *-tūminem in inherited vocabulary of many Romance languages; influence of -ūmen from -men is likely. See also anclume from incūs, incūdem. Given the gender of French coutume f, I don't think a neuter accusative form in *-men is as likely a source as a non-neuter accusative form in *-minem: French assimilated -mn- to -mm- (as in femme), and I'm not sure when the -mm-/-m- distinction was neutralized in French, but it seems plausible it happened in this word before its first attestation. Spanish -umbre must be derived from *-minem not *-men.--Urszag (talk) 03:33, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

CHAdeMO

various question marks in this etymology. Eyes welcome, especially Japanese ones —User:Vealhurl (talk 11:14, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

Yiddish פּלאַנכען (plankhen)

Any ideas of the exact Romance intermediate? I'm not sure how -ng- in Latin could become -nx- in Yiddish. Dijacz (talk) 11:49, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

Beider, Origins of Yiddish Dialects, pp. 400–401, talks about it. Vahag (talk) 14:25, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

Well, I don't have that book. Any links available? Dijacz (talk) 15:47, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

You do. Access through the Wikipedia Library. Vahag (talk) 16:29, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

Huh. Didn't know this whole thing was accessible. Maybe I should use it more often in the future. Dijacz (talk) 18:41, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

👍🏿 Vahag (talk) 19:13, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

dibui

RFV of the etymology.

This is a complete mess, with references to "Ruthenian ''dybaty''", "{{cot|sla-pro|*gabati}}", and even to Derksen's reconstruction of Proto-Slavic *gabati using "<ref name="Derksen">[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction/gabati ''Reconstruction/*gabati''], citing Derksen (2008), p. 159</ref>"!

This needs someone familiar with Romanian and Slavic etymology as done on Wiktionary to convert it to Wiktionary formatting and make it make sense. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:06, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

tilcayo

A newly described species of felid, Leopardus tilcayo, already known locally where it is native.

The Wikipedia entry for this species says, The exact etymology of the term is unknown as it does not seem to be directly related to any Spanish or Quechuan words. The Wiktionary entry for this species currently has (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.) for Etymology.

Are there any terms in other languages native to Bolivia, e.g. Aymara, that describe similar species? Californium-252 (talk) 21:26, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

Tamiami

RFV of the etymology.

This has a lot of material not found at Tampa or Miami. It's based on the theory that Colusa is related to Tunica, a language of the Mississippi River region (see Calusa–Tunica languages on Wikipedia.Wikipedia ). Of Colusa, Colusa language on Wikipedia.Wikipedia says:

• Little is known of the language of the Calusa. A dozen words for which translations were recorded and 50 or 60 place names form the entire known corpus of the language.

That, and the geographical distance between the two languages, makes proving this a challenge. It has been published since the late 1990s, and I'm not qualified to assess whether it has merit or the level of acceptance by scholars in the field.

The main reason I brought this here is the ad hoc nature of the formatting, which skirts around the issue of whether the proto-language exists by redlinking to a non-existent entry for "Proto-Tunica". To do it properly, we would have to first create codes for the Colusa language, for the family, which we would probably call "Calusa–Tunica languages", and for the proto-language, which we would probably call "Proto-Calusa–Tunica". Chuck Entz (talk) 20:00, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Kushan

Did Bactrian Κοϸανο get loaned into Chinese as 貴霜 or did Chinese 貴霜 get loaned into Bactrian as Κοϸανο? So it's like which came first, chicken or the egg? Blahhmosh (talk) 00:12, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

high-water mark

According to Garner's, when modified by adjectives such as high and low, the compound watermark must be split since the adjective specifically modifies water, forming a phrasal adjective that in turn modifies mark. JMGN (talk) 16:04, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

The etymology of high-water mark is (IMO rather obviously) given by high water +‎ mark, which does not require any form of splitting. Rather, the composite attribute high water impedes the spaceless gluing on of mark observed in water +‎ mark.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:23, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

@Lambiam Garner offers other examples such as sleeping-pill box , used-book store, Sunday-school teacher... JMGN (talk) 20:34, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

All can be explained by gluing being inhibited for composite attributes.  ​‑‑Lambiam 21:33, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

A box for sleeping pills, a store that sells used books and someone who teaches Sunday school. Not a pillbox that is sleeping, nor a bookstore that is used, nor a school teacher that happens to teach on Sunday (if they taught algebra on Sunday they wouldn't be a Sunday school teacher). I suppose you could say that the second is also a bookstore that sells used books, but I can easily imagine someone saying "I'm just a Sunday school teacher, not a school teacher". As for a high-water mark, it's a mark where the high water reached, not a watermark that is high. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:57, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Solombala English -омъ (-om, verbal suffix)

Surely this must be the same as the well-known pidgin suffix -um, which is generally believed to be from them. A derivation from - or even an influence by - a Germanic infinitive ending would be possible only if Dutch- or German-speakers had a relevant role in the creation of this pidgin (which is possible, but would have to be established). ~2026-50703-47 (talk) 23:05, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Would you mean Pijin? Wakuran (talk) 00:35, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Viber

Presumably from vibe, but I did not find a source. The same question was asked on Reddit (“How Viber IM app got its name?”) but was not answered. J3133 (talk) 14:56, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

I assume you're talking about the proper name, although the linked lemma only mentions the verb. Wakuran (talk) 16:51, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

@Wakuran: Yes, as the verb is of the same origin. J3133 (talk) 17:01, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

guide (guider, guiar, guidare, etc.)

I'm disappointed to see how all these cognates who share the common meaning of "to lead" are rooted into Frankish *witaną, which I also think it was confused with *wītaną. I think Corominas has all the reason when he says that there is no such evidence of a Frankish word meaning "to point out the way", "to show a direction", and that belief originated in a study published by Mackel with a poor recopilation of romance words of germanic origin. So, these etymologies should be reviewed and be considered Bruckner's proposal, also supoorted by Corominas: gothic *𐍅𐌹𐌳𐌰𐌽, from *wedaną, because when you guide someone you accompany (i. e. "join to") them. There is also the causative *waitijaną "to make smone to see" which seems to fit the meaning but I can't imagine how it would evolve to become what the first occurences in Old French/Old Occitan show, and no author supports this. But the etym must be reelaborated. Tmagc (talk) 18:20, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

It's not impossible for a loanword to change its meaning from its source language, though. Wakuran (talk) 23:52, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

That's not what the entries say, though. They say the word already had that meaning in Frankish. Tmagc (talk) 00:11, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Polish german, Latin *germanium

It was pointed out here that although Latin germānium failed RFV, the Polish entry german is still deriving itself from Latin germānium as if it existed. - -sche (discuss) 21:36, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Odd - all Polish sources point to New Latin very clearly. I've changed it to be a generic "derived from" for now. Vininn126 (talk) 21:42, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

psarolite

Greek Etymology needs tidying up. Claimed to be from ψάρος (psáros, “speckled”), entryless. Probs an accentop of ψαρός. I'd check with y'all before changing it myself Father of minus 2 (talk) 13:26, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Pannonian Rusyn килаш (kilaš), килаши (kilaši, “steelyard, scale; balance scales”)

Any ideas? We also have Килаши (Kilaši, “Libra”), which I imagine comes from the above senses. Dijacz (talk) 15:49, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Could it be some sort of formation of кила (kila) +‎ -аш (-aš)? Certainly couldn't find anything in Hungarian or Serbo-Croatian that could act as a loanword, although I did find Carpathian Rusyn кілаш (kilaš, “weight”), FWIW. Dijacz (talk) 15:52, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

It is found in that meaning also in dialectal Hungarian kilás, kilós and Yugoslav kilaš / килаш. Vahag (talk) 17:03, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Unless you claim it is older than the 1860s, probably ки̏ла +‎ -аш, gen. pl. ки̑ла̄ (“kilogramme”), not to confuse with ки̏ла, gen. pl. ки̑ла̄ ~ ки́ла, gen. pl. ки́ла̄ (“a volume measure equalling 20 oka”) from Ottoman Turkish كیله (kile) from Classical Persian کَیْلَه (kayla) from Arabic كَيْلَة (kayla), and due to semantic restriction and low visibility also not ки̏ла (“pathological outgrowth”) from Proto-Slavic *kyla (“pathological outgrowth”). Compare قنطار (kantar) and وزنه (vezne) meaning the exact same thing “steelyard; scales” despite having been a weight. Fay Freak (talk) 02:17, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Okay, but is this attested in Serbo-Croatian? If so then the Pannonian Rusyn term is probably a borrowing from that, but if not, then it would be a formation internal to Rusyn. Dijacz (talk) 02:28, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

What is this question, yes, Serbo-Croatian кѝла̄ш (“steelyard”) is attested … as Vahagn mentioned it and I referred to it. Not to confuse with ки̏ла̄ш (“a kilogram-bread”) and ки̏ла̄ш (“one who has hernia”). Fay Freak (talk) 02:34, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

he-huckleberry, a.k.a. maleberry

Why's it called that? - -sche (discuss) 20:08, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Christmas Pie

What's the origin of the pie part? Wikipedia suggests it could be from the root (*pigh?) that pightle, pichtel may be diminutives of, but the MED suggests pichtel is from Anglo-Latin pitellum (...though I suppose that this could still be [from] a diminutive of a word *pigh). (Or perhaps Pie here is from [an ancestor of] pightle with the t and l eroded over the centuries?) - -sche (discuss) 20:14, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

(I added a brief mention of pigh(tle).) - -sche (discuss) 14:03, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Latin Lambrus, Italian Lambro (River)

(Notifying workgroup: Mahagaja, Silmethule, Victar):

Etymon of various placenames, and words: Lambrate (lambrettista, Portuguese lambreta, …), Lambrugo, …

Said to come from a Celtic/Gaulish *lam, *lam- meaning "swamp". Does something like that actually exist?

• Lambro § Etimologia on the Italian Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^it
• https://www.popolodibrig.it/public/articoli/Labrianzaceltica.pdf

o/ Emanuele6 (talk 22:49, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Based on Wiktionary entries, "swamp" should actually be Proto-Celtic *latis, and Gaulish *latis, from which comes Latin Arelātē, modern-day French Arles (and, according to some, also Occitan fr:Latas > French w:fr:Lattes). Emanuele6 (talk 06:39, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

When creating the page for Proto-Celtic *latis, @User:Mellohi! added → Latin: Latis (ancient name of an Italian river) to the list of descendants of Gaulish *latis, however what river that is referring to specifically, and what the source for that is, is unclear.

Also, apparently, Latis (w:en:Latis) is the name of a Celtic goddess associated with rivers. Emanuele6 (talk 06:50, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

According to the Latin Wikipedia page on the river w:la:Padus, the river named Latis is modern-day Italian Varaita (w:Varaita), which now uses an unrelated name, not the Lambro. Emanuele6 (talk 07:24, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I looked for information about this toponym; it's rather obscure. The most detailed information I found was Albrecht Greule's Das festlandkeltische Hydronym *Langʷros: Rekonstruktion und Integration, which discusses possible derivation from PIE *(h₁)lṇgʷʰ-ró-s "the rapid/fast (river)". Although he considers the name to have reached Latin (from PIE) specifically through Celtic (Gaulish), he does not appear to consider the root meaning to be "swamp". It seems like the Italian Wikipedia may simply be wrong. The English Wikipedia does not mention any *lam "swamp" root.

This older work by Oswald Szemerényi similarly says: "As to Lambrus, a tributary of the Po and entering it near Mediolanum, we are certainly allowed to look for Illyrian names even in this region, as is proved by, e.g., Plavis from *Plowis). Nevertheless Venetic, and even other dialects, cannot be ruled out altogether. Now since IE. o is preserved in Venetic, -an(t)- cannot represent anything but IE. -n̥(t)-) in this dialect, and thus Lambrus, if deriving from IE. *ln̥gʷhros, can fairly be claimed for Venetic." (Szemerényi derives the Ambra river too as "the strong, the rapid (river)".)

- -sche (discuss) 21:14, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Vietnamese Hàn the

Could the "the" in "hàn the" be from 砂 in Chinese "硼砂" (SV: bằng sa), mirroring the non-SV "the" as in 紗 (SV: sa). Not quite sure about "hàn" part, however. ~2026-51428-81 (talk) 17:48, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

keming

The etymology: So basically, a guy said keming, since it looks like kerning when rn is close together. It looks like m. So yeah. — This unsigned comment was added by ~2026-51458-09 (talk) at 22:17, 23 September 2026 (UTC).

yoku block

This one originates from the Mega Man fandom, but I'm not sure exactly where they got it from. The term is as far as I can tell not used in any official media. There is a fan game "Mega Man Unlimited" that features a character called "Yoku Man" whose stage prominently features the blocks, but the character is named after the blocks -- the game released in 2013, and there are forum threads dating to before that already using the term and this walkthrough from 2006 uses it as well and is the earliest source for it I can find despite the fact that it acts like the reader will already be familiar with the term. Bnuuy (talk) 23:31, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Anyway, it doesn't seem to have come from Japanese, specifically. Neither yoku ("yohkuh") nor yōku ("yawkuh"), which are minimal pairs in Japanese, seem to have any appropriate meaning in context. Wakuran (talk) 12:01, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

To me 良く (yoku, “often”) appears conceivably relevant (i.e. maybe shortened from some expression to the effect of "blocks that are often there" or "blocks that force you to jump often"). In any case the first thing to check should be if this is only English gamer slang, or does it have a Japanese equivalent?

If no on the above, some sort of euphemism from fuk u seems conceivable too, and if chronology checks out, maybe with influence from yump which has a Mario fandom sense 'jump off of Yoshi' and some similar 'jump off of something moving or otherwise not a stable platform' extended use. (I suspect maybe newer than 2006 though, I have no idea offhand.)

(All speculation, for all I know it might be also anything random such as someone's ascended username, maybe not a terrible idea either when the early uses noted here seem to be generally capitalized.) --Tropylium (talk) 12:12, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

But the main meaning of 良く (yoku) is "well" (as in adverbial "good"). A Japanese person would rather have called it a "tabitabi", "tokidoki" block or something similar, instead. Besides, the blocks aren't there, most often... I wonder whether the e-mail address to Tim that wrote the walkthrough still works. He might possibly have some further info... Wakuran (talk) 18:33, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

I doubt it was coined by a native Japanese speaker or that Japanese Rockman fans are even aware of the term. Perhaps it's based on the sense "often, frequently". (Edit: I didn't notice this was already proposed above...) — SURJECTION ^{/ T / C / L /} 19:54, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

The Mega Man fandom wiki provides the Japanese names 出現ブロック, ブーンブロック, 点滅ブロック, and 消える足場, all of which I'm seeing usage of in this sense in a cursory search on Twitter and none of which sound remotely like "yoku." Meanwhile, nothing comes up for 良くブロック or よくブロック outside of what appear to be conversations about being blocked frequently on social media (my own knowledge of Japanese is rather limited so I am relying on machine translation here). Bnuuy (talk) 20:30, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Maybe from a phrase like this? Bnuuy (talk) 20:53, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Assuming the term arose outside of Japan, it would be spelled in katakana: ヨクブロック.  ​‑‑Lambiam 14:56, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵʰ-

Could there be a possible connection between *bʰelǵʰ- and the roots *bʰeg- and *bʰenǵʰ- ?

The former (although disputed) as a secondary meaning of "to billow, swell", while the latter has a reasonably clear meaning of "thick" or "to swell, grow". I do acknowledge that a connection with *bʰeg- is a bit more of a stretch, as the validity of second meaning seems dubious at best, and it's neither aspirated nor a palatovelar, but at the very least, the difference between *bʰelǵʰ- and *bʰenǵʰ- is very minor, sharing that same shape of *bʰeǵʰ- with an infix, and meanings related to swelling.

Currently the page links it to a possible connection with *bʰel- which I think is realistic. I don't know enough about PIE -I'm just a hobbyist conlanger and language learner that enjoys linguistics- but as far as I'm concerned, new verbs are created through extensions, not infixes, and of course coincidences are always going to occur. Despite this, the similarity seems noteworthy. Hrinthaz (talk) 03:31, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Polish jeno, Czech jen

Could it possibly be an alteration of Proto-Slavic *lěno and therefore related to Slovak len, or is it just coincidence that both ended up with an -en- component? Dijacz (talk) 11:40, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Polish jedno > jeno is supported by both Sławski (more trusted) and Bańkowski (less, but is in agreement, which says a lot). Vininn126 (talk) 11:44, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Polish, fine, but in Czech, there's the usage jen co (“as soon as”), which finds a parallel in Slovak len čo and Pannonian Rusyn лємцо (ljemco), with the same meaning. The Historický slovník for Slovak also lists jen as a variant of len. I wonder if there's maybe a bit of phono-semantic matching going on here with the j- forms. Dijacz (talk) 11:53, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

interesting. I could compare it as the inverse of ledwo. Not much I can say on Czech other than that... Vininn126 (talk) 12:20, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Old Italian is-

(Notifying workgroup: Benwing2, GianWiki, Jberkel, Imetsia, Sartma, Catonif, Trimpulot, Emanuele6):

This is a very lacking presentation of the subject at hand, but we lack any mention of this form on the website.

Old Italian and archaic/poetic later Italian have an alternative of s- in is-. These forms use both s- < Latin ex- (iscambio (= Old French eschange), only found in in/per iscambio) and < dis- (iscendere). Iscambio is probably epenthetic for scambio.

Forms which use is- < dis- are found after vowels as well as consonants which might suggest reduction. Boccaccio only uses scendere and discendere. Dante uses the three but iscendere very sparsly.

A "third" type is istare/istato, a purely prothetic variant of stare, and finds itself after vowels too. It makes me think of the productive stātus > Old French estat pattern.

The line between inherited patterns and prothetic/euphonious ones might be blurred by analogy. Also, must Italian dis- be inherited? Saumache (talk) 20:11, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

@Saumache This was the standard some decades ago, and some old people still speak like that. I would simply define them as "dated, post-consonantal form of", and when they are also attested after vowels, something along the lines of "dated, post-consonantal or obsolete". I don't know about dis-. Catonif (talk) 20:50, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

@Saumache From what I can tell, dis- is extremely common and productive in the Iberian Romance languages in the form des-, but ex- occurs only in certain frozen terms (e.g. Vulgar Latin *exsūcāre > Portuguese enxugar). AFAIK French also has dé- commonly but é- < ex- only in certain words like échanger where it may be frozen or even semi-learned. This makes me think that Western Romance languages simply generalized dis- at the expense of ex-, substituting dis- in most words formerly found with ex-, whereas Italian did the opposite. If this theory is true, there's no need to rely on an unmotivated and otherwise-not-found deletion of initial d-. This theory would also suggest that Italian words with dis- have borrowed either the prefix or the entire word. The occurrence of is- after vowels can be explained (in my view at least) simply as an analogical extension of post-consonantal is- to other positions, and the fact that it occurs in words like istare where it cannot be explained as maintenance of a Latin vowel suggests that Forms which use is- < dis- are found after vowels as well as consonants which might suggest reduction isn't the case. Benwing2 (talk) 21:44, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

@Benwing2 @Catonif Thanks for your insights! I have updated Italian s- but left out the grey area that is s- < dis-. Saumache (talk) 08:00, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

ginchy

Which sense of ginch is this from? underwear?vagina?woman?effeminate man? All kinda make sense —User:Vealhurl (talk 20:33, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

From 'ginch' = "attractive/hot woman". I've updated the entry. Leasnam (talk) 22:17, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

kow

RFV of the etymology.

The page on Proto-Brythonic *kėw states "An Old Cornish or Middle Cornish descendant is not directly attested, but a cognate form *kew can be inferred from a number of toponyms. By contrast Cornish kow is a neologism, perhaps formed by analogy with Welsh cau in comparison with pairs such as Welsh cnau, Cornish know (“nuts”)".

Matasović, Ranko (2009) and Ériu are cited on the Proto-Brythonic entry and they don't list a Cornish descendent of this term, so it seems to be incorrect. Can someone find an actual source for this? Altronic (talk) 01:08, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

cuff: to hit with open hand

Imitation of the sound of hitting? JMGN (talk) 18:42, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

I'd rather assume it's related to the meaning "glove"... Considering the North Germanic meaning, Swedish has a lot of words with the sound -uff- meaning "to push", such as knuffa, puffa, buffa and I think dialectal skuffa. Wakuran (talk) 00:26, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Scottish Gaelic ‘snog’

What is the etymology of ‘snog’ to mean ‘nice’, and is it in any way related to Norwegian ‘snill’, with a similar meaning? I know Vikings and medieval speakers of Gaelic had a lot of interactions, and these words sound suspiciously similar. The entry for ‘snill’ gives an etymology that can be traced back through Old Norse, Proto-Germanic, and then PIE, though, so it can’t be a loan word from Gaelic; is this a loan word from Old Norse to Gaelic? Or are they completely unrelated? Cheers, Shadestar474 (talk) 00:57, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

ScG definitely has tons of loanwords from Norse, but these two have nothing but sn- in common, which really isn't enough to make a connection likely. {{R:MacBain}} doesn't list snog, but as far as I can tell neither Irish nor Manx has a similar word, so I do think it's likely that it's a loanword in ScG. Phonologically, I'd say snøggr (“swift, fast, quick”) is a more likely origin, though the semantics may require a bit of hand waving. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:52, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Interesting. Thanks! Cheers, Shadestar474 (talk) 09:27, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Both English snug and Swedish snygg are believed to have come from snøggr with changed meanings, though. Wakuran (talk) 12:38, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

寵寵寵

Mimicking which word or syllable? AB4093 [ Talk | Contributions ] 03:25, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps 총 (chong), which has the same character in hanja, but an unrelated meaning.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:22, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

It sounds similar to ching chong and might not mimic a word in particular. Wakuran (talk) 12:39, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

French guignier and Italian ghignare

Both of these terms claim descendance from Proto-Germanic *winkaną, whence also supposedly English wink, which is currently derived from Proto-West Germanic *winkōn. Graearms (talk) 12:39, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, what is the question? Wakuran (talk) 13:12, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

They're inter-page conflicting etymologies. So, someone needs to resolve this issue. Also, they're don't be appear to be any actual Germanic forms which Proto-Germanic *winkaną is based on, so did it even exist? Graearms (talk) 14:16, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

The French and Italian are related to English wink but not immediately cognate with it. I've updated the entries. Leasnam (talk) 14:17, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

Do you have an idea how *winkijan might have emerged? Is it an inner-Germanic formation or must it have been inherited from some PIE term? I don't mean which PIE root but what specific PIE word would it reflect (i.e. like a thematic root present) Graearms (talk) 14:22, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

There is no direct evidence for a strong verb Proto-Germanic *winkaną; it is only a possibility, so maybe it can be removed (?). *winkijan could be derived from a noun, *winki m. Leasnam (talk) 14:26, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

kock

Swedish. Is the "coccus" sense ultimately from Ancient Greek κόκκος? If so, the "coccus" sense should be under a separate etymology. Intolerable situation (talk) 00:01, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, there are many errors for Swedish. Apparently, there is also an obsolete sense for "rooster", as in English and French... Wakuran (talk) 01:10, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

I tried separating the etymologies. How is the page now? Intolerable situation (talk) 11:15, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Indonesian juru

Meaning "tradesman". So far, we can only trace the etymology into Old Javanese. Any chance it might have been originated from Sanskrit जुर् (jur, “old man”)? Udaradingin (talk) 05:20, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

farasola, frazil, frail

What is the etymon (or etyma?) of this, that led to such varied alt forms? - -sche (discuss) 17:17, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Hobson-Jobson has an entry identifying the source as Arabic fārsala, which I assume would be spelled فَارْسَلَة (fārsala). They speculate that the relevant sense of frail could be the same as frail (“basket of figs”), or that the Arabic word is from Latin particella and thus a doublet of parcel. But they're clearly just speculating and concede that even the OED says it doesn't know the origin. —Mahāgaja · talk 18:43, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

See also Swahili frasila. Vahag (talk) 18:50, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

pfropfen, impfen

Here we have two Latin verbs in German, both of which mean or meant "to graft", and in both of which the German stem consists of the Latin prepositional prefix plus a /p/ > /pf/ representing the initial of the Latin stem. Yet in the etymologies we give now, those Latin stems are different! We ascribe pfropfen to familiar Latin propago, but impfen to an apparently unattested Vulgar Latin *imputō (“to graft”) from a Greek participle ἔμφυτος (émphutos), with a /t/ added to the stem only to get dropped right away again. Why all that? Are there descendants other than West Germanic of this *imputo? If it's just the Germanic to explain, wouldn't it be better on Occam's razor grounds to imagine Latin *impago formed directly on propago? 4pq1injbok (talk) 03:12, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Oh, I should've checked our translations of graft, where we have French enter, and a claim that there's an attestation in Salic law.

Really just a coincidence then? Is the timing right for one of these to have influenced the other once in Germanic? 4pq1injbok (talk) 03:22, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Rastafari I

Appears in a number of etymologies, see below. Worth adding sth to I? The etymologies will need a senseid, if so. —User:Vealhurl (talk 08:12, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

• Idren
• Ihood
• Inity
• iration
• ital
• itinually
• Iyaric

bandbox

Which sense of band is this from?—User:Vealhurl (talk 08:17, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Strip, I'd assume. Wakuran (talk) 13:11, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Portuguese estilingue

If it comes from English sling, why not *eslingue? The same consonant cluster appears in Portuguese deslizar. Xylon Chacier (talk) 10:49, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Old Slovak keľo, Pannonian Rusyn кельо (kelʹo)

Would this be from Proto-Slavic *koliko or the earlier *kolě / *kolь? Because the second -k- definitely disappears if it's the former. I'm not entirely sure. Dijacz (talk) 20:02, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

October 2026

borak

The entry poke borax says it's "From poke borak or poke borack, probably by substitution of the unfamiliar word, by the law of Hobson-Jobson", but the first of those entries just defines itself as an alt form of this, and the second hosts out-of-sync duplicate definitions, without giving any indication of what bora(c)k is. We do have an entry for a word "borak", but poke borak suppresses its headword line from linking there, as if it's not the word that's used in this phrase. So what is the bora(c)k that's being poked? - -sche (discuss) 06:36, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

-hwugu

(Notifying workgroup: Benwing2, Mnemosientje, The Editor's Apprentice, Hazarasp, Caoimhin ceallach, Exarchus, Mellohi!, Victar, Leasnam, Mårtensås, Lambiam, Urszag, Hundwine, Alarichall):

What could possibly be the origin of this Anglo-Saxon suffix? Does the literature say anything about it? (The page has no references; it needs some.) A very strange case! Any educated guesses on it?

The suffix has no Germanic cognates, and seems to have not lasted very long in English (wasn't passed down to even Early Mid-Eng), which could mean that its (limited?) usage happened very early in OE. I posit that it might be related to Old English hwerġen (“somewhere”, likewise limited usage), which, given the meaning, is either a strong possibility or a great coincidence. That word is from PG *hwargin (*hwar +‎ *-gin), therefore -hwugu would be from *hwō (“how; with what”) + *-gin (indefinite-pronoun suffix, i.e. the suffix equivalent of our some-), with the /o/ in *hwō becoming an /u/ (which did happen to hū, additionally losing its /w/, which didn't happen here because it's a longer word with more sounds after the /ʍu/ cluster), and *-gin became *-gyn (rounding) → *-gun (retraction) → gu (denazalization). Ergo, *-hwugun would have been its earlier form. Its lack of cognates may simply stem from its being an Anglo-Saxon innovation.

Is such a derivation possible or is it invalid? For clarification, I think -gin did not become -ġen (read -yen) here, unlike in hwerġen, due to adjacent-sounds influence – same reason for hwu- instead of hū-. ～ bytekast ^{[talk • work • logs]} 06:40, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

*-gin -> -gu seems extremely unlikely, especially given that it became -ġen in another form. You have to appeal to a whole host of ad-hoc analogical transformations. A Reddit user made a more likely suggestion IMO which is that -gu reflects somehow the indefinitizing suffix -que in Latin. If the pre-Germanic etymon had -kwe, the Proto-Germanic etymon would have either *-g or *-w (*-g would also arise if the preceding vowel were -u- in Proto-Germanic, because the labiovelar would have been delabialized). If this is true, the final -u must reflect some later accretion.

Benwing2 (talk) 07:31, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Isn't *-hw/*-uh already the Germanic reflex of *-kʷe? —Mahāgaja · talk 10:56, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

This is the outcome in Gothic in second position but the outcome might be different in final position if the preceding vowel is unstressed. But Hazarasp's suggestion makes more sense. Benwing2 (talk) 17:08, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Apologies for excoriating you, but the development of Old English -hwugu from your putative Proto-Germanic *hwōgin is phonologically impossible: your claim that /ɣ/ would remain unpalatalised due to the preceding /oː/ is incompatible with the evidence (e.g. PGmc. *swōgiz → OE swēġ), the exceptionless "denasalisation" of /n/ and (as Ben notes) rounding you posit are similarly unlikely, and you fail to account for i-umlaut; the expected result of *hwōgin would thus be *hwēġen.

As noted by Holthausen, Horn instead suggests derivation from PGmc *hwō (“how”) +‎ *wegō (the instrumental of *wegaz "way"), literally “in what way, somehow”. This would account for the attested OE forms if contracted into *hwegō; the /u/ of -hwugu is a regular outcome of the u-umlaut of /e/, /i/ after /w/, as in PGmc *wikō → OE wucu (“week”). Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 07:41, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Perfect then! Thank you for the detailed explanations and the citation. Please don't apologize for the corrections (or "excoriation" as you hyperbolically called them, which I beg to differ) — they are much needed to improve understanding and to learn. I am not a professional linguist, much less a specialized Germanicist, so I was bound to make mistakes in my etymology anyway, which I expected openly by asking "is it possible or invalid?" (turns out it is "impossible", as you well put it). Welp, at least I got the "how" (*hwō) part right! I just could see its presence there. Horn's etymology makes much more sense and fits nicely: hwǣrhwugu (“where in what[ever] way”, perhaps an ancient way of saying “where in some way”, i.e. “somewhere”), and then hwǣthwugu (“what in what way” = “a thing in some way” = “something”); see archaic sense of somewhat. It's a double instrumental there, an inflected phrase, which explains why it does not get any further inflected as the affixed pronoun does. ～ bytekast ^{[talk • work • logs]} 19:17, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

faltarle palos para el puente

"He's a few sticks short of a bridge" sounds a lot like "he's a few sandwiches short of a picnic", so it sounds like a Spanish version of the snowclone. What's the etymology of the snowclone? PierreAbbat (talk) 20:06, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

For what it's worth, there are some variants in Swedish as well, such as "not have all the horses at home" and "not have all the knives in the cabinet drawer". Wakuran (talk) 11:11, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the origin, but it's more than a single snowclone, it's a whole class of expressions with its own name: full deckisms. There are others like this one based on something missing from a complete set: Appendix:Snowclones/few X short of a Y, then there's one's elevator doesn't go all the way to the top/his driveway doesn't go all the way to the road, and not the sharpest knife in the drawer/not the sharpest tool in the shed (see Appendix:Snowclones/not the X-est in the Y, which are a form of litotes). Similar are not have both oars in the water/not firing on all cylinders, bats in the belfry/a kangaroo loose in the top paddock, the lights are on, but nobody's home. They are all understated and playfully indirect The ones I've followed back in Google Books seem to start in the 1980's and 1990's, but here is "three bricks short of a load" from 1969. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:00, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

blah, blah, blah

Onomatopoeic, but any relation to Spanish hablar “speak” at all? Xylon Chacier (talk) 17:53, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

Likely not, as in 1918 English usually didn't have any close connections to Spanish. Wakuran (talk) 19:35, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

I agree that blah blah blah is unlikely to have any connection to Spanish hablar, but there were certainly varieties of U.S. English (especially in Florida, Louisiana, and the states that had once been part of Mexico) that were in fairly close contact with Spanish even in the first quarter of the 20th century. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:02, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

Anyway, as English likely already would have had the similar native words babble and blather, mixing in another language here probably just confuses matters. Wakuran (talk) 21:11, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

English excluders?

There is an old Norwegian word for women galoshes, ekskluders (or just "skluders"). Not even sure if it is plural. Very poorly attested. Looks English. May it be from English *excluders? But what do they exclude? Water? Tollef Salemann (talk) 19:47, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

It might be a pseudoloan. If English excluder has ever been used (in singular or plural) to refer to something waterproof, I've never seen it. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:11, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

It sounds as if it might be a student joke word or so. Although ekskludere as a verb is somewhat common as a synonym to utelukke. Wakuran (talk) 07:42, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

Apparently it must be from English, see snow excluders on Google. I also found a Norwegian book which says they were used by women in Trondheim at winter in 1940-s, but no snow directly mentioned. A dictionary of Trøndelag dialect has this word but does not says it was used by women. A commentary on Internet says they were used by women in 1930-40s. Otherwise no more attestations. Also, looks like pluralia tantum. Not sure if it is worth to include, but it seems to be same as English/American "snow excluders". They were used before 1930-s tho. And they are pretty poor attested they too. Tollef Salemann (talk) 08:47, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

Googling produces the result 'Apparently "snow excluders" are what we now call gaiters.' Wakuran (talk) 09:17, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, it would be nice to have pictures from those days. Tollef Salemann (talk) 12:45, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

They had a archive picture of excluders which look like galoshes, not gaiters, but it was removed, because somebody complained that the galoshes on the picture were not real excluders, since they suppose to be made for women. So it could be galoshes, but it sounds more like gaiters if they were used at winter. Tollef Salemann (talk) 14:27, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

Chinese Hanzi 蟲

(Notifying workgroup: Blahhmosh, Fish bowl, Justinrleung, Geographyinitiative, 沈澄心): The Shuowen Jiezi character shown in the "Glyph Origin" section of 蟲 looks like the Shuowen Jiezi character of 車 plus the Shuowen Jiezi character of 舁. It looks like the character in that page is actually the Seal Script form of 輿. Perhaps we should transfer that character to our 輿 entry and replace the Shuowen Jiezi character in our 蟲 entry with the Seal Script character found in the 蟲 entry of the Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants. (If so, we might need help from the Grease pit to sort out Template:Han etym.) Can someone check this? Intolerable situation (talk) 14:57, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

@Intolerable situation: Thanks for notifying us of this. It's an issue of incorrect file naming at Wikimedia Commons, where this image is hosted. I've renamed this file, so now the image only shows up at 輿. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 15:24, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

propreantepenultimate

What's the exact origin of the pro- in propreantepenultimate? pro- lists three origins and Latin prō- (“forward”) and Greek πρό (pró, “before”) seem plausible (the Greek seems to fit the definition better but Latin fits the etymology of the rest of the word). I haven't been able to find evidence for any one in particular however. Donopi (talk) 02:34, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

It should be the Greek. There are a bunch of words missing Greek and Latin roots, and I guess two pre's after another felt silly. Wakuran (talk) 11:32, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

I see. I've added the Greek link. Donopi (talk) 20:11, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

original part of speech of north in north wind

The entry used to say north in north wind was originally an adverb, but was changed here to say it was originally an adjective. Is that right? If so, it seems to me that we could drop the parenthetical entirely: if it was originally an adverb, that's arguably unintuitive enough for modern readers to be worth flagging, but if it was originally an adjective, that seems unremarkable, and unnecessary to remark on. - -sche (discuss) 16:22, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

How could it have been an adverb? They modify verbs, not nouns. ~2026-53844-63 (talk) 16:25, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

@-sche: If you look at Bosworth-Toller, it has norþ as an adverb for "in a northerly position", but there is also an adjective with the same spelling that is apparently only seen in compounds. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:20, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

👁️👄👁️

It should come from 👁️👁️, in turn from 👁️, no? ~2026-52969-60 (talk) 07:42, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

I don't think emoticons should be interpreted like that. It's just an approximation of a face doing a grimace. Wakuran (talk) 11:46, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

I don't think so. Looks like a Mediterranean–Pontic substratum. Vahag (talk) 12:04, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

kúga

Any guesses as to the origins of this Old Norse term? Does (or did) English have any cognates with it via Proto-Germanic? ～ bytekast ^{[talk • work • logs]} 15:04, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Íslensk orðsifjabók has this to say:

> kúga s. ‘undiroka, bæla niður, þvinga; totta’; sbr. fær. kúga, nno. kûa, kuva, sæ. kuva, d. kue (to. í e. cow). Tæpast < *kúfga, af kúfur og upphafl. merk. ‘að stýfa kúfinn af, gera kollótt’ e.þ.h. Fno. kúfan, ung víxlmynd við kúgan, er ónóg stoð slíkri skýringu. Fremur sk. nno. kugul, kugl ‘smáklumpur, hnykill,…’ og kjøgle kv., kjugl h. (s.m.), sk. mhþ. kugele (nhþ. kugel), holl. kogel ‘kúla’; sbr. fe. Cūga, fhþ. Cūgo karlmannsnafn. Af kúga er leitt no. kúgan, kúgun kv. ‘undirokun’, sbr. fær. kúgan (s.m.), kúgi k. ‘þjökun, þvingun; viðurnefni, pn.’ og kúgur k. ‘kraftlaus mergur’; sbr. og Kúgaldi k. og Kúgi k. pn. Af germ. rót *kū̆-g-, ie. *geu-g(h)- ‘beygja’, sbr. lith. gugà ‘hnakkpúta, hóll’, rússn. gúglja ‘kúla’. Sjá kuggi (1 og 2).

Ie.:

kúga verb 'repress, subjucate, suppress; suck(?)'; compare Faroese kúga, Nynorsk kûa, kuva, Swedish kuva, Danish kue (loaned to English cow). Possibly from < *kúfga, from kúfur, with original meaning of 'to remove the crown from, to make bald' or similar. Old Norse kúfan, a young variant of kúgan, is not enough support for such an etymology. More likely related to Nynorsk kugul, kugl ‘small lump, wad,…’ and kjøgle fem., kjugl neut. (same meaning), cf. Middle High German kugele (Modern kugel), Dutch kogel ‘ball’; cf. Old English Cūga, Old High German Cūgo, male names. From kúga is derived the nouns kúgan, kúgun fem. ‘subjugation’, cf. Faroese kúgan (same meaning.), kúgi masc. ‘oppression, coercion; epithet, personal name’ and kúgur masc. ‘powerless marrow’; cf. also Kúgaldi masc. and Kúgi masc., personal names. From a Germanic root *kū̆-g-, IE *geu-g(h)- ‘to bend’, cf. Lith. gugà ‘hump, hillock’, Russian. gúglja ‘sphere’. See kuggi (1 and 2).

Not sure if totta had some other use other than suck that I am unaware of, like extract. Not sure if kraftlaus mergur is some set phrase that I misunderstand, and if my translation of hnakkpúta/hóll is correct. Someone better at the language than me might be able to comment. Herthaz (talk) 12:27, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

My initial impression was that totta might be related to Proto-Germanic *tuhtiz (discipline, n.), Swedish tukta (discipline, v.), but that would basically require that the root had survived independently in North Germanic, since the *ht combination tends to produce -tt- natively and -kt- in Continental West Germanic (mostly Middle Low German) borrowings. Wakuran (talk) 00:27, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Yeah - the language used for glosses in Íslensk orðsifjabók is generally not super archaic (it was published in 1989), but it does occasionally use some words that for me, as a second language speaker of the language (whose competence has sadly attrited quite a lot), are quite obscure. In this case, the only entries I saw for totta in Icelandic dictionaries revolves around the usage of 'to suck' (incl. the sexual variant).

As I mentioned, I was unsure if there was a previous usage I was unaware of - if so, it didn't show up in any of the common Norse dictionaries. However, I neglected to check Íslensk orðsifjabók itself! It has this to say:

> totta s. (17. öld) ‘sjúga (spena, pípu); hreyta, strepta kýr’; tott h. ‘sugur, streptur’. Sbr. nno. totta, tutta, sæ. máll. tutta ‘sjúga túttu,…’, þ. máll. zützen ‘sjúga’. So. e.t.v. nafnleidd af orði sem merkt hefur spena eða brjóstvörtu, sbr. sæ. máll. tutt ‘suga’, mhþ. zutzel (s.m.). Af sama toga og totta s. er totta kv. ‘dúsa’. Sjá tútta, tota og tútur.

totta verb. (17th c.) 'suck (teat, pipe); to milk, milk/strip a cow (dry)'; tott neut. 'sucking, stripping(?).' Compare Nynorsk totta, tutta, Swedish dialectal tutt 'suck a teat,' German dialectal zützen (suck). The verb is possibly a nominal derivation of words which means teat or nipple, compare Swedish dialectal tutt 'suck', Middle High German zutzel (same meaning). From same stock as totta the verb is totta fem. 'teat.' See tútta, tota and tútur. Herthaz (talk) 15:53, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, that "tukta" suggestion might have been a qualified guess, but it still seems to be wrong. I first though that the book was a very old standard work, but 1989 is fairly recent. The meaning "milk a cow dry" would make sense, however. (And as for archaic glosses, at least I guess they wouldn't be more archaic than Icelandic in general...) Wakuran (talk) 22:06, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Singlet: sleeveless shirt

After doublet because originally it referred to an unlined one-layered garment. JMGN (talk) 20:45, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

mainline

i just added that the religious sense might be derived from the railroad sense, which is what Wikipedia says. do we think that the currently listed first sense,

Normal, principal or standard.

might be derived from the religious sense? Thus making the railroad sense the original root of both. I didnt do any search and I dont expect other people to since it would require a lot of sorting through old documents where most hits would be for the railroad sense and perhaps the religious sense, but maybe someone has forehand knowledge of this. —Soap— 00:45, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

On why Cantonese and Xiang reflexes of 束 contain an initial affricitive consonant instead of a fricative?

Why do you guys think that for Cantonese and Xiang, they do not pronounce 束 with an initial fricative consonant as Middle Chinese suggests but instead they pronounce with an affricitive consonant? Why? Blahhmosh (talk) 04:08, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Latin adverbs of reaching, direction, extent

(Notifying workgroup: Fay Freak, Brutal Russian, Benwing2, Lambiam, Mnemosientje, Nicodene, Sartma, Al-Muqanna, SinaSabet28, Theknightwho, Imbricitor, Urszag, Graearms, Kaloan-koko, Andrew Sheedy, Victar):

How should one account for intrō, eō, quō, istō, citrō, etc.? ablative on the outside, but such a usage is better served by the accusative etymologically; it is not, to my knowledge, mirrored elsewhere. eō, quō and their several senses suggest a dichotomy and twofold origin (at least chronologically) which other such adverbs in -ō don't necessarily share. De Vaan under inter says intrō does reflect the ablative singular: should we consider it an extension of the locative ablative? with a translation from the static to motion? Saumache (talk) 19:13, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

I don’t know what you are talking about. The etymologies? I never thought about these words as ablatives. They are analogical formations from some point in Early Latin. Fay Freak (talk) 19:22, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

What sort of answer is analogy? analogy with what? Saumache (talk) 20:10, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

My theory is that some of these adverbs are very frequent words that hence were retained and motivated new such words. Whether or not the original group’s ending can be identified with the ablative ending I am not sure – something unexpected can be the case in the sense that they are inherited archaisms, as a lectio difficilior –, but the problem with the idea of calling them ablatives is that the ending means the oppositive of ablative, namely illative, though the ablative in Latin be used for the “mode” in which something happens.

You might reason from the parallel in citrō and citrā or ultrā that these are indeed ablatives, were you to believe that ablatives of both genders could be used and were there not the possibility that any attestations of this -ād are secondary or there was a syncretism with the ablative endings, as indeed the Latin ablative remarkably has absorbed sundry semantic functions that were not present in Indo-European. The matter is muddled. Fay Freak (talk) 22:21, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Well, Lewis and Short writes "cī̆trō, adv. (orig. dat. sing.)", so that seems to be an alternative hypothesis. It seems odd though because the dative is not usually used spatially in historical Latin.--Urszag (talk) 06:05, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Lewis and Short is not really an authority in everything etymology related, it makes even less sense if we consider quō/eō/istō (these could never have been dative, or are analogical to adjective-based citrō and others, but again the dative makes little sense here, the accusative would be more expected), my best bet is: pronoun/adjective-based static semi-lexicalized adverbs using the locative ablative, found alongside ibi and others -> stronger lexicalisation and specification of these as illative adverbs (the same way modern English uses there to mean "to this place") -> a new productive set of deictic adverbs. Spatial adverbs in -ā are surely more ablative in nature and less obscure regarding their adverbialisation eā viā, citrā viā, or something like that; the pair -ō/-ā makes me strongly think they all stem from that one case. This also bring us to illative -ūc (hūc, illūc) (and elative/ablative -inc/-im adverbs (illinc, istinc)). Saumache (talk) 07:34, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Black Death

< the color of the buboes? JMGN (talk) 19:38, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Black has long had negative connotations in Europe and Western languages, probably just an intensifier or similar. Or with some vague connections to the Devil and the underworld. Wakuran (talk) 00:19, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

جنارك and jering and ชะเนียง: what is going on?

See North Levantine Arabic جَنَارِك (/⁠janērik⁠/, “greengage”). The conventional Ottoman/Turkish source can erik (literally “soul plum”) is the most blatant phonosemantic matching ever and I have no way to convince myself the Ottoman is the source of all the Levantine Arabic variants: جَرَرَنك (jararank), جَنَرْلِك (janarlik), جِرَنْك (jirank), جَرِنْك (jarink), etc... at the very least it's fishy that apparently none of this variation is reflected in Turkish.

If you take the Levantine forms on their own terms, without assuming etyms, it seems they sort into three groups:

1. janāri(k~g), jarāni(k~g), jararin(k~g), jiniran(k~g), etc.
2. janarli(k~g) and vowel variants
3. jrink, jirank, jarink, etc.

You can reconstruct #1 to something like a *janāring > *jaˈnāring ~ *janāˈring, but it's hard to unify this with the other two without shooting off in wild directions. Probably a dead end. Optimistically you might consider *ŋ instead of *ng at the end of the source language's term in order to account for the variation in the ending, but that doesn't do any favors to the prospect of finding a valid donor.

Then while trying to track this down I spotted the species Archidendron jiringa (meaning djenkol). "jiringa"?! Tracking this down reveals two strange forms:

1. Malay jering (“djenkol”), redlink but easy to find online
2. Old Khmer jranyaṅ (/⁠ɟrəˈniːəŋ⁠/, “Canthium”, possibly djenkol), redlink but given at Thai ชะเนียง (chá-niiang, “djenkol”) as well as here at the(?) Old Khmer dictionary

What is going on here? Two forms that (ignoring time depth) are practically screaming for comparison to the otherwise-recalcitrant جَرِنْك (jarink) and جَنَرِنك (janaring) (note historical Arabic ج (j /⁠ɟ⁠/)), but they refer to different plants and are from across the Indian Ocean? I'm not too beat up about the different plants, but everything else... Still, when you think about it (talk · stalk) 02:07, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Note that I previously had a supposed form جَرَنيَك (jaranyak) listed on the page جَنَارِك, but this was my tentative read of a vowelless spelling جرنيك and I shouldn't have listed it. For example, it may instead refer to a pronunciation like جَرَنِيك (^?‍jaranīk). Removed and trying to go through and cite all the rest. Also even with this attempted SEA comparison I have no explanation of the Levantine forms in ـلـ (-l-). Still, when you think about it (talk · stalk) 02:12, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Vietnamese thẩm thấu

Could this just be a Sino-Vietnamese word from 浸透? ~2026-54453-98 (talk) 05:10, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Mandaite

Wanna check this? What Manda would it be??? —User:Vealhurl (talk 18:24, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Seems to be Aramaic 𐡌𐡍𐡃𐡏. Wakuran (talk) 22:08, 9 October 2026 (UTC)