Where do words come from – pt1. Bridegroom?

Bridegroom n. Definition: a man who has been or is about to be married.

But what has this got to do with horses?

For this, we have to turn to etymology, which tells us the origins of  a word, from which language it was borrowed, and what it used to mean.

In the Middle Ages, ‘guma’ or ‘gome’ meant ‘man’, but this became corrupted over the years to ‘groom’, so no, it never had anything to do with horses – it was just how the English language evolved.

Definition v etymology

Actually, definitions are rather boring – they merely tell us what a word means at this present moment in time.

Etymology charts the various incarnations of the word over time and is infinitely more satisfying, providing a richer context. Consider this example below:

Disaster (definition): an occurrence causing widespread destruction and distress; a catastrophe.

Disaster (etymology) : arriving in English in C16 from the Italian ‘disastro’ which meant ‘unfavourable to one’s stars’, but originally derived from the Latin root word ‘astrum’ meaning stars (as in ‘astronomy’). With the addition of the negative Latin prefix ‘dis’ (‘apart’) added, the word conveyed the idea that a catastrophe could be traced to the “evil influence of a star or planet”.

Other words of etymological interest

Stepmother: this doesn’t mean ‘one step removed from the natural mother’, it goes back to a word meaning ‘bereaved.’

Bonfire: not a corruption of the French ‘bon’ meaning ‘good’, but deriving from ‘bone’ since old bones were used as fuel down to the 1800s.

Orchid: a beautiful flower up top, but have a closer look at the tangle of roots down below. The Greek ‘orchis’ translates directly as ‘testicle’. Something to think about next Mother’s Day…..

And whilst you’re writing down the observations about ‘orchid’, spare a thought  for the humble pencil.

Pencil: in C14, ‘pincel’ (French) meant “an artist’s fine brush of camel hair”, which derived from the Latin ‘penicillus’, literally translated as “little tail,” the diminutive of the Latin ‘penis’.

So best not chew on that pencil any longer, eh?