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Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2020/January

Minsk/Mensk etymology
Is anyone interested in writing up the etymology of Minsk (ru or be)? Apparently, the more recent spelling with "i" rather than "e" was forced first by the Polish and then by the Russians. Strictly speaking the Belarusian is no longer just Taraškievica spelling. It's the only spelling used by the Belarusian opposition and any liberal media writing in Belarus. . --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 01:45, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Russian топ (top of the mast)
Is the claim that it's from English based on evidence or just a guess? Russian seafaring terms are usually from Dutch or Low German if I'm not mistaken, so these languages would be much more likely sources at first sight. Compare also High German, which, like the Russian word, was borrowed from Low German in the specific meaning "top of the mast". 90.186.72.23 06:47, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Vasmer has: топ “top of the mast”. From or English,, whence also new High ; see Möhlen 213; Kluge-Götze 622. Cf. то́нить. (топ «верхушка мачты». Из голл. top или англ., нж.-нем. top – то же, нов.-в.-н. Topp; см. Мёлен 213; Клюге-Гётце 622. Ср. то́нить.)  --Lambiam 12:49, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Compare also 🇨🇬 for which I did not add an origin. It is possible that it came via English-language piracy outside of Europe but this is less likely. Fay Freak (talk) 14:17, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

English terms calqued from Middle English
Does it make sense for an English terms to be a calque of a Middle English term? I've just cleaned up the etymology templates on undeadliness and now it's being categorised into Category:English terms calqued from Middle English. The pre-existing etymology started "A calque [...] of the Middle English"; all I've done is replace that with a template. I'm not sure if I've done something wrong, the etymology was already wrong, both or neither. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:36, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * You used the template correctly; see Talk:undeadliness for a discussion of why it's considered a calque of the Middle English. That situation must surely be very rare, but it apparently happened in this case. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:08, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

honeymoon
Ety presently reads:

 * Disputed. Compares, in a cynical fashion, a full moon to the love of a newly married couple, which is sweetest (as honey) before it begins to wane. (16th century)

This is contradictory. The second sentence reads like a definite fact, contradicting the label "Disputed". I don't know whether to remove "Disputed" or add a caveat to the second sentence. Mihia (talk) 22:00, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

 * If you go through the list of translations, you see that many literally mean “honey month” (Armenian, Greek, Irish, Latvian, Scottish Gaelic, most Slavic languages) and some more are “honey” + a word that can just as well mean “month” as “moon” (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Turkish), while several others are some other compound of “sweet stuff” + “period of time” such as “days” or “weeks” (Danish, Dutch, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian). In Finnish it is the “cooing month”, in German the “glitter weeks”, and in Swedish the “caressing month”. Considering all this, it is more or less obvious that the sense of the component is that of a period of time, a month, and not that of the heavenly body Luna with its phases.  --Lambiam 01:49, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Various dictionaries give various levels of credence to the "lunar phases" explanation. Chambers Dictionary is one that seems quite definite, saying "16c: so called because the feelings of the couple were thought to wax and wane like the moon phases" . Personally I feel unqualified to judge. Mihia (talk) 14:07, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

 * FWIW, the "month of mead" derivation comes up so often that I think it bears mentioning, if only to specifically call out that it is not considered to be the actual etymology. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 22:47, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Semitic/bayt-
Hi all! I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I think I found an error in Reconstruction:Proto-Semitic/bayt-. Specifically, if I understand the nesting structure correctly, it seems to claim that בַּיְתָא and בֵּיתָא are Hebrew words which come from Aramaic. But I'm pretty sure that those words are only Aramaic words, not Hebrew words. (The Hebrew word should be בַּיִת if I'm not mistaken). Could someone check whether this really is an error, or if I just misunderstood something? Thanks a ton! JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 08:25, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * You misunderstood and the formatting is mistaken too: Here “Hebrew” stands for “Aramaic in Hebrew script”, as you can also see from its being linked to an Aramaic section and lacking a borrowing arrow →. Imma change it. Fay Freak (talk) 14:24, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

espancar
RFV of the etymology. An IP had formerly added "compare " to the etymology at, which was fishy (especially in light of the same IP's "compare " to the etymology at ), but I'd still like to see whether it's possible that they're in fact cognates. Plus, the etymology at is from a user with a history of adding iffy etymologies. I'm not very familiar with Romance languages, so bear with me, but does the meaning of the es- prefix actually work here? — M. I. Wright (talk, contribs) 17:05, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Online dictionaries that give an etymology agree in principle with our current etymology +  +  :
 * Espancar viria de EX, “para fora”, mais PALANCA, “alavanca”, ferramenta que sempre pode ser útil para certas atividades não-previstas;
 * voc comp do lat ex-+panca+ar;
 * 1. panca: «pau grosso que serve como alavanca; Regionalismo: Brasil. Uso: informal. Postura estudada; pose.» 2. pancada: «choque que um corpo dá e recebe no instante em que se encontra com outro; ato de espancar; bordoada, paulada; barulho de um corpo ao cair ou ao bater em outro; baque.».
 * A commonly found definition in Portuguese dictionaries is: “ s ”. --Lambiam 17:44, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Looks like that settles it, thanks. I suppose there's no chance of a borrowing in the other direction, either, from Portuguese to English? Funny how these coincidences appear. — M. I. Wright (talk, contribs) 19:03, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The user who added it did not imply borrowing from Portuguese. The  template implies a common root, which is doubtful. A simple "compare" is innocious, and much better than the etymologist's last resort, as currently stands: "imitative". 109.41.3.11 03:52, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I disagree that it is much better – I think it is in fact definitely worse, as the similarity is quite likely purely coincidental. --Lambiam 11:36, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Almost all other edits by the anon who added this at have been undone as being unsound.  --Lambiam 11:53, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

لكن
RFV of the etymology. The user who added it was only briefly active in 2017, but they had a habit of (1) mistaking Arabic roots for actual, concrete words, and (2) recording what seemed to just be pet etymologies — and with ostensible sources, but the problem was that the citations always turned out just to be links to the definitions of supposedly-related words, which did nothing to corroborate the alleged etymology lol. See edit history at and  for particular examples.

Regarding the etymology in question... it just doesn't make any sense if you consider what the form of the original word would have to have been. And I'm not sure how a word supposedly regularly derived from some root would be able to conveniently incorporate the same ending alternation as in /. — M. I. Wright (talk, contribs) 19:58, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
 * One of the references given by the user, Almaany, mentions a verb on the same page as  because they're homographs, but didn't say anything about  being derived from a root for "broken speech".
 * Nor does the other reference, page 3013 of Lane's Arabic–English lexicon, currently available here. It actually just lists and  under the  header without saying anything about the etymology of . Unless Lane assumes that words with the same three letters can never be etymologically unrelated.
 * So neither of the references that the user provided seem to support the etymology. It could be his own theory or come from some other unspecified source. The etymology doesn't seem plausible either: why would someone use a word related to "broken speech" as a conjunction "but"? — Eru·tuon 22:21, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

atone
Can someone please clarify how the Modern English words one and once came to be pronounced with a /wʌn/ sound, while the words atone, alone, and only are all pronounced like /əʊn/ or /oʊn/? The etymology section of the atone article claims that atone "lacked a stressed vowel" and so did not undergo diphthongization. However, the entries for Middle English oonly and allone have pronunciations with a stressed "-one". So, it seems to me that the explanation on atone does not hold water. Is there an alternative explanation available? BirdValiant (talk) 07:03, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I can see a stressed turning into the diphthong, but in my book   is not a diphthong and requires a different explanation (dialectal? influence of Scots?). So the whole sentence is dubitable, not only as a proffered explanation for the pronunciation of atone.  --Lambiam 09:11, 11 January 2020 (UTC) Moreover, I do not believe that the ‹o› in ‹atone› was unstressed, and it did undergo diphthongization to  and , making the challenged statement even more incomprehensible.  --Lambiam 09:19, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I replaced the note with a pointer to one and added a referenced note there. - -sche (discuss) 11:06, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for removing the bad explanation. The question still remains, though: why did people in western England suddenly start pronouncing one with a /w/? Is there some deterministic linguistic explanation available somewhere? Or, was it just some random development? Was it, as I have always imagined, started by some particularly handsome and popular 14th-century English bumpkin who liked to add a little flair to his speech? BirdValiant (talk) 19:12, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I wonder if it might be evidence of a phonological process similar to the epenthetic rhotic that appears between vowels at certain word boundaries in some dialects?  See also Linking_and_intrusive_R.  Perhaps historically there was an "intrusive W" that only appeared at word boundaries?  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 19:24, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Essentially the same theory, the insertion of a glide before a word-initial vowel in some varieties of Middle English, and more specifically a rounded back glide /w/ before a word-initial rounded back vowel, is presented (with some evidence) in this 2013 blog posting. I wonder if this is related to the process /u/ → /ju/ as in the pronunciation of . --Lambiam 20:00, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

 * The pronunciation of oak with a /w/ mentioned there is also mentioned by Upward & Davidson (as a "non-standard development from OE long A") and hence our entry. Besides the form with /w/, oak has a form with a different intruder and a different vowel: yack (compare old Scots yik/jɛk in the DSL). So does oat, which besides being in ME as wote and in the EDD's citations as w(h)oat/wut, is also found in the EDD as yeat/yett/yit (Scots yit/jɪt/jət/jet). One is also found in dialects as yan/yae/ya(h) and Scots yin/jɪn/jən/jɛn. None of the other words mentioned as having w forms seem to have y/j forms that I could spot, and they also don't appear to be as old as the w forms (which go back to Middle English). Nonetheless, perhaps front vowels in these words / these reflexes of this OE vowel attracted a /j/ in some dialects even as back vowels attracted a /w/? - -sche (discuss) 04:58, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Especially if it appeared initially bewteen word boundaries, and was subsequently rebracketed as part of the word, the distribution of /j/ vs /w/ would align with the point in English Historical Linguistics, volume 1 (2012, ed. by Alexander Bergs, Laurel J. Brinton), page 99, that "to avoid two vowels becoming adjacent, some varieties of English have the option of inserting a sonorant consonant. [...] the glide /j/ is inserted after a front high vowel (e.g. I see [j] it), /w/ is inserted after a back high vowel (e.g. too [w] old) and an r-sound is inserted when a non-high vowel-final word is followed by a suffix or a word that is vowel-initial (e.g. I saw [r] it)." - -sche (discuss) 05:34, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, an inter-vowel epenthetic /w/ would imply that the word "one" was commonly used after words ending in a vowel, but, surely it occurs equally if not more commonly after words ending in a consonant. So, doesn't seem to really explain it. According to the Cent. Dict, the "prothesis of w" was "due to a labializing of the orig. long o, occurring in several words, but not generally recognised in spelling" ... the Cent. Dict also cites the form wone from early mod. Eng. - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 12:02, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Proto-Germanic
Kroonen reconstructs this as a consonant stem *haleþ- ~ *haluþ- (which would be in our notation). That seems to be confirmed by Old English, which has some consonant stem forms. The entry should therefore probably be moved. I'm puzzled, however, by the OE byform, which lacks the final consonant in the base form but retains it in the inflections. It echoes and also the paradigm we have reconstructed for, but both of those are neuters and therefore would have had no ending in the nominative-accusative singular, causing the loss of -t in Pre-Germanic. The "hero" word on the other hand is masculine, and would have had no endingless forms that could have lost the final consonant. Perhaps analogy with these neuter nouns in Old English is the explanation. —Rua (mew) 13:00, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Going off my theory on the discussion page, if the word was originally a neuter consonant stem, and then even more parallel to *hafud(ą), then the nominative singular would have become *halu(d), the loss of word final d'' would explain the OE form. Anglom (talk) 03:21, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

boetseren
Dutch. RFV of the etymology, which differs in strange ways from reference works. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  13:52, 8 January 2020 (UTC

 * The Middle Dutch Dictionary at the Geïntegreerde Taalbank lists as a variant of, originally meaning “bump” but later applied to a sculptural model or more generally a sketch or design; see their entry for . The entry for Middle Dutch bootse also states that the word virtually died out in Dutch but related forms (na)bootsen and boetseren were reintroduced via . Koenen (1899), however, derives nabootsen from bootse, boetse; as far as I could see his is a lone position.
 * I find it hard to believe in Latin . Le Trésor has two entries for the verb, both transitive. Bosseler1, defined as meaning “to deform by deformations/bumps/weals”, is said to derive from , in turn from (Vulgar Latin) of obscure origin (but evidenced further by  and Provençal ; see also our etymologies at ,  and ). Bosseler2, defined as meaning “to form a deformation/bump/weal”, is said to derive from  or . I do not quite understand the difference between these definitions.  --Lambiam 21:47, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Proto-Slavic
The etymology at the reconstruction page conflicts with the one given at 🇨🇬. If the former is accurate, is there no relation whatsoever to 🇨🇬? — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 16:53, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I was wondering about that too. According to Wikipedia's etyl on Perun:
 * Perun is strongly correlated with the near-identical Perkūnas/Pērkons from Baltic mythology, suggesting either a common derivative of the Proto-Indo European thunder god (whose original name has been reconstructed as Perkwunos), or that one of these cultures borrowed the deity from the other. The root *perkwu originally probably meant oak, but in Proto-Slavic this evolved into per- meaning "to strike, to slay". The Lithuanian word "Perkūnas" has two meanings: "thunder" and the name of the god of thunder and lightning.
 * Their etyl on Perkwunos seems to convey the same converged meaning, both "oak" and "to strike." DJ K-Çel (talk) 04:03, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Ukrainian жінка
There was a request for an etymology there, and I did my best. Please make further changes in needed.Kevlar67 (talk) 17:22, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Modern 🇨🇬
RFV/RFE

Not mentioned by Beekes. Is this related to 🇨🇬? DJ K-Çel (talk) 20:57, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * According to the Greek Wikipedia it is, just like its cognate . --Lambiam 08:27, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/þurnuz
Moved to a u-stem because of a single Gothic form, but I think it should be moved back to. Every single descendant except the Gothic term is an a-stem. Every single cognate's declension class is cognate to the Germanic a-stem declension class. It seems that the u-stem form is a Gothic-exclusive innovation, rather than the Proto-Germanic changing the class from an inherited a-stem to a u-stem with North and West branches reverting it to a-stem again. mellohi! (僕の乖離) 20:59, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It doesn't seem to be as straightforward as it looks. There are by-forms in several languages with an unlowered u, and Old English even has a form with umlauted y. Those can't be explained from an a-stem. —Rua (mew) 21:08, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I would stand corrected and accept the notion of *þurnuz and other related forms existing in PGem, just not the assumption that *þurnaz was itself derived from the u-stem. mellohi! (僕の乖離) 00:27, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I've been reevaluating this and looking at the evidence more closely. The Old Dutch by-form with u is invalid, as it's in a derivation that has umlaut. I've sent to RFV. What remains is mostly a-stem inflection, but there are some anomalous forms as well:
 * OHG dative plural, , possibly also accusative plural ? These are i-stem forms.
 * OD nominative plural, also an i-stem form.
 * OS dative plural, ja/i-stem form. Also the i-stem nominative plural form in a gloss.
 * These may be remnants of an u-stem paradigm, since u-stems tend to become i-stems in these languages. But they may also be a distraction. I can't really tell. —Rua (mew) 13:02, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

arpa
Etymology-related edit warring seems to have started here again with an editor restoring what seems to be (sourced) nonsense. Could someone more familiar with the topic take a look? — surjection ⟨?⟩ 17:30, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, Victar can surely answer your nonsense claim. --Meatbowl (talk) 17:54, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I have removed it again. This is a waste of everyone's time: Altaic is banned, but the above editor, who has gone through multiple socks, wants to introduce as much of it as possible in this one entry's etymology (when all it should really do is point to the Proto-Turkic, where further etymological wrangling is more appropriate). Meatbowl, if you edit war again, you will be blocked. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 18:06, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * You failed the topic. The content you just aggressively removed is dealing with Hittite and Uralic, not Altaic. Do you consume something special? --Meatbowl (talk) 18:17, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * As Metaknowledge said, Altaic is banned, and Hyllestedt's theory is absurd. I've moved the etymology to Turkic, created a PIE entry for , and cleaned up Iranian . -- 02:42, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

 * On a related issue, is listed among the descendants of, but its etymology section lists  as ancestor. The latter form is not mentioned or linked to anywhere else. The page for  does mention an alternative form .  --Lambiam 09:12, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

stärtj
RFV of Old Norse. It's not in Köbler's dictionary, where the verb with this meaning is. —Rua (mew) 16:21, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

baaierd
RFV of the etymology: "Likely derived from French bayer (“to yawn”), analogously formed as “chaos” (from Ancient Greek χαίνω (khaínō, “to yawn”))". Etymological standard works give a secondary role to bayer at best, and it at least requires some explanation why a non-agent derived from a French verb would take the suffix -erd. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  09:07, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Even disregarding the suffix, it is already unlikely that a Dutch noun would be derived immediately from a French verb. One would expect either a Dutch verb or a French noun as a stepping stone. exists but not as a verb and with an unrelated meaning. There is a French noun, which has the unrelated sense of “stretcher” and appears to be etymologically unrelated to bayer.  --Lambiam 09:34, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I have changed the etymology and added a reference for that. The WNT etymology is from 1895, that is a little too old for strange speculative etymologies. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  11:24, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

sporter (Dutch)
RFV of the etymology. I'm a little unsure of the etymology. Sporter can be attested for 1890 and I haven't found an older attestation for sporten yet (it can be traced to the 1890s). If there are no older cites it seems at least possible that sporter was borrowed from English (a much more common word in the nineteenth century); sporten could then be independently borrowed or back-formed. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  10:18, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

 * The participle gesport occurs in the Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad of 16 May 1892 (, on p. 2 near the end of the column “Haagsche Kroniek”). In view of the close proximity in time of these (rare) attestations, the mere fact that the agent noun is spotted earlier in print than the verb is hardly an argument against the default hypothesis that the former is a regular derivation from the latter.  --Lambiam 09:49, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Why should that be the default? At the very least the dates should mean the etymology should include both options without a strong preference, no? ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  11:24, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

LSJ underscored space
Does anyone know why there is a space with an underscore in the middle of the word ῥαγο constituting the first part of ῥα_γοειδής? It's erroneous Greek, but maybe it has some hidden meaning in this dictionary's entries. --Espoo (talk) 17:09, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

 * It should have been a macron over the α, thus: ῥᾱγοειδής. See this mirror. --Lambiam 17:41, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Thanks! --Espoo (talk) 19:45, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

🇨🇬
Is this related to ? cf. Kroonen p. 358. DJ K-Çel (talk) 22:03, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, as your source explains. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 20:56, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I tried adding it in, but was reverted and Rua noted: mōtaną has the wrong consonant *t, which comes from PIE *d. Germanic *þ on the other hand must come from PIE *t.
 * I don't dispute this, but I still trust Kroonen's connection. I'll try again with a little more cautious wording. DJ K-Çel (talk) 05:04, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
 * You have to show how the suffix -tlo- caused that PIE *d to yield a pre-Germanic *t, which is what Kroonen claims. Your etymology did not make sense on the surface which is why Rua reverted it, as indeed Grimm's law precludes a correspondence between the two if the mentioned change due to the suffix -tlo- is not taken into account. The template you used for Kroonen was also not correct: you used instead of . — Mnemosientje (t · c) 11:09, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The thorn in is not root-original; it is rather suffix-original. Kroonen implies that root-original d regularly dropped in front of tl. Here's another paper of his he wrote after publishing the EDPG reiterating this sound law in an implied form.  even explicitly appears.  mellohi! (僕の乖離) 15:34, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, that was what Djkcel and I were both getting at. Hadn't noticed the paper though, that further adds to the point — Mnemosientje (t · c) 16:01, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/aiþumaz
Should this be added? https://www.dwds.de/wb/Eidam : ''möglicherweise mit griech. á͞isa (αἶσα) ‘Anteil, Schicksal’, íssasthai (ἴσσασθαι) ‘Anteil erlangen’ zusammenzustellen''.

And should it be aiþį̄? --Espoo (talk) 19:43, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Latin imito
I have found a possible etymology for this lemma. One author has it from Ancient Greek "ειγματω" ("resemblance"), itself apparently from "ειγμα" + "ατος" (apparently an abbreviated form of "απατός"="only"). See that here, near the bottom of the page: https://books.google.com/books?id=F1TaEAHjy1QC&pg=PA68&lpg=PA68&dq=etymology+of+Latin+%22imito#v=onepage&q=etymology%20of%20Latin%20%22imito&f=false I would like feedback on this, as I am thinking of adding the etymology.

 * The usual form is passive; see, which supplies a plausible etymology. When Ancient Greek terms containing γμ are imported into Latin, it is normally changed it to ‘gm’ ; the substitution of ‘i’ for α is also very strange. Is the term ειγμα(τω) attested? It is not in LSJ and also not in Gaffiot. --Lambiam 18:14, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * If so, it would be from /.
 * /a/ > /i/ is not unheard of: see, , . This would point to it being an old, unlearned borrowing, which might also account for the consonant cluster simplification.
 * Honestly though, this doesn't sound very convincing. Canonicalization (talk) 21:18, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Gothic
Any idea how to explain the past singular forms? The w ~ h alternation is quite weird. Usually such a thing comes from an old PIE labiovelar, but there's only two possibilities: Neither of these seem to be what we find in Gothic. We should perhaps also entertain the possibility that Gothic -auh- reflects older -uh- in these forms. Given that all the attestations are of the present and past singular, we can't really tell for sure if this is a class 5 strong verb. The only other verb of this shape,, is attested only as a past participle. —Rua (mew) 09:02, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * if PIE kʷ, then PG would have hw in the present tense and past singular, g in the past plural (due to adjacent u), and w in the remaining past.
 * if PIE gʷʰ, then PG would have g in the past plural and w in all remaining forms.
 * I honestly have no idea. Gary Miller in his 2019 Gothic grammar in a paragraph about Verschärfung states regarding this word:

"Finally, the split between Goth. sniwan* ‘come upon; hasten’ (§5.8) from *snew-an and *snewwan (OE snēowan) ‘make haste, hurry’ (cf. ON snǫggr ‘quick’) is difficult to explain. Kuryłowicz (1967: 448; 1968: 331) accounts for the split by means of the absence in Gothic of zero grade forms *snuwum, *snuwans (assuming str 4) to trigger gemination. Rasmussen (1990: 430) invokes a paradigm split: the lack of gemination in Gothic is taken from an anteconsonantal form *snewʊ- while the geminated alternant is taken from antevocalic *sneuH- (cf. LIV 575). e laryngeal in this root is corroborated by Serbo-Croatian. Jasano (1978: 85) reconstructs an original paradigm *snewwan, *snau, *snæࣙwum, *snuwanaz (< *sneuh1-e/o-, *snouh1-h2e/-e, *snuh1-ono-). Old English selected the Germanic thematic present, Gothic rebuilt the present from the preterite (Harðarson 2001: 31f.; cf. Neri 2016: 19)."
 * I am not that good with PIE so I leave it to you to determine whether that is of any use. (The reference to §5.8 is to a short discussion of the forms of the word in the part of the grammar that is about class 4 strong verbs.) Apparently some people think it may have been class 4 strong, including Miller. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 09:50, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Wulfila.be has the following to say on the matter:

Form snau-h: enclitic -uh or "überschüssiges h"...? Cf. Braune/Heidermanns 2004, §62.A4: Auch überschüssiges h kommt vereinzelt vor: z.B. [...] snauh 1.Ths. 2,16 (st. snau, doch vielleicht angehängtes -uh § 24 A.2).
 * So the -h may be a clitic or somehow a random extension as well. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 10:21, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Also is attested so it is almost definitely just a clitic and not part of the stem — Mnemosientje (t · c) 21:57, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Nice researching! —Rua (mew) 11:12, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Was still wondering why snau + -uh didn't yield *snawuh, as the -u in snau reflects an underlying -w, but Streitberg notes that after vowels the clitic becomes simply -h. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 12:42, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I say German 'vorbei schneien' ('to visit, come over') was related. Hope that helps. :I'm not sure if 'sneak', 'sneak over' and 'snuggle' ultimately belong here, too. I'm not sure how I have to imagine the clitic '-uh' turning to '-h' after a vowel, if there's the 'w' in the stem. The assumption is that the the clitic attaches to the inflected form, 'snau', but does the declination fit the evidence? Something tells me 'u' and '-uh' should give double-u, though it sounds like joke. On account of 'g' in the norse reflex, a comparison to \*sneyg does seem warranted, yes? 109.41.0.181 13:45, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

mammary intercourse and Spain
Does anyone know why several European languages have names for mammary intercourse that refer to Spain? There are several examples in the translation table at. Is that a widespread stereotype, a cultural reference or something else? ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  15:12, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Spain is not the only reference. Apparently in the Uk it is the "French fuck"; in Spain "cubana", in Latin America there are various nationalities associated with it, from Turkish, Russian and possibly Swedish although I haven't verify if it is true or not. Nonetheless, I have no idea why this sexual position has a reference to nationality. 𐌷𐌻𐌿𐌳𐌰𐍅𐌹𐌲𐍃 𐌰𐌻𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌺𐌹𐌲𐌲𐍃 (talk) 20:04, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Anything perceived as sexually deviant and disreputable tends to get blamed on other nationalities. Exhibit A: bugger, Exhibit B: French pox. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:39, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Proto-Germanic, Old English
According to Campbell's Old English Grammar (page 321), there are in fact no forms with a single ċ in this verb:
 * Here ċċ is not due to West Gmc. gemination, and appears in all parts if a vowel follows, 3rd sg. pres. ind. þryċċeþ, pass. part. þryċċed.

If this is correct, then this has consequences not just for the Old English entry, but for its reconstructed ancestors as well. These would have to be and  instead. But I think it's important to know if the case is similar in the other old West Germanic languages as well, first. If we do find ungeminated k before a vowel in other languages, then there must be something else going on. —Rua (mew) 18:23, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Also a ping for, who first created the entry over a decade ago. —Rua (mew) 18:24, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Koebler seems to think that this verb is . I've tried searching but so far I've not gotten much information. 𐌷𐌻𐌿𐌳𐌰𐍅𐌹𐌲𐍃 𐌰𐌻𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌺𐌹𐌲𐌲𐍃 (talk) 20:13, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Holthausen's Altsächsisches Elementarbuch places (currently at RFV) in the heavy-syllable category as well, noting "Bei diesen bleibt im Präsensstamme der Endkonsonant unverändert" (With these, the final consonant does not change in the present stem). —Rua (mew) 11:12, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * According to B&T, the preterite of þryċċan is þrycte or þryhte, and the past participle can be either þryht or þryċċed. In one instance, the third person singular indicative is ungeminated: Wé ðás wíc magun fótum áfyllan; folc in ðriċeþ meara þreátum and monfarum. Leasnam (talk) 04:45, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Additionally, I am not able to find þryċċeþ (nor þriċċeþ for that matter) attested anywhere. Leasnam (talk) 04:48, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * There are also several derivatives:, , , , etc...of these I looked at ġeþryċċan. It has 2 attests of a 3rd person ind of geðrycð and a ppt of geðryced - no gemination. Only geminate I see is geðryccede which has an alternative of geðrycte, so the consonant is single more often than doubled. Same with and , 3rd sing ind is forþryceþ and ofðrycð Leasnam (talk) 05:14, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I did manage to find ONE example of þryċċeþ in forþrycceþ (forþryċċan): Þá tóslitenan wunda heó forþrycceþ, but JUST one. In conclusion, the majority of 3rd ind forms show c and not cc; and the past participle seems to feature -ced/-ct/-ht and -cced somewhat equally; yet preterites overwhelmingly favour -ct-/-ht-/-ced- over -cced- Leasnam (talk) 05:34, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

eukaryote
Our entry presents this as twice-borrowed, as if the French word is derived from English. Is that so? - -sche (discuss) 00:00, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Here is an article on this very topic. It doesn't present any evidence that Chatton based his word on English, although I can only see the first page. DTLHS (talk) 02:13, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

 * fr.Wikt thinks the French word was coined directly from Ancient Greek. - -sche (discuss) 02:54, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

 * According to the article by Katscher, was the first to use the terms Procaryotes and Eucaryotes in a publication, a 1925 article in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles: Zoologie by the title Pansporella perplexa ( in the Wikipedia article ). If he was the first, the French terms cannot have been derived from English. The first to use the terms in English (still spelling them Procaryotes and Eucaryotes) was the biochemist Bert Cyril James Gabriel Knight in his 1936 monograph Bacterial Nutrition, attributing the terms to, a collaborator of Chatton. Lwoff wrote in several publications (1932, 1938), “We divide with E. Chatton ... the Protists into Procaryotes and Eucaryotes”.  --Lambiam 09:19, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, the claim [//en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=eukaryote&oldid=58521954 was] that English eukaryote was from French eucaryote from English eukaryon . But, I've seen no indication that is right, and so I've changed it to not say it's twice-borrowed. - -sche (discuss) 05:40, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Old Japanese /mawosu/ 申す
, interesting puzzle.

As you note in the template, this is unlikely to be related to. That term may be the root of plus ancient honorific suffix, and is likely related to  and derived verb. All of these wos- derivatives describe someone in a position of superiority. Meanwhile, mawosu has always been a humble verb describing someone in a position of inferiority talking to a superior.

I don't think mawosu could be derived from + object particle  + some verb, as this construction would require that the  be in the standalone form me, rather than the combining form ma. If we posit instead that the -wosu ending is a verb unto itself, then we have no likely etymon, since the only wosu verb is the one above that is used only to describe a superior. The semantics also don't quite work, as I can't make sense of how would compound into a verb meaning "to say".

Unfortunately, the venerable KDJ has nothing really to say about the etymology. Not even Nihon Jiten nor the more-speculative Gogen-Allguide have anything.

Looking around elsewhere online, I did find this crazy-pants blogger who has convinced themselves that is somehow the origin of 🇨🇬, apparently ignorant of the historical phonetic shifts from 🇨🇬. But humorous oddities aside, I'm drawing blanks.

Pinging others who might be interested:, among others whom I'm sure I've missed. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 17:57, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

 * FWIW, a quick-and-dirty survey of the transitive verbs at the Shuri-Naha Dialect Dictionary turned up nothing terribly likely. The closest I found was ミシェーン, but the phonetics are wrong, barring some other as-yet-unaccounted-for process.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 18:13, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Welsh plaid
I can't figure out what the etymology of this word might be. It would probably be from. Maybe *plati/ī- something? Possibly from ultimately, if its original meaning is something like "platform"? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:28, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
 * According to Brewer p. 862, 🇨🇬 originally meant "partition" and is related to Irish/🇨🇬, so interestingly enough, it's probably related to English and Scots . DJ K-Çel (talk) 18:32, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * According to Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru the oldest attested meaning is "row, rank, company, crowd, throng, host, multitude", though "partition of interwoven rods or laths" is almost as old. Surprisingly, the GPC doesn't even hazard a guess at an etymology. Remember that Proto-Celtic had no p, so, if inherited, would have had to come from something starting with *kʷ in Proto-Celtic; likewise, / must be a borrowing from some other language (e.g. Brythonic, Latin) since native Goidelic words never start with p. A borrowing from works well phonologically, but requires a certain amount of semantic handwaving. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:55, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

-ización
I don't know if this belongs to the Etymology scriptorium, sorry if not. I don't think -ización should be considered a suffix, being the combination of -izar and -ción, since every word ended in -ización has a -izar verb from which is derived. For example, the word oligomerización: according to Wiktionary, it's formed by oligómero and -ización, but there is a verb which is oligomerizar, from which it can be derived with -ción. This happens with every ización-suffixed word. The DRAE doesn't even consider -ización. I don't know if I'm explaining myself on this, but ultimately what I'm saying is that I think that all the Spanish nouns ending in -ización should be considered derivations of the -izar verbs, not from the original nouns. Pablussky (talk) 11:41, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

 * The situation seems similar to 🇨🇬 (compare discussions on Talk:-ization). I suppose it matters whether this can only be applied where an -izar verb is attested, or is sometimes applied where one is not (like, apparently -ization). Even then, practical considerations might make it easier to present as a suffix or (using alternate headers some people have proposed; compare WT:RFDE, which will be archived at Talk:sext-) a "suffixoid" or "morpheme" (compare Talk:-tion and the discussion of at WT:RFDN). Or perhaps it should indeed be deleted. Hopefully more of our Spanish editors will weigh in on how they think this should be handled. As to the forum, this should perhaps be at WT:RFDN if you're requesting that the entry be deleted (or given a different header than "suffix"), though there may be an WT:RFVN aspect to determine if it can sometimes be applied directly to nouns, non-izar verbs, etc. - -sche (discuss) 16:44, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Can anyone clarify why nouns in the neuter gender in Proto-Balto-Slavic have the ending *-a, but not *-an? Why are the forms of the Old Prussian language not taken into account? constantly rolls back my edits. Gnosandes (talk) 16:25, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Different linguists reconstruct different endings here: -an, -a and -un. We randomly picked one. If the current practice is going to be changed, it needs to be explained and a consensus reached on why the linguists supporting that particular ending are right and why the others are wrong. —Rua (mew) 17:35, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * We use Kim's reconstruction, so why not follow of a endings? With some refinements. Well, at least keeping the ending for the sake of Old Prussian. Gnosandes (talk) 17:19, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Why does the ending of Old Prussian take precedence over the ending of Slavic and East Baltic? —Rua (mew) 17:27, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , It does not prevail. I suggest not using the *-a ending in the neuter gender, and I suggest using the endings *-an or *-un. Also, do not forget about the labialization that occurred in front of *-s and *-n. But hypothetical labialization is contradicted by data from Olds Pskov-Novgorod dialects, which are not generalized with the accusative case. Gnosandes (talk) 08:50, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The best solution, to be honest, would be a bare stem *derwa-, which is uncontroversial, but Wiktionary uses full word forms as headwords (generally; Sanskrit is an exception), even for reconstructions (except for Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Semitic verbal root entries, for example, as they are explicitly for roots), so it doesn't work here. Hill 2013 would indeed seem to support *-an (indirectly: according to his posited sound law, only accented *-óm would yield *-un), and I think *dérwan is the most plausible reconstruction in general, but unfortunately his solution, although it seems to work, has not been accepted as consensus. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:09, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

hippocampus
According to the article on hippocampus, that English word comes from Late Latin hippocampus, which comes from Ancient Greek ἱππόκαμπος (hippókampos), from ῐ̔́ππος (híppos, “horse”) + κάμπος (kámpos, “sea-monster”).

According to the same article, the Latin word hippocampus however comes directly from the Greek words ἵππος and κάμπος, not from ἱππόκαμπος, which seems very unlikely.

Both the English and Latin entries say that κάμπος means sea monster, but the article κάμπος claims it means only plain even though that meaning is not even mentioned in L&S http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=ka/mpos

I was not able to find any sources of the etymologies of seahorse, Seepferdchen, or merihevonen. --Espoo (talk) 10:19, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

 * The Wikipedia article states in the lead that the term comes from Greek ἱππόκαμπος but did not repeat this in the Name section. I have inserted this. We currently only have an entry for Modern . Interestingly, Bailly does not give the meaning “sea monster”; the definition is simply “sea fish, maybe shark”. An alternative Latin name is Caballus marinus, seen here in a 16th-century book, or Caballio marinus, seen here. means “small horse”. These Latin terms are reflected in the obsolete French name (cheval de mer), as well as, , and .  is very likely a calque directly from Latin or via French.  --Lambiam 20:28, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Persian
What is its etymology? Can it be sourced? Does it occur in Middle/Old Persian? Background: accordin to Nişanyan, it is a Turkic borrowing, ultimately from Proto-Turkic Attested in Turkish in its present form since 1360. Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 10:36, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It has been added wholly by Irman, so it is naturally bad and should be replaced without redoubt. Fay Freak (talk) 16:41, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Ἴων
"...or possibly sharing a origin with 🇨🇬, a reference to the Ionians' goddess-worshipping." Dubious? Not dubious? Either way, I'd like to see a source. --Reedside (talk) 22:04, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I've added a source (Etymonline), but left the tag for now, as more specialized sources would be better, to ascertain whether "possibly" should be qualified in some way as likely or unlikely. It seems to be an old theory, mentioned already in the 1800s, but that doesn't automatically mean it's wrong if modern references also entertain it. Ionians offers several other ideas. - -sche (discuss) 22:24, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

and
Can anyone explain why the form has an AP (c), but  has an AP (b)? [Derksen 2008, p. 357], For example, you? Gnosandes (talk) 09:23, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'll do it myself: ноздрь AP (c), new form ноздря with different paradigms (c) and (b), [Zaliznjak 2014]. Gnosandes (talk) 10:41, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Heimat
The etymology says that the second element comes from 🇨🇬, but is that correct ? Wouldn't that make it *Heimatz or *Heimaß ? THe Old High German has beside. Leasnam (talk) 22:10, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The ending seems to be < . —Mahāgaja · talk 22:55, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

разве
Missing etymology. Дрейгорич (talk) 22:40, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * This is ✅. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 04:26, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

鬱金
The template states that it is related to.

However, I suspect that it is likely borrowed from Sanskrit somewhere in the Old Chinese  or Middle Chinese  stage. ～ POKéTalker（═◉═） 01:46, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, may be borrowed from some South Asian language, so one might say it's related in that sense. That said, the words for saffron and turmeric have been wandering about and getting shuffled from one to the other for so long that it may not be possible to figure out where they started or what they originally referred to (see the etymology at  for starters). Chuck Entz (talk) 04:01, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

 * . ～ POKéTalker（═◉═） 21:52, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

 * I can find the following Hindi spellings for saffron:, , Sanskrit: , .--Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 22:12, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * There's also a Persian word --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 22:15, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

 * Are we looking at some sort of ? It does literally mean “dense(ly)+ gold(-colored)”, i.e. turmeric powder or saffron spices. ～ POKéTalker（═◉═） 05:18, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

林檎
The Etymology section says it is from a language from the Western Regions. Does anyone have a guess? ～ POKéTalker（═◉═） 01:46, 30 January 2020 (UTC)


text:
Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2020/February

οὐρανός
On Talk:οὐρανός, a user has questioned our etymology and asserted it's not in any of the references which are cited (not for the etymology, which is uncited) at the bottom of the article. I mention it here so it gets seen. - -sche (discuss) 18:45, 1 February 2020 (UTC) Alternatively, like e.g. ὄχανον : ἔχω, ξόανον : ξέω, it has been supposed that οὐρανός, as an agent noun, derives from a verbal root *uers- as seen in Skt. várṣati ‘to rain’; alternatively, that it derives from the iterative ▶ οὐρέω, in the way that Indo-Iranian nouns in -ana- are connected with verbs in -ayati (= Gr. -έω); it would then mean “rainmaker” or “moistener, impregnator”. However, the identity of the suffixes Gr. -ανο- and IIr. -ana- can only be accepted under the doubtful assumption of PIE *a. Specht KZ 66 (1939): 199ff., Fraenkel 1955 s.v. viršùs and others interpreted it as “der zur Hohe in Beziehung stehende”, from the root of Skt. varṣman- [m., n.] ‘height’, Lith. viršùs ‘upper, highest seat’, to which Ἔρρος・ ὁ Ζεύς (H.) has also been connected, so from IE *uers-; however, this is not to be preferred, neither semantically nor formally. The old identification with the theonym Skt. Váruṇa- is certainly wrong; see Mayrhofer EWAia s.v. It has also been suggested that the word is of foreign, i.e. Pre-Greek, origin (DELG); note that -αν- is difficult to account for if the word represents an old IE formation.
 * Beekes’ entry for has the following:
 * As the Aeolic variation ὠρ-, ὀρ- probably stands for geminated ὀρρ-, the basis is likely to have been *(ϝ)ορσανός, accented like ὀρφανός and perhaps an enlargement of a noun *uorsó- = Skt. varṣá- [n., m.] ‘rain’.
 * This partly agrees with, but also partly contradicts our current etymology section. I have copied this in extenso in the hope that someone can manage to condense this into something suitable for our etymology section. --Lambiam 09:52, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I have added Beekes as a reference and removed the bits that contradicted Beekes. --Lambiam 16:07, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

come off it
What is the etymological connotation here?

What is one supposed to be "coming off" of? Tharthan (talk) 22:20, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Not 100% sure, but it evokes in my mind a soapbox one has established and stepped up on in order to advance an opinion or agenda Leasnam (talk) 03:57, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Or perhaps "come off your high horse". DCDuring (talk) 04:16, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * That’s how I interpreted it, but Partridge’s Dictionary of Catch Phrases tells us it comes from come off the grass!, said to be originally US idiom, so probably not related to the interdiction of UK college students’ walking on the grass. --Lambiam 10:08, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * So, hang on... this phrase, that is much more used in the UK than it is anywhere else, derives from an old American phrase (that is no longer used)? That's quite curious, to say the least.

 * This information definitely belongs in "come off it"'s etymology section.

 * I'm also wondering if we ought to include an additional "get real!" sense, which is slightly different from the current definition that we give. Tharthan (talk) 04:49, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Also : the phrase "keep off (of) the grass" is seen on signs in the U.S., although it is something that seen mostly in parks. Tharthan (talk) 05:18, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The longer phrase is, apparently, still in use:, , also in Australia . It is listed in Urban Dictionary – not a reliable source, but they tend to have current slang. --Lambiam 07:45, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * DARE has come off (imperative, both transitive and intransitive) "Quit! Stop! Cut it out!" with 2 print uses, one print mention, and a mention from one of their interviews, including come off it, from a rural upstate NY informant, elicited in response as a "expression to tell somebody to keep to himself and mind his own business". DCDuring (talk) 19:31, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Chinese character 印|印(seal) needs an ethimology
Chinese character 印 (seal) seem to be having 又 (hand) and a tool which I can't identify, according to the Oracle bone script.--Alexceltare2 (talk) 13:37, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It’s not a tool but a kneeling person, identical to the kneeling person in e.g., , . Neither component seems to be phonetic, so I’d guess it’s an ideogrammic compound, but it would be nice to get a scholarly source on this (or at least someone who knows more about Old Chinese than I do). — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 16:40, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It's said in 《增訂殷墟書契考釋》(1915) by 羅振玉 that it's a hand suppressing a kneeling person, and that it's the original character for (to suppress).--QIU Ao (talk) 05:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'll take your word for it. Alexceltare2 (talk) 11:02, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

χρυσός
There is a link in the related-term section of to  and vice versa. The corresponding ancient Greek entries on the other hand do not mention any such link. Are these terms really etymologically related? ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  08:30, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * One should expect that Κροίσος is (a Hellenized version of) a Lydian name. As far as I could see, it has no known etymology. --Lambiam 11:01, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I think Crœsus was known in antiquity as the "golden king". (I believe I learned that in history class a few years back. I think it comes from Herodotus.) Probably wordplay or perhaps a folk etymology. But that's the relationship, as far as I'm aware. 2601:49:C301:D810:CDA9:2DB2:FC11:3267 17:34, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the idea is that came from the name of the king,, due to the Lydians being the first to use gold currency? Not sure. Translation by A. D. Godley:
 * Herodotus 1.6 "Croesus was a Lydian by birth, son of Alyattes, and sovereign of all the nations west of the river Halys, which flows from the south between Syria and Paphlagonia and empties into the sea called Euxine."
 * Herodotus 1.94 "[The Lydians] were the first men whom we know who coined and used gold and silver currency; and they were the first to sell by retail." --Thrasymedes (talk) 18:52, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Latin
Wiktionary's entry says it is not related to English it. I feel that in unfair/misleading, considering *hiz, *hit, is just PIE *ke ("this") + *is, *id (note the pronominal inflection)

RubixLang (talk) 19:04, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, in the same sense that you are taxonomically related to a goldfish. DCDuring (talk) 00:07, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I've removed the claim that it is not a cognate of id. They aren't a perfect match, no, but they're not utterly unrelated either. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:03, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Cognacy of Proto-Finnic and Hungarian
Can this link be made? Zaicz and Tótfalusi don't mention it.

 * I added the etymology to üsző. Also see . Panda10 (talk) 00:21, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The Indo-Iranian etymology for is considered dubious or obsolete in most recent sources, e.g.  (and already "problematic" per ); Old Hungarian has isew (*isew > *iső) with no sign of initial *w. So the Finnic and Hung. words have nothing in common except *s ~ sz, and per Mordvin  even this is illusory: the Finnic word comes from earlier *wasa, not **waśa as would be required for the Hungarian connection. --Tropylium (talk) 21:31, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

.)

The other theory is that it comes from Tarahumara, although no actual etymon has been proposed. The only evidence for this seems to be that the Tarahumaras live in Chihuahua state, but the state was named after the city, and they do not live near the city.

I would suggest categorizing it as unknown until someone presents some actual evidence. --Lvovmauro (talk) 08:16, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

 * The entry now says the etymology is unknown, as you suggested. (If the spurious Nahuatl or other etymologies were particularly common in "pop" sources—or if they were ever found in other dictionaries, which does not appear to be the case—then it might be worthwhile to specifically debunk/refute them. I know we do this on some entries, although the only one I can think of at the moment is fuck.) - -sche (discuss) 05:58, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

summary
The etymology section currently says:
 * From ML., from la.

Lexico and the Online Etymology Dictionary support this for the adjective. I guess we need a separate section for the noun? We do not yet mention the Classical Latin, which is used by Seneca in Letter 39 to Lucilius, c. AD 65 (English translation). The Online Etymology Dictionary claims this as the source of the noun summary. I was wondering, since is classically attested, whether  came from  +  directly or whether  +  →  → ? For, the DMLBS says "CL as sb. n., LL as sb. m. = accountant" (I think "Classical Latin as substantive neuter, Late Latin as substantive masculine = accountant"?). --Thrasymedes (talk) 22:26, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

ピカチュウ
I stumbled upon the ピカチュウ page, and I'm wondering if the etymology's source should be cited? It apparently comes from this interview with Satoshi Tajiri.

But also, many have noted Pikachu's resemblance to the pika, and this is probably not just coincidence. At the very least it probably qualifies as a popular folk etymology (if a word this new can even have a folk etymology!). I mean, it's so widespread that I think most English-speaking fans have probably heard it before. So is it worth noting?

2601:49:C301:D810:CDA9:2DB2:FC11:3267 17:19, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

 * Our etymology gives the meaning of ピカ as “sparkle”, but in the interview Satoshi Tajiri states that it means “electric spark”. Electricity is part of the – they amass electricity and they can spark with it. According to main designer, the design was based on a squirrel. The Japanese term for the pika is , so the likeness with a pika is probably more a coincidence. , who finalized the , drew much of his inspiration from observing animals in aquariums and zoos. Therefore, it seems more likely that any influence went the other way, from the name to the (redesigned) appearance.  --Lambiam 10:47, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Pokemon is evidently influenced by English (pocket monster), and it would be entirely fallacious to insinuate main character names could not be so., strictly speaking: you don't reject pika, but make an even stronger, so precise claim. That is however not fit for inclusion. It still appears to me you had disagreed with including the word in the ety. This is confusing to me. But if there is a common assumption, that regularly warrants mention with careful wording: "Alleged to be inspired by", "Perhaps", or "Expected to be ..." (literally expected by those reading, who commonly believe the allegation, at least once they see the photo under pika), for example. I can understand if one does not care to have such imprecission in the dictionary.
 * While the topic is on, the word-play could be taken a step further with catch, even catch yoo in Pikachu.
 * pika is new to me, suppose it is not that well known. That alone would be reason enough to link, for discoverability's sake. It couldn't be named for the character, though, could it? "Not found in modern [Evenki] dictionaries." I am growing paranoid. 109.41.2.226 20:05, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Don't let the similarity in spelling fool you: the Japanese sounds sort of like "peek at you", but the animal sounds like "pike-a". If it were pronounced like the animal, it would be something like "パイカチュウ". Also, having seen a pika in person, I don't see the resemblance. For one thing, the ears are much smaller and rounder in the pika- they don't stick out at all. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:02, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
 * , re: Tajiri's mention of sparks, it's still covered by the root: electric discharge causes a flash of light.  We see the same conceptual relatedness in 🇨🇬 and.
 * FWIW, I'm not aware of any Japanese terms that contain the root and are specific to electricity.  An electric spark in Japanese would be translated as something like  in reference to the physical spark as a hot bit of plasma or burning material,  to refer to the flash of light from the discharge, or  as the borrowed term to lend possible overtones of modernness.  Note that Chinese-derived  is written with the  kanji, which is also the spelling for native Japanese term, and which includes a version of this same  root.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 22:20, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Now I feel reminded of the Asterix comics. Footnote: Asterix is "usually the star of the story". 109.41.0.188 19:28, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Toletum
RFV of the etymology: "From a word meaning 'hill' akin to ." I'm unaware of any Celtic word for 'hill' that looks like *tol. —Mahāgaja · talk 22:40, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * This etymology may come from the Toledo entry at the Online Etymology Dictionary. See also John Everett-Heath's The Concise Dictionary of World Place Names, which says the name is "from the Celtic tol 'elevation' or 'rise'."
 * is used by Livy (e.g., 35.7.8 and 35.22.7), who mentions Celtic tribes in the region ("the Vaccaei, the Vettones and the Celtiberi"). In 35.22.8, we have (of the Toletani), so I guess we also have the plural noun, 2nd declension masculine, for the name of the inhabitants. Perhaps a Celtic origin with the Latin  (place of) suffix might make sense historically? But that does not help us with the word itself.
 * Toledo is on a hill, so a word for 'hill' would make sense. The Irish (Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla), which has a meaning of tall rock (for which we don't yet have an etymology), might perhaps be related? --Thrasymedes (talk) 14:43, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Both and  are loanwords from, so not Proto-Celtic. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:07, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * , According to Spenser's Welsh, Celtic  evolved from an earlier word meaning "hole" or "perforation," making it cognate with 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬, the surname O'Toole, etc; also cf. Matasovic p. 393-394 for this root. This possibly connects it to another Latin placename, modern 🇨🇬, which cites a paper in Spanish describing the word as well.  DJ K-Çel (talk) 16:41, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I can't view the link to Spenser; does he explicitly derive from this root? —Mahāgaja · talk 17:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * See also Draper's 1919 article "Spenser's Linguistics in "The Present State of Ireland"" (pp. 482–483) for a discussion of tol. --Thrasymedes (talk) 18:12, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes! That's what I was trying to link to, in this case on page 123. Spenser doesn't mention  explicitly; the  <<  comes from Etymonline and Everett, and the rest comes from Spenser and Matasovic. I'd be happy to link to these sources on the entry. DJ K-Çel (talk) 19:26, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it would be good if we could find the sources Etymonline and Everett-Heath are using to claim that means hill, elevation? I guess Spencer's claim,, may be one of them. On the other hand, Draper seems to think poorly of Spencer's work: "Spencer's Welsh, on the whole, seems to be pretty thoroughly muddled … the author of The Present State of Ireland knew very little Welsh" (p. 123 / p. 483). Draper says that  "regularly signifies a hole or perforation" and the  entry in Matasović's Etymological Dictionary Of Proto-Celtic (2009) discussed above supports this, but neither source seems to support . Two relevant quotations from A View of the present State of Ireland (1596) seem to be "the Tooles are called of the old Brytish woord Tol, that is, an hilly Country" and "for Brin in the Britons language signifieth wooddy, and Toll hilly, which names, it semeth, they tooke of the country which they inhabited, which is all very mountaine and wooddy." --Thrasymedes (talk) 22:28, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * You're right,, thanks. That's very helpful. I've updated the entry with the references. DJ K-Çel (talk) 17:01, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The name (O')Toole is almost certainly unrelated. The Irish form is which looks if anything like a derivative of . It certainly can't come from anything looking like *tol- or *toll- in Proto-Celtic. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:12, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

with
Given við in Old Norse, is it possible that the Old Norse word influenced the sense development of Old English wiþ (and/or its descendants)? Tharthan (talk) 23:33, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * They seem to have basically the same set of meanings in Old English and Old Norse. Can you be more explicit in what you see as which Old Norse sense having possibly influenced which Old English sense development? --Lambiam 09:09, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Maybe you're right. But I was wondering if senses 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 2.1, and 2.4 of Old Norse við could have contributed to the shift in focus in the English language cognate from the "against" sense to the current most usual sense. Do you think that there is any more likelihood than not with regard to that? Tharthan (talk) 00:53, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * avec traces Frankish (apud hocque) and lists Norman aveu. with had replaced mid (cognate meta, German mit, perhaps mittels "by use of; with"). An earlier influence than Middle English (i.e. b ~ v, p ~ b, or Celtic mb, m ~ b) thus seems out of the question, and to remote for Norse and Norman, too. But a common initial source, i.e. aveu, for Norse and English might be of interest. 109.41.2.226 20:32, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2020/March

circle
So let me get this straight.

Late Old English had circul, meaning circle, and even used it in compounds. But allegedly, it simply vanished, and "cercle" was borrowed anew from French. Never mind the fact that pronunciation changes happened to other words inherited from Old English that became conflated with Old French cognates. No, supposedly we are simply to believe that Old English circul completely dropped off of the face of the Earth.

Then, the Middle English "replacement", "cercle", utterly vanished from existence, replaced by a completely independent reborrowing from Latin, leaving us with the new "circle".

Are people actually supposed to believe that? Is there any actual evidence to suggest that the modern word is not simply the result of a few phonological zig-zags, and some senses being introduced from cognates, and is indeed the modern descendent of Old English circul? That's far more believable than the notion that this word vanished twice in the history of our language, both times replaced by an extremely similar variant. Tharthan (talk) 04:32, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * This isn't a native Germanic term. It was a learned borrowing from Latin late in Old English (see what I did there?) . The idea of a learned term being displaced by a French doublet during the transition to Middle English is quite plausible, given that the educated elite were most effected by the Norman invasion, and replacing of technical terms with more Latinate spelling during the Renaissance is thoroughly plausible, too. Given the similarity of all the forms, determining whether we're talking about merging/conflation or replacement is rather tricky. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:45, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Of course it isn't a native Germanic term. But, as you say in the last sentence, determining whether one word "replaced" the other, or whether (in fact) the original Old English borrowing was simply altered, and then the altered form was subsequently altered again, is very difficult.
 * Let us look at a similar case: saint. No traces of Old English sanct remain, and (since the word hālga seems to have been more general for a saint, Old English sanct might as well have fallen into disuse.
 * But, in fact, there are forms in Middle English that appear to indicate that Old French saint merged (when it was borrowed) with the already existent sanct. So we can reasonably say that the modern word is, at least technically, partially descended from the Old English.
 * What side ought we to err on in the case of circle? Tharthan (talk) 00:36, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I've updated the etymology. Many sources state it comes from the Middle English word and is not a re-borrowing of the Latin. Leasnam (talk) 04:28, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The pronunciation is a good clue that is not inherited from Old English, as  was pronounced with initial . If we had inherited the term it would be *chircle. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:27, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * If that is so, then we need to alter the pronunciation given presently at circul. Currently, the pronunciation given is "/ˈkir.kul/, [ˈkirˠ.kul]", and the spelling used within our entry is circul, rather than ċircul. Tharthan (talk) 22:49, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Softness of velar graphemes was not explicitly marked natively (and neither does BT mark it), so failing to put the palatalization dot when creating an entry is understandable. mellohi! (僕の乖離) 14:13, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

چادر
RFV of the etymology.

The mention of a similar Kurdish word being a Turkish borrowing being removed in led me to to this etymology. This struck me as odd, with a borrowing from Sanskrit into Middle Persian. I know better than to meddle in an area that I don't know much about. Still, the similarity of the Turkish and the Persian combined with the competing and virulent agendas in this area makes me want a reality check from others who know more about this than I do. . Chuck Entz (talk) 14:18, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, it’s not odd per se, is often the case for plants and pharmaka, and particularly the names of textiles are borrowed fast, so that we have direct and Armenian words in Arabic from the same time ( and ), so the etymology seems on the correct track but needs improvement in detail. We have amongst other Indo-Aryan borrowings in Persian (which aren’t even covered anyhow comprehensively here yet) an Indian origin for, which is however a few centuries later and from an unidentified Indo-Aryan language. In the same fashion  will have some intermediate form, some  probably instead, people just often omit the intermediate languages for their being an obscurer field of study. Fay Freak (talk) 15:14, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It's certainly not the worst Irman etymology. I found at least one source that seems to allude to it, which I can add. -- 20:47, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I want to mention that we have a reconstruction entry . Fay Freak (talk) 01:01, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Japanese doublets
I'm not sure if I am missing some subtlety in the definition of doublets, but words like 見る and 目 (from Reconstruction:Proto-Japonic/miru) are doublets correct? So should I change the wording from "cognate" to "doublet" in those articles and add the Japanese doublet category? (should I also add 目 to the proto-Japonic article?) What about hypothesized doublets such as 酒 and 栄え? カモイ (talk) 23:08, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm most familiar with the use of the term to mark cognate terms that were borrowed at some point, and arrived in the modern language via different routes, with those routes having different effects on the phonology and meaning of the term.  Compare  and 🇨🇬,  and  (both from Latin, but from different forms of the root verb),  and, etc.
 * However, in your example, these Japanese terms are all native, so the distinction of calling them "doublets" seems less useful. Moreover, given the way Japanese terms develop over time, this could become a uselessly common label -- there are many words deriving from verbal root sak-, so would all of these be "doublets"?  Ex:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ...
 * For Japanese, I think cognate is more useful, and easier to apply correctly, than doublet. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 23:13, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the explanation, as well as the cognate examples. I will go ahead and leave them be then :) カモイ (talk) 16:04, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

grave
Ety 2 verb sense 6:

 * To clean, as a vessel's bottom, of barnacles, grass, etc., and pay it over with pitch — so called because graves or greaves was formerly used for this purpose.

Not clear that this has anything to do with Ety 2, or whether it should be in a separate Ety section ... BUT the situation is confused because some other sources mention nothing about "greaves" but say it is "perhaps from French dialect grave, variant of Old French greve ‘shore’ (because originally the ship would have been run aground)" or "perhaps from Old French grave "gravel". I'm not qualified to judge on this. Perhaps someone else might have an idea. In any case, it shouldn't be under Ety 2, should it? Mihia (talk) 20:21, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

 * On the basis that other dictionaries agree that this has a separate etymology, I have at least moved our entry to new Ety 5. I have not changed any of the explanation of the etymology as I do not know what is correct. Mihia (talk) 15:18, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

anime
An IP just added "or from French "dessin animé" (cartoon)" to a bunch of etymologies on anime. Is this correct? It seems that a shortening of "アニメーション (animēshon)" is the most likely (and most commonly cited) origin of "アニメ (anime)".--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:07, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That addition has been undone. --Lambiam 11:08, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That would be based on the assumption that France was an early importer of animes.
 * It's just about possible that whoever coined the term knew the Latin root, its reflexes and further derivation ([animation] in four languages at least), like they did some actual marketing with a team of experts, and they might have thought of it broadly as European, like we think Chinese. Perhaps secondary, 'Shonen' names most prestigous manga publications, see 少年 ("young man" or "youth" in compounds). Anywho, it's very likely not a derivation with a single source, but another fabricated neologism. How would we call that, not here where ē points to English, but in general? 109.41.2.226 23:34, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Both the Japanese Wiktionary and the Japanese Wikipedia agree that is a clipping of, which comes from the English pronunciation of , and that the term  was then (re)borrowed by English with a specifically Japanese meaning it does not have in Japan. However, the Japanese Wikipedia mentions that there is also a theory of a French origin (フランス語由来説も存在する).  --Lambiam 09:47, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

🇨🇬 vs.
Are these terms related? Duplicates? Distinct? Matasovic p. 207 seems to derive all the descendants listed from 🇨🇬. DJ K-Çel (talk) 17:12, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't know about the Breton, but the Welsh and Cornish forms are definitely from, not . itself appears to come from , feminine of , which would be a zero-grade alternative form of . —Mahāgaja · talk 21:07, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

hostage
The immediate etymon of this word is Middle English hostage, ostage, but beyond that there seem to be two theories: Etymonline mentions both (except that, like and citing Century, it instead posits that the h- is from hostis, "enemy", not host). Fr.Wikt seems to favour derivation from "host". Shall we present both theories or does anyone want to dig up anything persuasively arguing for one over the other? - -sche (discuss) 17:49, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Merriam-Webster supports our current etymology, that it's from Anglo-/Old French hostage ("lodging") hoste ("host") + -age, since a captor would take a captive en hostage i.e. "in[to] lodging", which was reanalysed as ≈"into the condition of being held captive", and then used of the person so held.
 * Dictionary.com, however, asserts the h- is due merely to association with hoste ("host"), and derives the word from Vulgar Latin *obsidāticum (for the condition of being held), from obses.
 * It's interesting that the Middle English Dictionary treats the 2 etymologies as 2 separate words [], but offers nothing beyond Old French & Middle Latin as far as origin. Is the "lodging" sense still current in English, seems it may be obsolete (?). There is also the ME hostager from OFr hostagier meaning "hostage" Leasnam (talk) 17:18, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

-verse
We derive this from Latin versus ("turned"), but surely (judging by the derived terms) it's extracted from universe in at least many cases? - -sche (discuss) 21:30, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * In the uses that we have of the suffix, it seems to only be in nouns that refer to some kind of alternate universe. Our entries are almost entirely of fictional universes. I think it is occasionally used to refer to a community that centers on some personality or institution that seems to cause members of that community to have a supposed uniform world view supposedly divorced from reality as others see it. I've heard of Trumpverse, Obamaverse, and Clintonverse. The latter three seem to mostly exist in the blogoverse, aka blogosphere (Both blogo- terms seem attestable in books and newspapers.). DCDuring (talk) 22:26, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Latin/dancio
There are a few things that seem a bit off about the proposed etymology. —Rua (mew) 11:02, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) The term appears to have undergone the þ > d shift, which only affected OHG and didn't spread to the more northern languages until the 12th century or so. This suggests that the term was borrowed from OHG specifically.
 * 2) The term was apparently borrowed with c, which in Old French was still pronounced as an affricate, and is retained in Italian. How is this affricate explained when the Germanic term had none?
 * 3) Latin c before a front vowel is reflected in Italian as . The fact that Italian has a dental affricate shows that it can't be an inheritance from this "Latin" term, but must be borrowed.
 * Putting the Germanic etymology aside for the moment, is there anything Romance-internal that would argue against a Vulgar ? I think (but I'm not sure) that that would account for the Italian without hurting anything else. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:10, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

pebble
User:Etimo added "Apparently close to Albanian popël" to the etymology, but I don't know if this is based on anything other than resemblance. See also Etimo's [//en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=popël&type=revision&diff=22994278&oldid=21530173 addition] to the etymology at. Cnilep (talk) 04:43, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

 * OEtymD writes: Some sources compare Latin papula "pustule, pimple, swelling." The Old English term gives this some plausibility.  is said to be from .  is said to be from . If all these are true, the resemblance is a coincidence.  --Lambiam 18:18, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Root constraints of PIE theoretically prohibit recurance of one consonant C in a CVC structure, although there are rare exceptions. Therefore *pap looks like an outdated reconstruction from Pokorny's LIE.    109.41.0.9 23:52, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
 * We have other IE roots with *p_p, *b_b, etc ... they're all just ideophones.  e.g.  pampinator, bubo, babble, bombos, and possibly pump and pupa.  A papule (or pimple) is sometyhing that is small and round and could get an expressive word like that. Pebble could either have come from this wrd or be a parallel derivation. — Soap — 00:32, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

I think there is no reason not to compare popël with Old English popel, both terms are expressive formations! Albanian pupë - bud, tassel, close to Latin puppa and Lithuanian pupa, shows that similar formations are frequent. Etimo (talk) 00:06, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

to toss
Latin: tossera (f)

 * ? Not in any dictionary. In French it means: he/she/it will crash (like a huge wave into the quay). --Lambiam 11:05, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Lat: tessera (f) means dice
 * Indeed. So what? --Lambiam 11:02, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The Latin is unlikely to be related. The entry currently says that Chamber's dictionary suggests a Celtic origin and compares, , but the Dictionary of the University of Wales says that the Welsh is a loanword from English. AHD and Etymonline.com suggest a Scandinavian origin, e.g. . —Mahāgaja · talk 12:34, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * To understand the allusion to dice compare for analogy German würfeln "to throw dice" (also "to dice, cut into dice"), Würfel "dice", Wurf "throw", werfen "to hurl, throw". Würfelspiel "dice-game" would be ambiguous as to whether that's the noun or verb (as would be dice game, if the game were to dice onions). Umlautung to o from e might make sense, so the Norse etymon might yet be from Latin, possibly reinterpretated, who knows. 109.41.0.9 17:06, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I cannot find evidence for the existence of such a Norwegian word. I can easily see how the stem of a verb meaning “to throw” is used to form a noun for something thrown; but the opposite direction for a general sense of “throw” from something as specific as the term for a die appears unlikely to me. --Lambiam 05:02, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * in Origins says that is dialectal, so maybe it isn't in standard dictionaries. He also suggests the English and Norwegian words could be related to, though that seems unlikely to me as Germanic words are almost never found both with and without PIE s-mobile, and anyway the German ß comes from Germanic t , so the English and Norwegian words would have to be a borrowing straight from High German, which is not terribly likely under the circumstances. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:55, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Maybe the entry on zausen in Deutsches Wörterbuch can shed some more light on it, it quotes Danish dialectal tosse "to shake". See

to a man
Can anybody please add some info regaring this idiom? --Backinstadiums (talk) 15:40, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * This idiom is hard to understand. That does not require etymology, but careful reading. If a transparent derivation is possible, then it should be transparent already. A weird derivation through folk etymologic corruption from whatever could be interesting (say, rebracketing and unexplained loss of the s in a form corresponding to zusammen), but it would possibly intensify your problem. In short, compare as one man (can we quote Pratchett "moving as one man ..."?)

 * I think it is about precision. Compare and . The precision of the reported statement is specified to be of the magnitude of one man. OK, so perhaps taken literally it means “everyone, except perhaps for one person”. As used, it simply means “everyone”, so “to” is inclusive. Compare also sentences such as “Down to the last person, they all loved it.” Here “to” is inclusive: the last person is included in the collective of lovers.  --Lambiam 04:43, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * What meaning of TO do you use in your statement "taken literally it means “everyone, except perhaps for one person”." --Backinstadiums (talk) 09:59, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * If you say, “this clock is accurate to a thousandth of a second”, it means that the deviation between the actual time and the time shown is at most a thousandth of a second. I don’t know which meaning of that is, but it seems to be synonymous with  in specifying an allowed but limited latitude or looseness.  --Lambiam 10:47, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

OED reads as follows, yet I do not know where the "a" exactly comes from ("one" as in a countdown?) TO: PREPOSITION IV Followed by a word or phrase expressing a limit in extent, amount, or degree. 13 Indicating a limit or point attained in degree or amount, or in division or analysis, and thus expressing degree of completeness or exactitude: As far as; to the point of; down to (an ultimate element or item), as in phr. to a hair (hair n. 8 c), to the last man; to a man (including every man, without exception); within (a limit of variation or error), as to an inch, to a day. (See also quots. s.v. down adv. 14.)

Unfortunately the punctuation makes it really difficult.

According to Webster's, unlike *to a man* or *to a nicety*, neither *to a day* or *to an inch* are idioms. --Backinstadiums (talk) 13:13, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

 * That is precisely the use of that I meant. The indefinite article  in  basically means “one”. I don’t know the precise rules, but you need to have a somewhat specific reason to use “one”, as when you are counting, or in response to the question “how many?”. On entering a shop you may say, “I’d like to buy a mattress”. If your opening sentence is, “I’d like to buy one mattress”, it sounds a bit weird. Many dictionaries are referred to as Webster’s, like this one; if you mean Merriam-Webster, it is better to use that name.  --Lambiam 15:23, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * In Latin one can say ad ūnum omnēs. Might there be an influence? PUC 23:58, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * While hard to exclude, this would require that the early uses were from learned scholars who knew Latin well but chose to write in the vernacular, and that the expression then moved from there to a wider use. Note also that in Latin is explicit, while in the English use  is left implied. In the 1869 translation of De Bello Gallico by W. A. McDevitte and W. S. Bohn, incolumes ad unum omnes (Book IV, 15) is redundantly translated as “ all safe to a man”.  --Lambiam 14:41, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Chinese characters 由|由(reason) and its derivative 油|油(oil) lack an ethimology
Chinese characters 油(oil) and 由(reason) seem to be resembling a lit oil lamp, but would like some scholastic confirmation on this. Alexceltare2 (talk) 16:10, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

 * Purely speculatively, 由 could also originally have depicted the emerging sprout of a seedling. The character 油 is a, standing for “a fluid (水) that sounds like (由)”.  --Lambiam 11:45, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

🇨🇬
Is this related to 🇨🇬? Or is the given etymology of 🇨🇬 similar to + 🇨🇬? cf. Jackson & Stockwell p. 107 and Celtica p. 72., of which the latter gives. DJ K-Çel (talk) 00:23, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually, looks like Etymonline supports + . DJ K-Çel (talk) 00:25, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Sources added. -- 03:00, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Awesome, thanks man. DJ K-Çel (talk) 03:35, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I've moved the page back to Reconstruction:Proto-Brythonic/aber (not *aβer) because (1) the modern Brythonic words all have /b/, not /v/, and (2) we expect Proto-Celtic -db- to give an unlenited /b/, not a lenited between vowels. I can't find any Old Irish etymon for  and suspect it's actually a loanword from Welsh rather than a word inherited from PC. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:57, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * My mistake. Thanks for fixing that. Yeah, I wondered the same thing with the Irish form. We do have OI, though. See . --  07:01, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

and its first vowel
Its first vowel /y/ appears out of thin air. The only outcome for Proto-Germanic initial /sw/ is /sv/ in Norse. In Proto-Norse, only the sw/sv form appears, as predicted. But in Old Norse, the /v/ vanished and an umlaut vowel /y/ turns up where /ve/ should be in the first syllable. I was wondering how did ended up with /y/ instead of /ve/. /y/ generally comes from i-umlauted /u/, but other than a far-fetched connection with the zero-grade I don't know how that's helpful. mellohi! (僕の乖離) 20:40, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Pinging also for potential interest. 20:55, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, there is an intermediate in 🇨🇬, so the change from PGmc we to y was not immediate from PGmc, but appears to be due to an early Scandinavian phonological change Leasnam (talk) 19:40, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Which affected no other words in we, such as what became . mellohi! (僕の乖離) 23:08, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Correct, I believe this is the only aberration of its kind. Leasnam (talk) 03:48, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

dark kitchen
Obviously this is dark + kitchen, but are they so-called due to the lack of windows? Could it be the relative lack of visibility? or analogy to some other Internet or business jargon? This is a relatively recent coinage (c. 2018), so in principle it could be traceable. Cnilep (talk) 07:24, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

 * The oldest use I found is here, in an article from 2015-12-25 in The Economic Times (of India). Web.archive.org confirms that the text is indeed from 2015. The analogy with the older term should be obvious, so I suppose the metaphor jumped from stores to kitchens. I think the attribute simply means “hidden” (although not sinister), i.e. “not visible” (to the public at large).  --Lambiam 14:18, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

salipenter
Can anyone find or speculate on the etymology for this future WOTD? Maybe from an Indian (as in India) language?
 * For an animal found in South America, an Indian (as in India) language is unlikely. How did the name change from salempenta to salipenter? Assuming these are based on hearing a local term pronounced, one might guess something like . The oldest reports from European explorers place this in what is now Guyana, so the indigenous language may have been Arawak. However, it appears that the phoneme does not occur in native Arawak words, making this more unlikely. A next guess is one of the . Since these languages are poorly documented, it may be hard to find the etymon.  --Lambiam 13:21, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Many indentured labourers were brought from India to Guyana during British colonial times to work on the sugar cane plantations, and now the form the largest ethnic group in Guyana, about 40% of the population in 2012. Thus, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that the word salipenter originates from an Indian language. — SGconlaw (talk) 15:03, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually, it seems like the 1825 date of the earliest quotation is too early for any Indian influence, although I could be wrong. DTLHS (talk) 16:18, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Good point. Our Wikipedia article on "Indo-Guyanese" dates the first arrivals to 5 May 1838. Looking at the articles, "Afro-Guyanese" and "Guyana", the word could well be from an African language (the Dutch brought people over in slavery in the 17th century) or from one of the indigenous languages; "[t]he indigenous groups include the Arawaks, the Wai Wai, the Caribs, the Akawaio, the Arecuna, the Patamona, the Wapixana, the Macushi and the Warao". Looks like it's going to be very hard to pin down the etymology. — SGconlaw (talk) 16:31, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Resembles vaguely. PUC – 15:10, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

カップ
The etymology section says is "cognate" with, since both derive ultimately from Late Latin. Wouldn't that make them doublets? Or are both descriptors accurate, with doublets a sub-set of cognates? Cnilep (talk) 03:13, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Doublets are cognates. They are (by definition) a pair of words in the same language. Cognates in general can also be words in different languages. --Lambiam 12:19, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

southron
This is a dialectal (also Scots) and historical term meaning "southern" or "southerner". The page gives the following etymology:
 * Likely from a Northumbrian alteration of earlier Old English, . The switch from to  is likely due to the influence of Old Norse  on Old English.

It should be noted that the -ern of standard English southern has no etymological connection whatsoever to OE ærn, so for the described change to have happened would require reanalysis of the suffix by folk etymology. This seems an unnecessarily convoluted explanation, given that Old Norse's word for "southern" already closely parallels that in question:, where the suffix is of the shape /rVn/ with a rounded vowel. Hence, direct influence from that word seems a priori more simple and therefore likely. But if the posited change is well-documented and parallels other ON > Northumbrian loans, all the page needs is a trustworthy source and maybe a clearer explanation of what happened. — 69.120.69.252 16:21, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Odd, i just noticed that we dont have eastron or westron. Perhaps those are nonstandard to a greater degree than southron is, or are pronunciations not represented in spelling (though we don't list the variant pronunciations either). — Soap — 07:37, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * A simpler explanation: try taking a look at a map of Britain, and see if you can find any contiguous land to the west or the east of Northumbria... —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 20:39, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

urinor
Tagged but doesn't appear to have been listed. The query is whether derives from. — SGconlaw (talk) 16:55, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Wow, this has been tagged since 6 November 2015. --Lambiam 19:59, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The entry ūrīna in de Vaan lists ūrīnārī and ūrīnātor as derivatives. I guess the latter is a second-order derivative. As to the sense development, de Vaan writes that “[t]he  meaning of the verb shows that ‘urine’ is a secondary development” and that “[t]he original meaning must then have been ‘water’”. He further mentions that some other etymologists, however, entertain the theory that ūrīna is a back-formation from the verb, or alternatively that its original meaning is in fact “urine”, with the noun ūrīnātor stemming from the observation that divers typically suffer diuresis while diving.  --Lambiam 13:31, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Do we know the identity of the -īn- part of the word? Is it possible that it's the same morpheme as in gallina, or even the  adjective-forming -inus?  Regarding semantic change, I wonder if the Greek word οὖρον "urine" may have helped.  It's not clear that the two words are even cognates, but the pronunciation would have been similar. — Soap — 14:49, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * As to the -īn- suffix, de Vaan hypothesizes a Proto-Italian adjective *ūr-īno- “watery”, formed from a noun *ūr(o)- “water”, and is indeed inherited from . De Vaan does not list  among the cognates, but mentions that Walde–Hoffman (who also assess cognacy as unlikely) think it may have influenced the sense development.  --Lambiam 20:23, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * See also Oleson's paper and discussion of the same question on the Latin Stack Exchange. --Thrasymedes (talk) 20:50, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

グミ
Currently divided into a blank Etymology 1 ("silverberry"), and Etymology 2 ("gummy candy") from German. My guess would be that the "silverberry" sense is also from German, or possibly from or from English, but those are just guesses. Japanese-language Wikipedia says it's native Japanese, from グイ (“thorn” – maybe ?) +, but cites no published source. Cnilep (talk) 04:51, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

 * I've expanded the entry. The Nihon Jiten entry (http://www.nihonjiten.com/data/46007.html) mentions a possible connection with  and seems to suggest that this is a reading for, but I can't find any resource that lists this reading for this character.  There is the  adverb with a sense of "quick and sharp action", which could be interpreted as , as indeed some bilingual resources do (Weblio), and this KDJ entry mentions that this term  is an archaic synonym for , reinforcing the apparent likelihood of an underlying  sense.
 * At any rate, please have a look. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 06:00, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Grabmal
Does Grabmal have anything to do with гробница ?
 * Yes; the former is from and the latter from, which are both from . —Mahāgaja · talk 18:52, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Min Nan pháiⁿ 歹
The etymology of Min Nan pháiⁿ (歹) is unclear. The entry currently says it derives from, but this character has multiple readings and contested etymologies. (Historical variation in the orthography of Chinese negative particles is partly explained in the entry for . Some of this discussion belongs in the entry for but that is another matter.)  A source that carefully discusses the etymology of the Min Nan word pháiⁿ (歹) would be appreciated. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 18:14, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

tarantism/tarantismo
The English and Italian etymologies don't seem to agree with each other. According to the English one, the word is derived from the name of a city, according to the Italian one, from the name of a spider. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 19:50, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, the word is a bit confusing: it seems to be first diagnosed from Apulia (the region where Taranto is located), but claimed to be caused by a spider's bite. That spider is in turn named after the city of Taranto, supposedly due to its commonness there. I think the spider part is a folk etymology introduced through medical and etymological confusion, but maybe someone with handy OED access can check. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 20:35, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The OED entry for tarantism (not updated since 1910) indicates the following, which I have rephrased and marked up in Wikitext: "From, from + ; see further at . The English word is cognate with 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬. " The OED also notes that the word is "popularly associated with [Italian]  the tarantula spider", but I take this to be a folk etymology. This isn't mentioned in Lexico. — SGconlaw (talk) 21:10, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * See Tarentella for more ways that people have muddled together various things named after Tarento... Chuck Entz (talk) 06:06, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I have modified the Italian entry now that the OED has supported my opinion. I find their derivation through New Latin rather suspect, as it fails to explain the French vocalism as neatly as a simple suffixation in each language, but I suppose the words can be easily modified to appear native. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 06:34, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

panda
Would a Punjabi speaker kindly update the etymology for ? Thanks. — SGconlaw (talk) 13:01, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Could the term be ਪੰਡਤ (paḍata)? This is used in the Punjabi Wiktionary to define the meaning of the collective term ਉਲਮਾ (ulamā), as well as in several articles on the Punjabi Wikipedia for people who have the title “Pandit” in English, such as . --Lambiam 07:39, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I have added the Punjabi term. Lambiam, if that were the word the etymology was looking for, it wouldn't be relevant enough to put in the etymology in the first place... —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 18:04, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * much obliged. Oh, if either of you (or anyone else) knows Nepali, etymology 1 is also lacking the Nepali script for a word transcribed as nigālyā which apparently means "bamboo cane-eating". — SGconlaw (talk) 18:20, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think that part belongs in the etymology, as it hasn't got much to do with the English word, which is what the etymology is supposed to be about. In any case, per Turner, it looks like some weird representation of , the adjectival form of , an alternative form of . But again, that's not really relevant... —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 18:51, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I’d say it explains the compound word cited by Hodgson. — SGconlaw (talk) 19:06, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * On one hand, concision is a virtue, but on the other, I can imagine a reader asking where that part comes from, so I suppose you should add it in. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 19:34, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. — SGconlaw (talk) 20:17, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Similarity between nk and Arabic ناك
Some time after I had created the page about Egyptian nk, I noticed the Arabic word ناك (nāka) which has the same meaning and looks simular. I have never created any etymology and I don't have any experiences. So I ask here if it is possible to mention and compare it in the etymology. Zhnka (talk) 16:40, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

less
I have merged some of the ety sections of less as being very closely related and not meriting a top-level ety split. However, I am not sure about the conjunction sense of "unless". Should this be kept separate or not? (presently it is separate) Mihia (talk) 17:14, 31 March 2020 (UTC)