Word origins

[The Last Conformist]

At the bottom of that heap rests PIE *ghostis "stranger".

 

[Bozo Erectus]

* I can't prove it but 'heresy' and 'here say' are most likely cousins.

Good guess, but I just stumbled on it at an etymology site. Apparently 'heresy' comes from the Greek word for 'choice'.

 

[Cimbri]

Cimbri, interesting, to me, Mare means ocean or sea from Latin. Does Mare in this case come strictly from Scandinavian languages and folklore?

Seeing as how the sea played such an important role in English history, its not too surprising that modern English has so many common terms that trace their origin to sailing. Their must be tons of others but I cant think of any

'Mare' evidently derives from the old Indo-European root *Mer / *Mar (harm).

‘Murder’ and ‘Mortal’ is also derived from *Mer and an old Slavic godess of death was named ‘Mara’.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I don't know, but I'll wager DP's pot that Latin mare is connected to "mere" in some way or another.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Mare is turning out to be a very interesting word.

Latin- Sea

English- female horse

Slavic- a death goddess

Indo European- Harm

Maybe way back in prehistory, the 'Indo Europeans' saw both horses and the sea as dangerous things...Hmm, fascinating Captain.

 

[The Last Conformist]

And in "nightmare" the element "mare" signifies a kind of female demon. The Swedish form is mara, which suggests it should be mare in Danish - anyone know if there's a such word?

 

[Bozo Erectus]

I don't know, but I'll wager DP's pot that Latin mare is connected to "mere" in some way or another.

It sure is Last, apparently 'mere' is an anglo saxon word meaning lake or pool.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Yep, and German Meer means "sea".

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Also in English, to 'mar' something is to harm or damage it.

edit: and Mars is the god of war! War is harmful.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Let's not forget the Mermaids.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Blame that capital on too much contact with the RPG community ...

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Anybody know the origin of 'war'? Im having trouble finding it.

 

[joacqin]

No but I do not think it is a very old English word as the Scandinavian words for war are all something similar to "krig" and older English words tend to be similar to the Scandinavian ones.

Hmm, it is either older and celtic or even older or newer and French or something.

I was so intriguied by the origin of this word that I did my own search with the same lack of results as Dumb Pothead. I got the impression that it is not known from where the word stems from. It probably is such an integral part of humanity that it's origins are clouded in the mist of time.

HOT DAMN! How could I miss this?

The chaos of war is reflected in the semantic history of the word war. War can be traced back to the Indo-European root *wers-, “to confuse, mix up.” In the Germanic family of the Indo-European languages, this root gave rise to several words having to do with confusion or mixture of various kinds. One was the noun *werza-, “confusion,” which in a later form *werra- was borrowed into Old French, probably from Frankish, a largely unrecorded Germanic language that contributed about 200 words to the vocabulary of Old French. From the Germanic stem came both the form werre in Old North French, the form borrowed into English in the 12th century, and guerre (the source of guerrilla) in the rest of the Old French-speaking area. Both forms meant “war.” Meanwhile another form derived from the same Indo-European root had developed into a word denoting a more benign kind of mixture, Old High German wurst, meaning “sausage.” Modern German Wurst was borrowed into English in the 19th century, first by itself (recorded in 1855) and then as part of the word liverwurst (1869), the liver being a translation of German Leber in Leberwurst.

 

[Verbose]

Anybody know the origin of 'war'? Im having trouble finding it.

Probably French "guerre" somehow. Blame the Normans?

Guerra etc. in other latin languages but "bellum" in Latin itself. May have summat to do with "bellum gerrere", to "make war".

 

[Bozo Erectus]

I dont know. 'War' sounds more like a northern European word to my ear. Maybe from old Norse, as in Wotan? He was a Norse god of war.

edit: oh, Wotan is one of the names of Odin. Well, he was a god of war, among other things.

 

[joacqin]

I was right about the French origin.

 

[Tomoyo]

Trivial: Information gained in Roman tri-roads were considered, well, trivial.

I have heard that Mare has to do with the Greek myth concering Poseidon and his creation of the horse actually.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

The chaos of war is reflected in the semantic history of the word war. War can be traced back to the Indo-European root *wers-, “to confuse, mix up.” In the Germanic family of the Indo-European languages, this root gave rise to several words having to do with confusion or mixture of various kinds. One was the noun *werza-, “confusion,” which in a later form *werra- was borrowed into Old French, probably from Frankish, a largely unrecorded Germanic language that contributed about 200 words to the vocabulary of Old French. From the Germanic stem came both the form werre in Old North French, the form borrowed into English in the 12th century, and guerre (the source of guerrilla) in the rest of the Old French-speaking area. Both forms meant “war.” Meanwhile another form derived from the same Indo-European root had developed into a word denoting a more benign kind of mixture, Old High German wurst, meaning “sausage.” Modern German Wurst was borrowed into English in the 19th century, first by itself (recorded in 1855) and then as part of the word liverwurst (1869), the liver being a translation of German Leber in Leberwurst.

Oh I didnt notice your post at first. Looks like we're both right. Originally a Germanic word that entered old French

 

[joacqin]

Yes but the Germanic/Scandinavian word for war is krig/krieg and now I am stuck trying to find the origin for that!

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Cant help you there, Ive already got my hands full with English words!