The term paparazzi orginated in the Fellini's 1960 film, La Dolce Vita, after the photographer character named Paparazzo. The name was probably rooted in an older Italian term, papariare, meaning to "wander about wasting time," but it remains unclear where exactly Fellini came up with the name. The term was used in the media to refer to photographers in Time article the following year.| Etymology Now
cue the trumpets| Etymology Now
Meat: It’s what was for dinner.| Etymology Now
After spending some time looking at how guttural phonemes entered English by way of Norse languages (so barbaric!),| Etymology Now
The| Etymology Now
The etymology of doom reveals a lot about the complicated relationship that mankind has had with the concepts of law and judgement throughout history. The modern sense of the term has been associated with implications of fear and ruin since the early 1600s. Originally, however, doom is rooted in the Proto-Indo-European dhe-, meaning "to put or set" and has been used for a variety of words associated with "law" throughout linguistic history.| Etymology Now
To the uninitiated, golf seems to hold all the charm and promise of a march into the heart of mother Russian in late fall. To players of the game, feelings regarding the game can range from the simple pleasure of enjoying a sunburn and a warm beer with the fellows to an existential confrontation with one's own inadequacies both inner and outer. Either way, the history of golf and the etymology of golf itself both betray the simple truth that the alleged sport attracts no middle ground: you ei...| Etymology Now
The United States has pretty much dug in its heels on refusing to acknowledge the sport of football by any other name than soccer. Beneath the thin film of good humor that both sides of this topic try to maintain lurks an unabashed sense of nationalism that is no doubt at the root of countless soccer riots. Excuse me, football riots. The weird thing is that nobody even remembers where the term soccer comes from. The root: soccer hooligans. I mean football hooligans.| Etymology Now
Following yesterday's etymology of money and its curious relationship to a warning from the gods, I spent a little bit of time before work this morning looking over some other similar words that have related roots. As the second part of what might be a series of posts on this dysfunctional family of divinely rooted words, the etymology of monster gives us a good picture of what we might be getting into here. The final Latin root for monster is monstrum, meaning "an omen, supernatural being o...| Etymology Now
Given the complicated relationship that most people have with money and the dramatic influence that money has over so many aspects of human life, it is hard to dismiss the synchronicity of the original meaning of the Latin root: warning.| Etymology Now
During the latter half of the 20th century, a brand's slogan was considered to be the hallmark of a successful advertising campaign. The modern sense of the word appeared in the early 20th century when commercial industries began manufacturing desire in consumers for products that they initially neither wanted nor needed. Prior to the dawn of modern advertising, a slogan was used to denote any type of catchphrase that an organization, political party or powerful family might adopt during the ...| Etymology Now
Galoshes. The name for those cheerful rubber boots that children have enjoyed wearing while jumping in fresh rain puddles for generations has a surprisingly ethnic origin that can be traced back to prehistoric Germanic.| Etymology Now
While most English speakers are familiar with the term hokey pokey as the popular children’s song and dance that first appeared during the middle of the 20th century. However, hokey pokey has been present in our lexicon for well over a century as the name of cheap type of fake ice cream. Hokey pokey itself the anglicized version of the mock Latin hocus-pocus that was used by stage performers like jugglers and magicians for some centuries.| Etymology Now
In a dimly lit parlor room during the middle of the 18th century, a popular aristocrat by the name of John Montague sat a gaming table surrounded by other landed gentlemen patiently waiting for the table odds to merit a sizable bet. Known amongst his fellow gamblers as "Jemmy Twitcher," Montague had gained a reputation for being one of the most well-liked and tenacious gamblers in the region, as well as a very well respected military commander.| Etymology Now
For a word that has such an official ring to it, there is surprisingly little information on where the terms conniption or conniption fit originated from. The word did not appear until the 19th century and is virtual unused in the United Kingdom, leading most scholars to conclude that the etymology of conniption fit lies in the United States. According to the Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins by William and Mary Morris, the word conniption is most likely the creation of an imaginative Ame...| Etymology Now
Etymology of Calendar| Etymology Now
The term "spunk" originated in the early 1600's in the British Isles meaning "a spark," having been adopted from the Gaelic spong for "tinder," which in turn comes from the Latin spongia. The Latin appears to be derived from how closely the popular kindling touchwood resembles natural sponges. "Spunk" became a colloquial term for courage and pluck in the late 18th century, assumably with the sense that the person showed some spark of life. The vulgar use of the term appeared about a century a...| Etymology Now
From witches to old maids, the modern hag is The term "hag" shares its etymology with the adjective "haggard," meaning an appearance that is both wild and distraught as well as worn and exhausted, or gaunt. These terms are rooted in the Old French faulcon hagard, meaning wild falcon. If you can imagine the wild look in the eyes of newly captured falcon, you can get a good sense of the original meaning of the term. Some time later, it appears that this sense of the word was influenced for the ...| Etymology Now
Speaking from well worn first hand experience, 86 is a term used in the restaurant and bar industry to denote a patron that has been permanent disbarred from entering the premises, usually due to disorderly behavior. To say that a person has been 86'd is to convey that they have crossed the line and been instructed that their presence in the establishment will no longer be tolerated.| Etymology Now
From glib indifference to brazen flaunting, everyone has their own take on what's hip. The etymology of the word itself is as diffuse as its sense, with etymologists having a wide range of takes on how the word entered the slang lexicon.| Etymology Now
A landlubber is someone who is no good at sea. Thanks no doubt to some terrible aberration of their soul or other sad personal flaw, they are simply not worth much once cast onto the open water.| Etymology Now
Happy Independence Day, imperialist stooges.| Etymology Now
Creep is derived from the Old English root that mean to move or walk with the body close to the ground and is related to the term "cripple."| Etymology Now
According to William and Mary Morris's 1967 Dictionary of Word and Phrases, the decidedly dorky colloquilism "hunky-dory" is probably rooted in the slang used at a Dutch settlement in New Amsterdam where hunk was close to the Dutch word honk, meaning goal.| Etymology Now