Sunday Times (Sri Lanka)

Word journeys

- Amnesty allure borough bounce buxom bread bulb batch bonkers bonfire bask bless cloud cling cattle charm customer chronic crisp cheer clumsy complexion corset clinic cretin companion conkers enthusiasm enormous gymnastics grape garter generous gossip glam

(1500s - 1800s from Greek) forgetfuln­ess, oblivion

(Old French) to bait: a device in falconry used by hunters to call back their hawks

head

place

sions

death (nautical 16C) windward

(from Old French) to come to a

(from Arabic) the reunion of bro- ken parts (early 15C) to empty, make void

(15C) after mowing (i.e. the second crop of grass in autumn) (from Latin) to come to shore

(from Latin) to up the price, increase (from Italian all'arme) to arms!

(from Greek) unpublishe­d things; (17C) secret history

(Old English) a fortress (13C) to beat, thump (12C) obedient; then flexible, blithe (Old English) a piece, fragment (actual bread was a loaf) (16C) an onion

(15C) baking; then the quantity of flour or dough used at one baking; (19C)the quantity of things coming at the same time, an instalment

(early 20C) slightly tipsy (14C) a fire of bones; later a fire on which heretics or banned books were burnt

(14C) to bathe in blood to modern sense (Shakespear­e: As You Like It 1600) to lie in the heat

(Old English) to redden/consecrate with blood; then to consecrate (Old English) a hill, rock; (13C) cumulus clouds: the hilly ones (Old English) to coagulate, congeal, shrink, wither

(14C) from capital and chattels: property, wealth; then moveable property; then livestock

(from Latin) a song; (14C) an incantatio­n, the singing or reciting of a verse that was held to have magic power)

(16C) to crowd together into a narrow room (18C) manners and customs belonging to a particular time and

(14C) a customs house officer becoming in the 16th century someone he had to deal with

(from Greek) long-lasting (hence, via its medical associatio­n, bad) (Old English) curly; (14C) wrinkled (13C) a face; then mood or spirit; (14C) happy joyful shout; (Defoe: Captain Singleton 1720) joyful shout (1702) benumbed, moving as if benumbed

(from Latin) woven together; (14C) the combinatio­n of the four humours, the bodily constituti­on

(from Latin and Old French) a little body (from Greek: bed to Latin: bedridden) (from Latin and French) applied to sufferers from cretinism, as a reminder that they were human beings with Christian souls

(from Latin) someone who eats bread with you (19C) from conch as the game was originally played with snail shells before the chestnut version in the 1880s

(from French) a pillion rider, a rider on the croup of a horse; then someone who stood behind a gambler and gave advice

(from Greek) a ladder; (16C) in rhetoric, an ascending series of expres- (Middle English) a ball of thread

(from Old French couvre feu) to cover the fire (17C) a pipe for carrying liquid (from Latin) able to learn; easily taught (from French de bonne aire) of good family (from Latin) drawn away from the river

(17C) foul air, poisonous gas (16C from Latin) ill- starred (from Latin) to unroof (from Latin) to divide into parts, distribute (14C from Latin) given

(from Greek) divinely inspired; (17C) possession by a god, poetic frenzy; (18C) misguided religious emotion

(1634) irregular, outrageous; (Milton: Paradise Lost 1667) abnormal, monstrous (from Latin) the result of ingenuity, a clever device

(from Latin) to accumulate, pile up; hence to pile it on (Old English) to bring into slavery or bondage (Old English) a lover; (12C) relative, kinsman

(Old English) the span of one's outstretch­ed arms (14C) foolish, silly (14C) insane (from Old French) 'done beyond the bounds of' the law, a crime

(from Greek) exercising in the nude (the custom for exercise in Ancient Greece)

(11C from Old French) a hook for gathering fruit; then a cluster of fruit growing together (14C from Old French) the bend in the knee

(from Latin) noble (from Saxon god and syb relation) a godparent; hence applied to all people familiar or intimate

(from Latin glomeria: grammar: which was associated with magic as the study of Latin for the uneducated was regarded with suspicion (hence from the phrase 'to cast the glamour over': to put a spell on; hence 'enchantmen­t, a magical or deceptive beauty or charm')

(Old English) housebound: since he was 'master of the household' or 'bound' to the house and family; (13C) husbandman: tiller of the soil (an extension of his duties); (15C) housekeepe­r or steward; (16C) a man who managed affairs generally

(from Greek) of the disorder caused by the wandering of the womb around the female body

(17C from Turkish via Arabic) forbidden to others; sacred; then of the women and their apartments

(1435) easy to handle; (1577) convenient; (Samuel Johnson 1755) beautiful with dignity

(from Latin) looking for tracks (from Latin) to leap upon

- horse traders (who were once called Jocks) (13C from Latin and French) a brave deed; a story or romance in rhyme (from French jeu parti) a divided game

(17C from Hindi jagannath: a title of the God Vishnu 'lord of the world') (it was formerly believed that devotees of Vishnu threw themselves beneath the wheels of a cart bearing his image in procession)

(Old English) lay, not clerical; (13C) illiterate 'in comparison to the clergy'; (14C) low, ignorant (until 17C), vulgar

(from Old French) a death pledge, a promise to pay upon a person's (from Old French) divided in the middle (17C) to wallow in mud (14C) to eat in a slow, ineffectiv­e manner; to chew or bite softly, as with toothless gums

- without appetite; (17C) from a maggot (from Old French) knocking out a front tooth (from Latin) the ninth hour from sunrise; three in the afternoon

(17C from Latin via French) rectangula­r, perpendicu­lar (from Latin: nescio to be ignorant) foolish, strange, lazy or effeminate; then to fastidious, precise and delicate which probably gave rise to the sense of pleasant. (Adam Jacot de Boinod is the author of The Meaning of Tingo and other

Extraordin­ary Words from around the World by Penguin Books)

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