Etymolog y Jordan Dixon

What is Etymology? Etymology is the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history. So basically It is the study of when a word is born or first used and how it changes it’s meaning throughout time

Examples Addict Awful Broadcast Cute Fantastic Gay Husband Matrix Nervous Nice

Addict We think of an addict as someone who relies on a certain substance for basic life In Roman times addicts were broke folk given as slaves to the people they owed money to Addictus (Latin) “a debtor awarded to his creditor” In the early 1900’s the word became associated with dependency on morphine and later other drugs

Awful The word that currently has purely negative connotations used to have purely positive connotations In the 1300’s it originally meant “inspiring wonder” and was a shortened version of “full of awe”

Broadcast When you think of broadcast today most people think directly to the news In 1767 “broadcast meant sowing seeds with a sweeping movement of the hand or a “broad cast”. Its media use began with radio in 1922

Cute In the 1730’s cute was a shortened form of acute, meaning “keenly perceptive and shrewd” By the 1830’s it became a part of American student slang, meaning “pretty, charming and dainty”

Fantastic The 14 th century meaning is “existing only in imagination”, from the old French term “Fantastique” It was not until 1938 that the word was first used to mean “wonderful or marvelous”.

Gay In the 13 th century the word meant “light hearted” or “joyous” In the 14 th century it changed slightly to meaning “bright and showy”, but this word still had a positive connotation Not until the 1630’s did it acquire connotations of immorality with the term “gay woman” meaning prostitute In the 1930’s is when the word was first used to refer to homosexuality

Husband The old German words “hus” and “bunda” mean “house” and “owner” Husband originally had nothing to do with marital status at all, except that home ownership made husbands extremely desirable marriage partners in the 13 th century In the 1680’s it was first used as “hubby”

Matrix You may think of the hit sci-fi movie. But in reality “matrix” comes from the 14 th century French word meaning pregnant animal”. It went on to mean “womb or source” Eventually in 1555 it was adapted to mean “a place where something is developed”.

Nervous In the 1400’s a nervous person was actually “sinewy and vigorous”- as the Latin word nervus applied to both sinews and nerves. By 1665 nerves were better understood and by 1734 the term meant “suffering a disorder of the nervous system”. By 1740 it meant “restless, agitated, lacking nerve” and it became a widespread euphemism on mental illness “Nervous wreck” was first used in 1899

Nice This word originally derived from the Latin nescius meaning “ignorant”, the word began in the 14 th century as a term for “foolish” or “silly” In the Middle Ages it took on more neutral attributes of shyness and reserve. Society’s admiration of such qualities in the 18 th century brought on more positively charged meanings of “nice” we know today.

Image Search I went to google images and searched my original list of words to see what the results would be and see if any of the words still had a connection with their original origin and meaning.

Addict

Awful

Broadcast

cute

Fantastic

Gay

Husband

Matrix

Nervous

Nice

Bibliography literally-changed-meaning-through literally-changed-meaning-through