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Tuesday, March 26, 2019

ETYMOLOGY

William Barr quotes Mueller as saying that he has not exonerated Trump.  This got me thinking about the word "exonerated," which seemed to me related to "onerous," and thence to "onus."  To exonerate is to lift a burden [onus] from someone.  That led me to think of "excruciating," which means "from the cross" and describes Jesus' pain when he was crucified, i.e. nailed on a cross or crux.  I then thought of explode, and implode, of exact, extirpate, and examine.

I read once that English has several times as many words as French.  Some of them are truly delicious.

5 comments:

Jerry Fresia said...

Nor has Trump been exculpated.

Dean said...

And then there's "impeach": < late Latin impedicāre to catch, entangle (Ammianus), < im- (IM- prefix1) + pedica fetter, < pēs, ped-em foot. Crudely, to trip up.

s. wallerstein said...

As most people probably know, English has so many words because unlike French which only has a Latin root, English has a Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) root and a Latin root (Normand French).

So English has "freedom" and "liberty", the first being Germanic and the second being from Latin.

Anonymous said...

You left out one of your favorites: decimate.--Fritz Poebel

Hydraulic Pump PTO said...

I read once that English has several times as many words as French.