Words from Medieval Latin

Family

Medieval Latin grew out of Late Latin.

The words, A to Z

• almanac

  A yearly book of dates and weather once carried the sky itself in its name.

• aristocracy

  A word that quietly claims power belongs to the 'best' people — a claim baked right into its Greek bones.

• armada

  Behind this word for a fleet of warships hides the simple idea of getting armed.

• attitude

  The way you hold your body and the way you hold your opinions turn out to share a single root.

• balcony

  That railed platform outside your window once had nothing to do with views — it was all about the wooden support underneath.

• caraway

  This little seed's name has been passed hand to hand across languages like a spice traded down a caravan route.

• carpet

  The floor covering under your feet once traveled a long trade route from an Armenian kingdom to Florence before it ever reached English.

• casualty

  A word for tragedy that started out meaning nothing more than chance.

• chess

  The board game's name is really a shout of "the king!" passed down through five languages.

• cider

  That crisp apple drink you sip in autumn once meant almost any strong liquor at all.

• collateral

  This word literally means standing side by side, which is exactly what backup security does for a loan.

• cost

  Before it meant what you owe, it meant what stands firm beside something else.

• cottage

  A small, humble home may carry a word that traveled from Norse huts all the way to Finnish tents.

• currency

  Money that moves is, at its root, just money that runs.

• dart

  A tiny weapon named for the leap it makes through the air.

• democracy

  The word for people ruling themselves is, quite literally, built out of the words 'people' and 'rule.'

• desk

  The place you sit to write shares a secret family tree with the plate you eat off.

• discount

  Taking money off a price is, at its root, a kind of counting backward.

• epidemic

  Something that spreads not just through bodies, but through a whole population at once.

• feudal

  The system of lords and vassals owes its name, oddly enough, to cows.

• filament

  That glowing wire inside an old lightbulb owes its name to something as humble as thread.

• fraction

  A piece of a whole carries, in its bones, the memory of something being broken apart.

• gesture

  A wave of the hand carries a whole history of behaving, not just pointing.

• ginger

  This spicy root's name is itself rooted in the word for 'root.'

• graduate

  Every diploma hides a tiny staircase in its history.

• heron

  This tall wading bird was named for the sound it makes, not the way it looks.

• inventory

  Before it meant a list of goods, this word meant the act of stumbling onto something.

• invest

  Before money ever changed hands, this word meant putting on a coat.

• lamprey

  This eel-like fish may have been named for the way it clings to rocks with its mouth.

• lodge

  A cozy cabin's name once meant nothing more than a leafy shelter.

• mask

  The thing you put over your face has an old, tangled history in the word for netting.

• minute

  The tiniest slice of an hour got its name from the idea of being made small.

• musical

  A word that turned the very idea of music into a description of something else.

• necromancy

  A word for speaking with the dead that once wore a disguise as the color black.

• notorious

  A word that started out just meaning 'known' before curdling into a warning label.

• oleander

  A flowering shrub whose name may have quietly swapped places with another word entirely.

• period

  A word that once meant a full trip around before it ever meant a stop.

• phoenix

  A bird of endless renewal that began, oddly enough, as a real wading bird on the Nile.

• piracy

  Long before it meant illegal downloads, this word meant illegal printing.

• precinct

  The word for a police district or voting zone was once just a line drawn around a girded boundary.

• pulley

  A little wheel that quietly took its name from the idea of spinning, not pulling.

• quotation

  Before it meant borrowed words, this term once meant a mere share or portion.

• rate

  Behind every price tag or heartbeat count lies an old idea of reckoning things out in fixed shares.

• saffron

  This golden spice carried its name across four languages before it ever reached an English kitchen.

• symptom

  The word for a sign of illness literally means something that falls together with something else.

• tarantula

  This eight-legged name actually started out as a town's address.

• tartan

  The crisscross pattern we now call quintessentially Scottish may trace back to a purple dye from a Phoenician port city.

• tenement

  Behind this word for a crowded city building is the simple idea of holding something.

• towel

  The cloth you dry your hands with carries a very old command: get clean.

• wage

  Your paycheck's ancestor was really just a promise someone had to keep.

• whisky

  The drink's name is a shrunken, worn-down version of a much older toast.