Words from Middle French

Family

Middle French grew out of Old French.

The words, A to Z

• admire

  To feel this is to be caught, for a moment, in quiet wonder.

• alarm

  Somewhere behind this word is a shout across a battlefield.

• alloy

  The word for mixed metals is secretly about tying things together.

• ammunition

  This word for war supplies was born from a simple slip of the ear.

• ample

  This word for roomy abundance may hide the idea of being full all the way around.

• aristocracy

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

• arsenic

  A deadly poison whose name once meant something as bright as gold.

• athlete

  Long before scoreboards, this word was already about wanting something badly enough to compete for it.

• begonia

  This flower's name is really a thank-you note to a 17th-century French official.

• bombard

  Behind every barrage of questions or cannonballs lies the same low, booming sound.

• boulevard

  A wide, tree-lined street was once, quite literally, a fortress wall.

• bravery

  This word for courage started out as a bit of showing off.

• buffet

  The word for a spread of dishes started out as furniture, not food.

• cabaret

  A word for late-night entertainment that started out describing something much smaller and plainer: a room.

• cadence

  The rhythm of your speech shares a secret history with gravity itself.

• canal

  A word for a man-made waterway that started life as a humble reed.

• cash

  The word for hard money once meant nothing more than the box it was kept in.

• casualty

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

• coach

  A humble Hungarian town lent its name to something that eventually carried students through exams and athletes through victories.

• cologne

  This fragrant word is really just a shortened trip to a German city, by way of French water.

• colonel

  The rank whose spelling and sound have never quite agreed with each other.

• commerce

  This word for trade once traveled through French courts before landing in English shops.

• compete

  To rival someone is, at root, to seek the same thing at the same time.

• confer

  The word for a meeting of minds once meant simply carrying things toward each other.

• connoisseur

  Someone who truly knows what they're looking at once just meant, literally, 'one who knows.'

• curry

  This word for a spiced dish actually cooked up out of two unrelated kitchens at once.

• debris

  The scattered leftovers of something that used to hold together.

• debut

  A first appearance on stage traces back to the simple act of aiming for a target.

• definition

  The word for pinning down meaning has itself traveled through three languages to get pinned down.

• democracy

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

• demolish

  Tearing something down, it turns out, is a very old French habit.

• dial

  The face you glance at for the time owes its name to the day itself.

• disclose

  To reveal something is, at its root, to un-shut it.

• dome

  A rounded roof that once simply meant "the house."

• dose

  A word that started as an act of giving before it ever meant a measured amount of medicine.

• drab

  A word for dullness that started life woven into cloth.

• emir

  A title for a ruler that quietly shares its roots with the word for someone commanding a ship.

• energy

  The word for what makes things move is, at its root, just a word for being 'at work.'

• enterprise

  A bold venture takes its name from the simple act of grabbing hold of something between your hands.

• entrepreneur

  The person who takes something on is baked right into this word's bones.

• erosion

  A word that once described mouth ulcers now describes what rivers do to mountains.

• espionage

  The word for spying got its hissing first sound back after centuries of staying quiet.

• finesse

  The word for skillful subtlety once described how pure a piece of metal was.

• furniture

  The chairs and tables in your room owe their name to the simple act of supplying something.

• halberd

  A medieval polearm whose name literally describes it as a handle with a beard.

• harpy

  This word for a fierce, grasping woman was born from a monster whose whole identity was in its claws.

• horizon

  The line where the sky sits down is named for an ancient act of drawing a limit.

• hut

  A tiny shelter's name traces back to the idea of covering yourself from the world.

• hypothesis

  Before it's ever proven, an idea has to be given something to stand on.

• immune

  To be immune is, literally, to be let off the hook.

• invest

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

• jacket

  A small, close-fitting word that started life as someone's name.

• jaundice

  A condition named simply for the color it paints the skin.

• league

  This word carries two separate pasts inside one small syllable — one about bonds between people, the other about distance between places.

• lenient

  The gentleness in this word was baked in before it ever meant merciful.

• lexicon

  A word for the whole stock of words was itself once shorthand for a book.

• lute

  This word for a pear-shaped, plucked instrument carries the ghost of the word 'wood' inside it.

• manufacture

  There was a time when this word meant the opposite of a machine's work.

• marine

  A word that carries the sea in its bones, even when it's just describing a boat store.

• martial

  Every time you call something warlike, you're quietly invoking a Roman god.

• mask

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

• meridian

  The line that splits the day at its highest, brightest point.

• milieu

  The place you belong is baked right into the word for it.

• missile

  Before it flew through the sky, this word simply meant something you could hurl.

• monarch

  A ruler whose whole claim to the job is that there's only one of them.

• monologue

  A speech built for an audience of one voice.

• morse

  A clasp gets its name from the same root as a bite — because a good fastening holds on with something like teeth.

• mosque

  A building whose name traveled from a bowed body to a French spelling before landing in English.

• mute

  The word for silence itself had to borrow a letter to sound the part.

• nocturnal

  The hours between dusk and dawn have their own name buried inside this word.

• orthography

  The rules for getting your letters straight, literally.

• panic

  The word for sudden, groundless fear comes from a god who liked to startle people in lonely places.

• pedestal

  The base that holds up a statue was once just a foot to stand on, quite literally.

• period

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

• platoon

  A military unit whose name once meant something as small and round as a ball.

• police

  The people meant to keep order share a root with the ancient word for the city itself.

• porcelain

  Fine china owes its name to a shellfish's curves, not to clay at all.

• pumpkin

  This autumn favorite got its rounded English shape from a French pompon and a diminutive suffix tacked on for good measure.

• racket

  The word for a tennis paddle and the word for a loud commotion may be two completely different words wearing the same spelling.

• rampart

  A word that literally means 'to prepare again' — because a fortress wall is defense you built twice over.

• regent

  Someone who holds the reins of power for a throne that isn't quite theirs.

• reliquary

  A container built for the things we cannot bear to let go of.

• republic

  A word that quietly names government as everyone's business, not one person's.

• revenue

  The money that keeps coming back to you started out meaning just that — a coming back.

• reverse

  There's a whole family of words built from the simple idea of turning something back.

• satellite

  Before it meant something circling a planet, this word meant someone circling a powerful person.

• satire

  A word for biting comedy that started life as a plate of fruit.

• schedule

  The word for your day's plan once meant nothing more than a strip of paper.

• sentence

  A grammatical unit that once meant simply what someone thought, not what they said.

• sincere

  A word that sounds like it's about wax but is actually about growing something whole, together.

• surplus

  There's a French cousin still standing guard over this everyday word for extra.

• syringe

  A tool for injections got its name from an ancient musical pipe.

• tacit

  Some agreements never need a single word spoken aloud.

• traffic

  That jam of cars on the highway carries the ghost of old merchants haggling in port cities.

• tranquil

  Crossing over into stillness — that's the quiet promise buried in this word.

• tulip

  This flower's name once described what people wrapped around their heads, not what grew in a garden.

• turquoise

  This gem-blue word actually carries the name of a whole nation inside it.

• vase

  The word for that elegant flower-holder came to English by way of French politeness.