Etymologies

History

The search for meaningful origins for familiar or strange words is far older than the modern understanding of linguistic evolution and the relationships of languages, which began no earlier than the 18th century. Etymology has been a form of witty wordplay, in which the supposed origins of words were creatively imagined to satisfy contemporary requirements. For example, the Greek poet Pindar (born c. 522 BCE) employed inventive etymologies to flatter his patrons. Plutarch employed etymologies insecurely based on fancied resemblances in sounds. Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae was an encyclopedic tracing of "first things" that remained uncritically in use in Europe until the sixteenth century. Etymologicum Genuinum is a grammatical encyclopedia edited at Constantinople during the 9th century, one of several similar Byzantine works. The 13th-century Golden Legend, as written by Jacobus de Voragine, begins each hagiography of a saint with a fanciful excursus in the form of an etymology.