Online Etymology Dictionary

legend: mid-14c., from O.Fr. legende (12c.), from M.L. legenda "legend, story," lit. "(things) to be read," on certain days in church, etc., from neuter plural gerundive of L. legere "to read, gather, select" (see lecture). Used originally of saints' lives; extended sense of "nonhistorical or mythical story" first recorded 1610s. Meaning "writing or inscription" (especially on a coin or medal) is from 1610s; on a map, illustration, etc., from 1903.
legendary: mid-16c., from M.L. legendarius, from legenda (see legend). Earlier it was a noun meaning "a collection of legends" (1510s).
caesarian: 1923, shortening of Cæsarian section (1615); supposedly from Caius Julius Cæsar, who was said to have been delivered surgically, thus legend traces his cognomen to L. cæsus pp. of cædere "to cut." But if this is the etymology of the name, it was likely an ancestor who was so born (Caesar's mother lived to see his triumphs and such operations would have been fatal to the woman in ancient times). And Pliny derives his cognomen from cæsaries "head of hair," since the future dictator was born with a full one. Cæsarian section may come directly from cæsus.
faggot (2): "male homosexual," 1914, Amer.Eng. slang (shortened form fag is from 1921), probably from earlier contemptuous term for "woman" (1591), especially an old and unpleasant one, in reference to faggot (1) "bundle of sticks," as something awkward that has to be carried (cf. baggage). It was used in this sense in 20c. by D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce, among others. It may also be reinforced by Yiddish faygele "homosexual," lit. "little bird." It also may have roots in Brit. public school slang fag "a junior who does certain duties for a senior" (1785), with suggestions of "catamite," from fag (v.). This was also used as a verb.
"He [the prefect] used to fag me to blow the chapel organ for him." ["Boy's Own Paper," 1889]
Other obsolete senses of faggot were "man hired into military service simply to fill out the ranks at muster" (1700) and "vote manufactured for party purposes" (1817). The oft-heard statement that male homosexuals were called faggots in reference to their being burned at the stake is an etymological urban legend. Burning was sometimes a punishment meted out to homosexuals in Christian Europe (on the suggestion of the Biblical fate of Sodom and Gomorah), but in England, where parliament had made homosexuality a capital offense in 1533, hanging was the method prescribed. Any use of faggot in connection with public executions had long become an English historical obscurity by the time the word began to be used for "male homosexual" in 20th century American slang, whereas the contemptuous slang word for "woman" (and the other possible sources or influences listed here) was in active use.
pygmy: 1382, from L. Pygmaei (sing. Pygmaeus), from Gk. Pygmaio "a tribe of dwarfs," referred to in Homer and Herodotus and reputed to live in either India or Ethiopia; originally plural of an adj. meaning "dwarfish," lit. "a pygme tall," from pygme "cubit," lit. "fist," the measure of length from the elbow to the knuckle (see pugnacious). Believed in 17c. to refer to chimpanzees or orangutangs. The ancient word was applied by Europeans to the equatorial African race 1863, but the tribes probably were known to the ancients and likely were the original inspiration for the legend.
saw (2): "proverb," O.E. sagu "saying, discourse, speech," from P.Gmc. *saga-, *sagon- (cf. M.L.G., M.Du. sage, zage, Ger. sage "legend, fable, saga, myth, tradition," O.N. saga "story, tale, saga") from the root of O.E. secgan "say" (see say).
wander: O.E. wandrian "move about aimlessly, wander," from W.Gmc. *wandrojan (cf. O.Fris. wondria, M.L.G., M.Du. wanderen, Ger. wandern "to wander," a variant form of the root represented in O.H.G. wantalon "to walk, wander"), from base *wend- "to turn" (see wind (v.)). In ref. to the mind, affections, etc., attested from c.1400. The Wandering Jew of Christian legend first mentioned 13c. (cf. Fr. le juif errant, Ger. der ewige Jude).
Barbara: fem. proper name, from L., fem. of barbarus "strange, foreign, barbarous," from Gk. barbaros (see barbarian). For women, unlike men, the concept of "alien" presumably could be felt as "exotic" and thus make an appealing name. Popularized as a Christian name by the legend of Saint Barbara, early 4c. martyr, whose cult was popular from 7c. The common M.E. form was Barbary. A top 10 name in popularity for girls born in the U.S. between 1927 and 1958.
George: male personal name, from L. Georgius, from Gk. Georgios "husbandman, farmer," from ge "earth" + ergon "work" (see urge (v.)). The name introduced in England by the Crusaders (a vision of St. George played a key role in the First Crusade), but not common until after the Hanoverian succession (18c.); so also Georgian (1855) in reference to the reigns of the first four king Georges (1714-1830). St. George began to be recognized as patron of England in time of Edward III, perhaps because of his association with the Order of the Garter (see garter). His feast day, April 23, was made a holiday in 1222. The legend of his combat with the dragon is first found in "Legenda Aurea" (13c.). The exclamation by (St.) George! is recorded from 1598.
Noah: masc. proper name, from Heb. Noah, lit. "rest." Noachian, in ref. to the flood legend, is from 1678.
beatnik: coined 1958 by San Francisco newspaper columnist Herb Caen during the heyday of -nik suffixes in the wake of Sputnik. From Beat generation (1952), associated with beat in its meanings "rhythm (especially in jazz)" as well as "worn out, exhausted," but originator Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) in 1958 connected it with beatitude.
"The origins of the word beat are obscure, but the meaning is only too clear to most Americans. More than the feeling of weariness, it implies the feeling of having been used, of being raw. It involves a sort of nakedness of the mind." ["New York Times Magazine," Oct. 2, 1952]

" 'Beat' is old carny slang. According to Beat Movement legend (and it is a movement with a deep inventory of legend), Ginsberg and Kerouac picked it up from a character named Herbert Huncke, a gay street hustler and drug addict from Chicago who began hanging around Times Square in 1939 (and who introduced William Burroughs to heroin, an important cultural moment). The term has nothing to do with music; it names the condition of being beaten down, poor, exhausted, at the bottom of the world." [Louis Menand, "New Yorker," Oct. 1, 2007]
Dick Whittington: The story is an old one, told under other names throughout Europe, of a poor boy who sends a cat he had bought for a penny as his stake in a trading voyage; the captain sells it on his behalf for a fortune to a foreign king whose palace is overrun by rats. The hero devotes part of his windfall to charity, which may be why the legend attached in England since 16c. to Sir Richard Whittington (d.1423), three times Lord Mayor of London, who died childless and devoted large sums in his will to churches, almshouses, and St. Bartholomew's Hospital.
Godiva: d.1067, Lady of Coventry and wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia. Legend first recorded 100 years after her death, by Roger of Wendover. "Peeping Tom" aspect added by 1659.
Gorgon: late 14c., any of the three hideous sisters in Gk. legend, whose look turned beholders to stone (Madusa was one of them), from Gk. Gorgo (pl. Gorgones), from gorgos "terrible." Transferred sense of "terrifyingly ugly person" is from 1520s.
marvel (n.): c.1300, "miracle," also "wonderful story or legend," from O.Fr. merveille "a wonder," from V.L. *miribilia, alt. from L. mirabilia "wonderful things," from neut. pl. of mirabilis "strange or wonderful," from mirari "to wonder at," from mirus "wonderful" (see smile). A neut. pl. treated in V.L. as a fem. sing. The verb is attested from c.1300. Related: Marveled; marveling; marvels.
lorelei: 1878, name of a rock in the River Rhine near Koblenz, Germany. In legend, a lovely woman sat atop it and sang while combing her long blond hair, distracting sailors so their ships foundered on the rock and they drowned.
Mephistopheles: 1598, the evil spirit whom Faust sold his soul to in the Ger. legend, from Ger. (1587), of unknown origin. According to the speculation of eminent Göthe scholar K.J. Schröer (1886) it is a compound of Heb. mephitz "destroyer" + tophel "liar" (short for tophel sheqer, lit. "falsehood plasterer;" cf. Job xiii.4). Names of devils in the Middle Ages in most cases derived from Heb.
fuck: a difficult word to trace, in part because it was taboo to the editors of the original OED when the "F" volume was compiled, 1893-97. Written form only attested from early 16c. OED 2nd edition cites 1503, in the form fukkit; earliest appearance of current spelling is 1535 -- "Bischops ... may fuck thair fill and be vnmaryit" [Sir David Lyndesay, "Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits"], but presumably it is a much more ancient word than that, simply one that wasn't likely to be written in the kind of texts that have survived from O.E. and M.E. Buck cites proper name John le Fucker from 1278. The word apparently is hinted at in a scurrilous 15c. poem, titled "Flen flyys," written in bastard L. and M.E. The relevant line reads:
Non sunt in celi
quia fuccant uuiuys of heli
"They [the monks] are not in heaven because they fuck the wives of Ely." Fuccant is pseudo-Latin, and in the original it is written in cipher. The earliest examples of the word otherwise are from Scottish, which suggests a Scandinavian origin, perhaps from a word akin to Norw. dial. fukka "copulate," or Swedish dial. focka "copulate, strike, push," and fock "penis." Another theory traces it to M.E. fkye, fike "move restlessly, fidget," which also meant "dally, flirt," and probably is from a general North Sea Gmc. word, cf. M.Du. fokken, Ger. ficken "fuck," earlier "make quick movements to and fro, flick," still earlier "itch, scratch;" the vulgar sense attested from 16c. This would parallel in sense the usual M.E. slang term for "have sexual intercourse," swive, from O.E. swifan "to move lightly over, sweep" (see swivel). Chronology and phonology rule out Shipley's attempt to derive it from M.E. firk "to press hard, beat." As a noun, it dates from 1680. French foutre and Italian fottere look like the English word but are unrelated, derived rather from L. futuere, which is perhaps from PIE base *bhau(t)- "knock, strike off," extended via a figurative use "from the sexual application of violent action" [Shipley; cf. the sexual slang use of bang, etc.]. Popular and Internet derivations from acronyms (and the "pluck yew" fable) are merely ingenious trifling. The O.E. word was hæman, from ham "dwelling, home," with a sense of "take home, co-habit." Fuck was outlawed in print in England (by the Obscene Publications Act, 1857) and the U.S. (by the Comstock Act, 1873). The word may have been shunned in print, but it continued in conversation, especially among soldiers during WWI.
"It became so common that an effective way for the soldier to express this emotion was to omit this word. Thus if a sergeant said, 'Get your ----ing rifles!' it was understood as a matter of routine. But if he said 'Get your rifles!' there was an immediate implication of urgency and danger." [John Brophy, "Songs and Slang of the British Soldier: 1914-1918," pub. 1930]
The legal barriers broke down in the 20th century, with the "Ulysses" decision (U.S., 1933) and "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (U.S., 1959; U.K., 1960). Johnson excluded the word, and fuck wasn't in a single English language dictionary from 1795 to 1965. "The Penguin Dictionary" broke the taboo in the latter year. Houghton Mifflin followed, in 1969, with "The American Heritage Dictionary," but it also published a "Clean Green" edition without the word, to assure itself access to the lucrative public high school market. The abbreviation F (or eff) probably began as euphemistic, but by 1943 it was being used as a cuss word, too. In 1948, the publishers of "The Naked and the Dead" persuaded Norman Mailer to use the euphemism fug instead. When Mailer later was introduced to Dorothy Parker, she greeted him with, "So you're the man who can't spell 'fuck' " [The quip sometimes is attributed to Tallulah Bankhead]. Hemingway used muck in "For whom the Bell Tolls" (1940). The major breakthrough in publication was James Jones' "From Here to Eternity" (1950), with 50 fucks (down from 258 in the original manuscript). Egyptian legal agreements from the 23rd Dynasty (749-21 B.C.E.) frequently include the phrase, "If you do not obey this decree, may a donkey copulate with you!" [Reinhold Aman, "Maledicta," Summer 1977]. Fuck-all "nothing" first recorded 1960. Verbal phrase fuck up "to ruin, spoil, destroy" first attested c.1916. A widespread group of Slavic words (cf. Pol. pierdolić) can mean both "fornicate" and "make a mistake." Fuck off attested from 1929; as a command to depart, by 1944. Flying fuck originally meant "have sex on horseback" and is first attested c.1800 in broadside ballad "New Feats of Horsemanship." For the unkillable urban legend that this word is an acronym of some sort (a fiction traceable on the Internet to 1995 but probably predating that) see here, and also here. Related: Fucked; fucking. Agent noun fucker attested from 1590s in literal sense; by 1893 as a term of abuse (or admiration).
pied: 1382, as if it were the pp. of a verb form of M.E. noun pie "magpie" (see pie (2)), in ref. to the bird's black and white plumage. Earliest use is in reference to the pyed freres, an order of friars who wore black and white. Also in pied piper (1845, in Browning's poem based on the Ger. legend; used allusively from 1942).
ducat: late 14c., from O.Fr. ducat, from It. ducato, from M.L. ducatus "coin," originally "duchy," from dux (gen. ducis) "duke" (see duke). So called for the name or effigy of Roger II of Sicily, Duke of Apulia, which first issued the coins (c.1140). The legend on them read, "Sit tibi, Christe, datus, quem tu regis, iste ducatus." Byzantine emperor Constantine X had the Gk. form doux struck on his coins during his reign (1059-1067). Over the years it was a unit of currency of varying value in Holland, Russia, Austria, Sweden, Venice, etc. Remained popular in slang for "money" or "ticket" from its prominence in "The Merchant of Venice."
snuff (v.1): "to cut or pinch off the burned part of a candle wick," c.1450, from noun snoffe "burned part of a candle wick" (1382), of unknown origin, perhaps related to snuff (v.2). The meaning "to die" is from 1865; that of "to kill" is from 1932; snuff-film, urban legend, is from 1975.
motto: 1589, from It. motto "a saying, legend attached to a heraldic design," from L.L. muttum "grunt, word," from L. muttire "to mutter, mumble, murmur."
myth: 1830, from Gk. mythos "speech, thought, story, myth," of unknown origin.
Myths are "stories about divine beings, generally arranged in a coherent system; they are revered as true and sacred; they are endorsed by rulers and priests; and closely linked to religion. Once this link is broken, and the actors in the story are not regarded as gods but as human heroes, giants or fairies, it is no longer a myth but a folktale. Where the central actor is divine but the story is trivial ... the result is religious legend, not myth." [J. Simpson & S. Roud, "Dictionary of English Folklore," Oxford, 2000, p.254]
General sense of "untrue story, rumor" is from 1840.
Prince Albert: "piercing that consists of a ring which goes through the urethra and out behind the glans," mid-20c., supposedly so-called from the modern legend that Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1819-61), prince consort of Queen Victoria, had one. But the term seems to be not older than bodyart maven Doug Malloy and his circle, and the stories about the prince may be fantastical inventions. Perhaps there is some connection with Albert underworld/pawnshop slang for "gold watch chain" (1861), which is probably from the common portraits of the prince in which he is shown with a conspicuous gold watch chain. Many fashions in male dress made popular by him bore his name late 19c.
storied: 1481, "ornamented with scenes from history," from story (1). Meaning "celebrated in history or legend" is from 1725.
Christopher: masc. proper name, lit. "Christ-bearing." In medieval legend he was a giant (one of the rare virtuous ones) who aided travellers by carrying them across a river. Medallions with his image worn by travellers are known from the Middle Ages (e.g. Chaucer's Yeoman).
Veronica: fem. proper name, a variant of Gk. Berenike (see Berenice). The popular "Saint Veronica" (not in the Roman Martyrology) traditionally was a pious woman who wiped the face of Christ when he fell carrying the cross to Calvary. The image of his face remained on the cloth, and the "veil of Veronica" has been preserved in Rome from the 8c. Her popularity rose with the propagation of the Stations of the Cross. Some also identified her with the woman with the issue of blood, cured by Christ, as in the East this woman was identified from an early date by the name Berenike.
"In sum, it seems likely that the story of Veronica is a delightful legend without any solid historical basis; that Veronica is a purely fictitious, not a historical character, and that the story was invented to explain the relic. It aroused great interest in the later Middle Ages in the general devotional context of increased concern with the humanity of Christ, especially the Holy Face, and the physical elements of his Passion." [David Hugh Farmer, "The Oxford Dictionary of Saints," 1978]
Hence vernicle (mid-14c.) "picture of the face of Christ," from O.Fr. veronicle, var. of veronique.
worthy (adj.): mid-13c., "having merit," from worth (1). Attested from c.1300 as a noun meaning "person of merit" (esp. in Nine Worthies, famous men of history and legend: Joshua, David, Judas Maccabæus, Hector, Alexander, Julius Cæsar, Arthur, Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon -- three Jews, three gentiles, three Christians).
Afghan: name of the people of Afghanistan, technically only correctly applied to the Durani Afghans; Old Afghan chronicles trace the name to an Afghana, son of Jeremiah, sone of Israelite King Saul, from whom they claimed descent, but this is a legend. The name is first attested in Arabic in al-'Utbi's "History of Sultan Mahmud" written c.1030 C.E. and was in use in India from 13c. Attested from 1833 as a type of blanket or wrap (in full, Afghan shawl); 1973 as a style of sheepskin coat; 1877 as a type of carpet; 1895 as a breed of hunting dog.