Online Etymology Dictionary

world war: first attested 1909 as a speculation, probably a translation of Ger. Weltkrieg. Applied to the first one soon after it began in 1914. World War I coined 1939, replacing Great War as the most common name for it; First World War first attested 1947. World War II so-called since 1939; Second World War is from 1942.
world: O.E. woruld, worold "human existence, the affairs of life," also "the human race, mankind," a word peculiar to Gmc. languages (cf. O.S. werold, O.Fris. warld, Du. wereld, O.N. verold, O.H.G. weralt, Ger. Welt), with a literal sense of "age of man," from P.Gmc. *wer "man" (O.E. wer, still in werewolf; see virile) + *ald "age" (see old). Originally "life on earth, this world (as opposed to the afterlife)," sense extended to "the known world" (e.g. "Greatest Show on Earth"), then to "the physical world in the broadest sense, the universe" (c.1200). In O.E. gospels, the commonest word for "the physical world," was Middangeard (O.N. Midgard), lit. "the middle enclosure" (cf. yard), which is rooted in Gmc. cosmology. Gk. kosmos in its ecclesiastical sense of "world of people" sometimes was rendered in Goth. as manaseþs, lit. "seed of man." The usual O.N. word was heimr, lit. "abode" (see home). Words for "world" in some other I.E. languages derive from the root for "bottom, foundation" (cf. Ir. domun, O.C.S. duno, related to Eng. deep); the Lith. word is pasaulis, from pa- "under" + saule "sun." Original sense in world without end, translating L. sæcula sæculorum, and in worldly. L. sæculum can mean both "age" and "world," as can Gk. aion. Worldwide is from 1632. World power in the geopolitical sense first recorded 1900. World-class is attested from 1950, originally of Olympic athletes.
worldview: 1858, from world + view, translating Ger. weltanschauung.
worldly: O.E. woruldlic, from the roots of world and like (adj.). A common Gmc. compound (cf. O.Fris. wraldlik, O.S. weroldlik, M.Du. wereldlik, Ger. weltlich, O.N. veraldligr). Worldly-wise is recorded from c.1400.
microcosm: 1426, "human nature, man viewed as the epitome of creation," lit. "miniature world," from M.Fr. microcosme, from M.L. microcosmus, from Gk. mikros "small" + kosmos "world" (see cosmos). General sense of "a community constituting a world unto itself" is attested from 1526.
map: 1520s, shortening of M.E. mapemounde "map of the world" (late 14c.), from M.L. mappa mundi "map of the world," first element from L. mappa "napkin, cloth" (on which maps were drawn), said by Quintilian to be of Punic origin (cf. Talmudic Heb. mappa, contraction of menafa "a fluttering banner") + L. mundi "of the world," from mundus "universe, world" (see mundane). The verb map is first attested 1580s; to put (something) on the map "bring it to wide attention" is from 1913. Related: mapping.
Third World: 1963, from Fr. tiers monde, formulated 1952 by A. Sauvy on model of the third estate (Fr. tiers état) of Revolutionary France; his first world (The West) and second world (the Soviet bloc) never caught on.
Cuzco: city in Peru, former capital of the Inca Empire, from Quechua (Inca), lit. "navel," in a figurative meaning "center" (of the world, as the navel is the center of the body). Other places known as "navel of the world" include Delphi, Jerusalem, Rome, Easter Island, and Mount Kailash in Tibet.
cosmos: c.1200 (but not popular until 1848, as a translation of Humboldt's Kosmos), from Gk. kosmos "order, good order, orderly arrangement" (cf. Homeric kosmeo, used of the act of marshaling troops), with an important secondary sense of "ornaments of a woman's dress, decoration" (cf. kosmokomes "dressing the hair"), also "the universe, the world." Pythagoras is said to have been the first to apply this word to "the universe," perhaps originally meaning "the starry firmament," but later it was extended to the whole physical world, including the earth. For specific reference to "the world of people," the classical phrase was he oikoumene (ge) "the inhabited (earth)." Septuagint uses both kosmos and oikoumene. Kosmos also was used in Christian religious writing with a sense of "worldly life, this world (as opposed to the afterlife)," but the more frequent word for this was aion, lit. "lifetime, age."
lima bean: 1756, associated with Lima, Peru, from which region the plant (Phaseolus lunatus) was introduced to Europe c.1500. Among the earliest New World crops to be known in the Old World, Simmonds' "Dictionary of Trade" (1858) describes it as "esteemed," but it has the consistency of a diseased dog kidney.
secular: late 13c., "living in the world, not belonging to a religious order," also "belonging to the state," from O.Fr. seculer, from L.L. sæcularis "worldly, secular," from L. sæcularis "of an age, occurring once in an age," from sæculum "age, span of time, generation," probably originally cognate with words for "seed," from PIE base *se(i)- "to sow" (cf. Goth. mana-seþs "mankind, world," lit. "seed of men"). Used in ecclesiastical writing like Gk. aion "of this world" (see cosmos). It is source of Fr. siècle. Ancient Roman ludi sæculares was a three-day, day-and-night celebration coming once in an "age" (120 years). Secularism "doctrine that morality should be based on the well-being of man in the present life, without regard to religious belief or a hereafter" first recorded 1846.
mondo: "very much, extreme," 1979, from It. mondo "world," from "Mondo cane," 1961 film, lit. "world for a dog" (Eng. title "A Dog's Life"), depicting eccentric human behavior; the word was abstracted from the original title and taken as an intensifier.
caiman: 1570s, from Port. or Sp. caiman, from a Carib word, or perhaps from a Congo African word applied to the reptiles in the new world by African slaves. "The name appears to be one of those like anaconda and bom, boma, which the Portuguese or Spaniards very early caught up in one part of the world, and naturalized in another." [OED]
fraternize: 1610s, "to sympathize as brothers," from Fr. fraterniser, from M.L. fraternizare, from fraternus "brotherly" (see fraternity). Military sense of "cultivate friendship with enemy troops" is from 1897 (used in World War I with reference to the Christmas Truce). Used oddly by World War II armed forces to mean "have sex with women from enemy countries." Related: Fraternizing.
beaumonde: "the fashionable world," 1714, from beau + monde, from L. mundus "world" (see mundane).
cosmopolite: late 16c., from Gk. kosmopolites "citizen of the world," from kosmos "world" (see cosmos) + polites "citizen" (see politic). In common use 17c. in a neutral sense; revived from c.1800 with a tinge of reproachfulness (opposed to patriot).
cosmogony: 1690s as "a theory of the creation;" 1766 as "the creation of the universe," from Gk. kosmogonia "creation of the world," from kosmos "world, universe" (see cosmos) + -gonia "a begetting."
demi-monde: 1855, also demimonde, from Fr. demi-monde "so-so society," lit. "half-world," from demi- "half" + monde, from L. mundus "world" (see mundane). Popularized by use in title of a comedy by Alexandre Dumas fils (1824–1895). Dumas' Demi-Monde "is the link between good and bad society ... the world of compromised women, a social limbo, the inmates of which ... are perpetually struggling to emerge into the paradise of honest and respectable ladies" ["Fraser's Magazine," 1855]. Not properly used of courtesans. Eighteenth-century English demi-rep (1749, the second element short for reputation) was defined as "a woman that intrigues with every man she likes, under the name and appearance of virtue ... in short, whom every body knows to be what no body calls her" [Fielding].
macrocosm: c.1600, "the great world" (the universe, as distinct from the "little world" of man), from O.Fr. macrocosme (c.1300), from M.L. macrocosmus, from Gk. makros "large, long" (see macro-) + kosmos "cosmos" (see cosmos).
cosmopolitan (adj.): 1844, from cosmopolite "citizen of the world" (1614), from Gk. kosmopolites, from kosmos "world" (see cosmos) + polites "citizen," from polis "city" (see policy (1)). Cosmopolitanism first recorded 1828.
juggernaut: 1638, "huge wagon bearing an image of the god Krishna," especially that at the town of Puri, drawn annually in procession in which (apocryphally) devotees allowed themselves to be crushed under its wheels in sacrifice. Altered from Jaggernaut, a title of Krishna (an incarnation of Vishnu), from Hindi Jagannath, lit. "lord of the world," from Skt. jagat "world" + natha-s "lord, master." The first European description of the festival is by Friar Odoric (c.1321). Fig. sense of "anything that demands blind devotion or merciless sacrifice" is from 1854.
Mir: space station, from Rus., lit. "peace, world," also "village, community," from O.C.S. miru "peace," from Proto-Slavic *miru "commune, joy, peace" ("possibly borrowed from Iranian" -Watkins), from PIE base *mei- "to bind" (see mitre). O.C.S. miru was "used in Christian terminology as a collective 'community of peace' " [Buck], translating Gk. kosmos. Hence, "the known world, mankind."
Jerry: World War I British Army slang for "German," 1919, probably an alteration of German, but also said to be from the shape of the Ger. helmet, which was like a jerry, British slang for "chamber pot" (1827), probably an abbreviation of jeroboam. Hence jerry-can "5-gallon metal container" (1943), a type first used by German troops in World War II, later adopted by the Allies.
Old World (adj.): of or pertaining to Eurasia and Africa, as opposed to the Americas, 1877.
G.I.: 1936 (adj.), Amer.Eng., apparently an abbreviation of Government Issue, applied to anything associated with servicemen. Transferred sense to "soldiers" during World War II (first recorded 1943) is from the jocular notion that the men themselves were manufactured by the government. An earlier G.I. was an abbreviation of Galvanized Iron in G.I. can, a type of metal trash can, the term being picked up by U.S. soldiers in World War I as slang for a similar-looking type of German artillery shells. This use is attested from 1928, but it is highly unlikely that this came to mean "soldier." I probably get more e-mail about this entry than any other. No two sources I have agree on the etymology, but none backs the widespread notion that it stands for *General Infantry.
armistice: 1707, from Fr. armistice, coined 1688 on the model of L. solstitium (see solstice), etc., from L. arma "arms" (see arm (2)) + -stitium (used only in compounds), from sistere "cause to stand" (see assist). Ger. Waffenstillstand is a loan-transl. from Fr. Armistice Day (1919) marked the end of the Great War of 1914-18 on Nov. 11, 1918. In Britain, after World War II, it merged with Remembrance Day. In U.S., Armistice Day became a national holiday in 1926. In 1954, to honor World War II and Korean War veterans as well, it was re-dubbed Veterans Day.
axis: 1540s, "imaginary straight line around which a body (such as the Earth) rotates," from L. axis "axle, pivot, axis of the earth or sky," from PIE *aks- "axis" (cf. O.E. eax, O.H.G. ahsa "axle;" Gk. axon "axis, axle, wagon;" Skt. aksah "an axle, axis, beam of a balance;" Lith. aszis "axle"). Fig. sense in world history of "alliance between Germany and Italy" (later extended to include Japan) is from 1936. Original reference was to a "Rome-Berlin axis" in central Europe. The word later was used in ref. to a London-Washington axis (World War II) and a Moscow-Peking axis (early Cold War).
mundane: late 15c., from M.Fr. mondain (12c.), from L. mundanus "belonging to the world" (as distinct from the Church), from mundus "universe, world," lit. "clean, elegant"; used as a transl. of Gk. khosmos (see cosmos) in its Pythagorean sense of "the physical universe" (the original sense of the Gk. word was "orderly arrangement"). L. mundus also was used of a woman's "ornaments, dress," and is related to the adj. mundus "clean, elegant" (used of women's dress, etc.). Related: Mundanity.
great: O.E. great "big, coarse, stout," from W.Gmc. *grautaz (cf. O.S. grot, O.Fris. grat, Du. groot, Ger. groß "great"). Originally "big in size, coarse," it took over much of the sense of M.E. mickle, and is now largely superseded by big and large except for non-material things. As a prefix to terms denoting "kinship one degree further removed" (1538) it is from the similar use of Fr. grand, itself used as the equivalent of L. magnus. An O.E. way of saying "great-grandfather" was þridda fæder, lit. "third father." In the sense of "excellent, wonderful" great is attested from 1848. Great White Way "Broadway in New York City" is from 1901. Greatcoat "large, heavy overcoat" is from 1661. Great Spirit "high deity of the North American Indians," 1703, originally translates Ojibwa kitchi manitou. The Great War originally (1887) referred to the Napoleonic Wars, later (1914) to what we now call World War I (see world).
" 'The Great War' -- as, until the fall of France, the British continued to call the First World War in order to avoid admitting to themselves that they were now again engaged in a war of the same magnitude." [Arnold Toynbee, "Experiences," 1969]
whizbang: 1915, originally a type of Ger. artillery shell in World War I, so called by the Allied troops in reference to its characteristic sound.
America: 1507, in Cartographer Martin Waldseemüller's treatise "Cosmographiae Introductio," from Mod.L. Americanus, after Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) who made two trips to the New World as a navigator and claimed to have discovered it. His published works put forward the idea that it was a new continent, and he was first to call it Novus Mundus "New World." Amerigo is more easily Latinized than Vespucci. The name Amerigo is Gmc., said to derive from Goth. Amalrich, lit. "work-ruler." The O.E. form of the name has come down as surnames Emmerich, Emery, etc. The It. fem. form merged into Amelia. Amerika "U.S. society viewed as racist, fascist, oppressive, etc." first attested 1969; the spelling is Ger., but may also suggest the KKK.
conscientious objector: 1899, with ref. to British government in India and religious scruples about mandatory vaccination. Military sense predominated from World War I.
Charlie: 1965, Vietnam War U.S. military slang for "Vietcong, Vietcong soldier," probably suggested by Victor Charlie, military communication code for V.C. (as abbreviation of Viet Cong), perhaps strengthened by World War II slang use of Charlie for Japanese soldiers, probably an extension of the 1930s derogatory application of Charlie to any Asian man, from fictional Chinese detective Charlie Chan. Other applications include "a night watchman" (1812); "a goatee beard" (1834, from portraits of King Charles I and his contemporaries); "a fox" (1857); "a woman's breasts" (1874); "an infantryman's pack" (World War I); and "a white man" (Mr. Charlie), 1960, Amer.Eng., from black slang (his wife was Miss Ann).
turkey: 1540s, "guinea fowl" (Numida meleagris), imported from Madagascar via Turkey, by Near East traders known as turkey merchants. The larger North American bird (Meleagris gallopavo) was domesticated by the Aztecs, introduced to Spain by conquistadors (1523) and thence to wider Europe, by way of North Africa (then under Ottoman rule) and Turkey (Indian corn was originally turkey corn or turkey wheat in English for the same reason). The word turkey was first applied to it in English 1550s because it was identified with or treated as a species of the guinea fowl. The Turkish name for it is hindi, lit. "Indian," probably via Fr. dinde (contracted from poulet d'inde, lit. "chicken from India"), based on the common misconception that the New World was eastern Asia. The New World bird itself reputedly reached England by 1524 at the earliest estimate, though a date in the 1530s seems more likely. By 1575, turkey was becoming the usual main course at an English Christmas. Meaning "inferior show, failure," is 1927 in show business slang, probably from the bird's reputation for stupidity. Meaning "stupid, ineffectual person" is recorded from 1951. Turkey shoot "something easy" is World War II-era, in ref. to marksmanship contests where turkeys were tied behind a log with their heads showing as targets.
P.O.W.: acronym for prisoner of war, coined 1919, but not common until World War II.
deep: O.E. deop, from P.Gmc. *deupaz, from PIE *d(e)u- "deep, hollow" (cf. O.C.S. duno "bottom, foundation," O.Ir. domun "world," via sense development from "bottom" to "foundation" to "earth" to "world"). Figurative sense was in O.E.; extended 16c. to color, sound. Deep pocket "wealth" is from 1951. Deep-freeze was a registered trademark (U.S. Patent Office, 1941) of a type of refrigerator; used generically for "cold storage" since 1949. To go off the deep end "lose control of oneself" is slang first recorded 1921, probably in reference to the deep end of a swimming pool, where a person on the surface can no longer touch bottom. When 3-D films seemed destined to be the next wave and the biggest thing to hit cinema since "talkies," they were known as deepies (1953). The gods have spared us.
cosmic: 1640s; see cosmos. Originally "of this world;" sense of "of the universe" is from 1874.
anima mundi: 1670s, from M.L., lit. "soul of the world," used by Abelard to render Gk. psyche tou kosmou.
yo: as a greeting, 1859, but the word is attested as a sailor's or huntsman's utterance since c.1420. Modern popularity dates from World War II (when, it is said, it was a common response at roll calls) and seems to have been most intense in Philadelphia.
optimism: 1782, from Fr. optimisme (1737), from Mod.L. optimum, used by Leibnitz (in Théodicée, 1710) to mean "the greatest good," from L. optimus "the best" (see optimum). The doctrine holds that the actual world is the "best of all possible worlds," in which the creator accomplishes the most good at the cost of the least evil.
"En termes de l'art, il l'appelle la raison du meilleur ou plus savamment encore, et Theologiquement autant que Géométriquement, le systême de l'Optimum, ou l'Optimisme." [Mémoires de Trévoux, Feb. 1737]
Launched out of philosophical jargon and into currency by Voltaire's satire on it in "Candide." General sense of "belief that good ultimately will prevail in the world" first attested 1841 in Emerson; meaning "tendency to take a hopeful view of things" first recorded 1819 in Shelley.
SWAK: acronym for sealed with a kiss, attested from 1918; first ref. is to soldiers' letters home in World War I.
demob (v.): 1920, short for demobilize. Originally in reference to World War I troops returning to civilian life.
Iron Age: 1592, originally from Gk. and Roman mythology, the last and worst age of the world; the archaeological sense of "period in which humans used iron tools and weapons" is from 1879.
Siegfried Line: World War I Ger. fortifications in France, from Ger. Siegfriedlinie, named for the hero in Wagner's "Ring" cycle.
cootie: "body lice," 1917, British World War I slang, earlier in nautical use, said to be from Malay kutu "dog tick."
end: O.E. ende, from P.Gmc. *andja (cf. O.Fris. enda, O.N. endir, O.H.G. enti), originally "the opposite side," from PIE *antjo "end, boundary," from base anta-/*anti- "opposite, in front of, before" (see ante). Original sense of "outermost part" is obsolete except in phrase ends of the earth. Sense of "destruction, death" was in O.E. Meaning "division or quarter of a town" was in O.E. The verb is from O.E. endian. The end "the last straw, the limit" (in a disparaging sense) is from 1929. The phrase end run is first attested 1902 in U.S. football; extended to military tactics in World War II; general fig. sense is from 1968. End time in ref. to the end of the world is from 1917. Be-all and end-all is from Shakespeare ("Macbeth" I.vii.5).
"Worldly wealth he cared not for, desiring onely to make both ends meet." [1662]
sic transit gloria mundi: c.1600, from L., lit. "thus passes the glory of the world;" perhaps an alteration of a passage in Thomas Á Kempis' "Imitatio Christi" (1471).
SMERSH: Soviet Army counter-espionage organization begun during World War II, 1953, from Rus. abbrev. of smert' shpionam "death to spies." Introduced in Eng. by Ian Flemming.
Rhadamanthus: 1582, from L., from Gk. Rhadamanthos, one of the judges of the lower world (son of Zeus and Europa); used allusively of inflexible judges.
Thule: northernmost part of the world, O.E., from L., from Gk. Thyle "land six days' sail north of Britain" (Polybius). Identity is speculative; it came to be used in a transferred sense of "extreme limits of travel."