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1531 entries found.

1890, in reference to a punch-card system used in a mechanical tabulator and later for data processing in in the earliest computers, from name of U.S. inventor Herman Hollerith (1860-1929), who designed the system. For a time, in mid-20c. it sometimes was used figuratively in reference to modern society viewed as a processing machine.

Miami

place name in U.S.; the one in Florida is of unknown origin, attested in Spanish as Maymi (1566), Mayaimi (1575). The one in Ohio is from the Miami, native people there, attested from 18c., apparently from a native word /myaamiwa "downstream person."

Black Death (n.)

"bubonic/pneumonic plague epidemic of 1347-51 in Europe," a modern name, introduced in English 1823 by Elizabeth Penrose's history of England. The contemporary 14c. name for it in most European languages was something like "the great dying" or simply "the plague;" in English it was the pestilence (or, looking back after its return in 1361-2, the first pestilence).

The term "Black Death" first turns up in 16c. Swedish and Danish chronicles, but it is used in reference to a visitation of plague in Iceland (which had been spared in the earlier outbreaks) in 1402-3 that carried off much of the population there. The exact sense of "black" is not clear. The term appears in English translations of the Scandinavian works from 1750s. It was picked up in German c. 1770 and applied to the earlier outbreak and was taken from there into English in that sense.

Braxton Hicks

in reference to uterine contractions in pregnancy, 1905, from the name of English obstetrician John Braxton Hicks, who described them in 1872.

Trent

river in England, a Celtic name, perhaps "great wanderer," in reference to its flooding. The city in Italy (Italian Trento) is Roman Tridentum, in reference to the triple-peaked mountain nearby. The great ecumenical council there was held from 1543-63.

Cassegrain (adj.)

also Cassegrainian, in reference to a type of reflecting telescope, 1813, named for 17c. French priest and teacher Laurent Cassegrain, who described it in a journal article in 1672.

Lamaze (adj.)

in reference to a method of childbirth technique, 1957, named for French obstetrician Dr. Fernand Lamaze (1891-1957), who promoted his methods of "psycho-prophylaxis," a form of childbirth preparation he had studied in the Soviet Union, in the West in the early 1950s.

Lambeth

used metonymically for "Church of England, Archbishop of Canterbury," 1859, from the archbishop's palace in Lambeth, a South London borough. The place name is Old English lambehyðe, "place where lambs are embarked or landed." In church history, the Lambeth Articles were doctrinal statements written in 1595 by Archbishop of Canterbury John Whitgift. The Lambeth Walk was a Cockney song and dance, popularized in Britain 1937 in the revue "Me and my Gal," named for a street in the borough.

Ariel

1382, in the Wyclif Bible, a word taken untranslated from the Vulgate, from Greek ariel (Septuagint), from Hebrew ariel; in later Bibles, translated as "altar."

(Gesenius would here translate "fire-hearth of God," after Arab. arr; elsewhere in O.T. the same word occurs as a man's name, and appellation of Jerusalem, where it is taken as = "lion of God.") Ariel in T. Heywood and Milton is the name of an angel, in Shakespeare of "an Ayrie spirit"; in Astron. of one of the satellites of Uranus. [OED]

As the name of a species of gazelle found in the Middle East, 1832, from Arabic aryil, variant of ayyil "stag." The Uranian satellite was discovered in 1851.

Campbell

family name, from Gaelic caimbeul "wry or crooked mouth," from cam "crooked, deformed, one-eyed, cross-eyed." Also in surname Cameron. The Campbell Soup Company was started in 1869 in Camden, N.J., by fruit merchant Joseph A. Campbell (1817-1900) and Abraham A. Anderson; Campbell bought Anderson out in 1877. Andy Warhol began painting their cans in 1962.

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