fem. proper name, from Latin, literally "queen;" related to rex (genitive regis) "king" (from PIE root *reg- "move in a straight line," with derivatives meaning "to direct in a straight line," thus "to lead, rule"). Cognate with Sanskrit rajni "queen," Welsh rhyain "maiden, virgin." The capital city of Saskatchewan was named 1882 by the then-governor general of Canada, Marquess of Lorne, in honor of Queen Victoria.
trans-Atlantic shipping line begun by Samuel Cunard (1787-1865), shipowner, of Halifax, Nova Scotia, who won the first British transatlantic steamship mail contract in 1839 and the next year formed the British and North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company (reorganized 1879 as Cunard Steamship Company).
The family came to Pennsylvania with Penn in 1683, where their descendants are the Conrads; the shipping magnate's line took an older spelling; his grandfather was a Loyalist who fled to Canada after the Revolution.
main island of New York City, from Dutch, from a native name, perhaps representing a Delaware (Algonquian) source akin to Munsee munahan "island." Bright favors Munsee /e:nta menahahte:nk/ "where one gathers bows." As the name of a cocktail made of vermouth, whiskey, and a dash of bitters, it is attested by 1878 (in Manhattan cocktail). Related: Manhattanese.
masc. proper name, from French Frédéric, from German Friedrich, from Old High German Fridurih, from Proto-Germanic *frithu-rik, literally "peace-rule," from *rik- "rule" (from PIE root *reg- "move in a straight line," with derivatives meaning "to direct in a straight line," thus "to lead, rule") + *frithu- "peace" (source also of Old English friðu "peace, truce"), from suffixed form of PIE root *pri- "to be friendly, to love."
Related to the first half of Friday and the second half of afraid, also the second element in Siegfried, Godfrey, Geoffrey. Not a common name in medieval England, found mostly in the eastern counties.
city in western New York state, U.S., of disputed origin (there never were bison thereabouts), perhaps from the name of a native chief, or a corruption of French beau fleuve "beautiful river." Buffalo wings finger food so called because the recipe was invented in Buffalo (1964, at Frank & Teressa's Anchor Bar on Main Street).
"drink laced with chloral hydrate," by 1918. Mickey Finn was used from the 1880s as the name of the main character in a series of popular humorous Irish-American stories published by New York Sun staff writer Ernest Jarrold (1848-1912), who sometimes also used it as his pen-name. Perhaps there is a connection.
Latin name of Britain, preserved in poetry and as the proper name of the female figure who personifies the place on coinage, etc.
When Britain first, at Heaven's command
Arose from out the azure main;
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang this strain:
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."
[James Thomson, 1740]
"mark on the hull of a British ship showing how deeply she may be loaded," 1876 (Plimsoll's mark), from Samuel Plimsoll (1824-1898), M.P. for Derby and advocate of shipping reforms (which were embodied in the Merchant Shipping Act of 1876 and required the load-line mark).
The sense was extended by 1907 to rubber-soled canvas shoe (equivalent of American English sneakers) because the band around the shoes that holds the two parts together reminded people of a ship's Plimsoll line; this sense perhaps also was reinforced by sound association with sole (n.1), which sometimes influenced the spelling to plimsole. The surname is of Huguenot origin.
