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123 entries found.

1610s, "small sweet cake made of ground almonds (instead of flour) and whites of eggs," from French macaron (16c.), from dialectal Italian maccarone, the name of a kind of pasty food made of flour, cheese, and butter (see macaroni). The French meaning is said to have been introduced 1552 by Rabelais. The -oon ending was conventional in 15c.-17c. English to add emphasis to borrowings of French nouns ending in stressed -on.

baleen (n.)

early 14c., "whalebone," from Old French balaine "whale, whalebone" (12c.), from Latin ballaena, from Greek phallaina "whale," which is apparently phallos "swollen penis" (perhaps because of a whale's body shape) with a fem. suffix. If so, it is from PIE root *bhel- (2) "to blow, swell." The b- (instead of -p-) for ph- substitution shows it entered Latin through a third language (Klein suggests Illyrian).

pronoun (n.)

"word used instead of a noun to avoid repetition of it," mid-15c., from Old French pronon, pronom, and directly from Latin pronomen "word standing in place of a noun," from pro, here meaning "in place of," + nomen "name, noun" (from PIE root *no-men- "name"). The Latin word is a loan-translation of Greek antonymia. The form of the English and French words was altered to conform with noun.

skedaddle (v.)

"to run away," 1861, American Civil War military slang, of unknown origin, perhaps connected to earlier use in northern England dialect with a meaning "to spill." Liberman says it "has no connection with any word of Greek, Irish, or Swedish, and it is not a blend" [contra De Vere]. He calls it instead an "enlargement of dial. scaddle 'scare, frighten.'" Related: Skedaddled; skedaddling. As a noun from 1870.

pelagic (adj.)

"pertaining to the open sea, marine, oceanic" (as opposed to coastal), 1650s, from Latin pelagicus, from Greek pelagikos, from pelagos "sea, high sea, open sea, main." Beekes rejects the traditional derivation from PIE root *plak- (1) "to spread out, be flat" as without evidence and concludes instead that "the word rather seems to be Pre-Greek." In later use especially "living at or near the surface of the open ocean."

pizzicato (n.)

1845; in music for stringed instruments of the viol family, noting a manner of playing (and the effect produced by it) when the strings are plucked by the finger instead of sounded by the bow, from Italian pizzicato "plucked," past participle of pizzicare "to pluck (strings), pinch," from pizzare "to prick, to sting," from Old Italian pizzo "point, edge," from Vulgar Latin *pits-, probably of imitative origin. As an adjective from 1880.

airline (n.)

also air-line, 1813, "beeline, straight line between two points on the earth's surface" (as through the air, rather than over terrain), from air (n.1) + line (n.). From 1853 and in later 19c. especially in reference to railways that ran directly between big cities in the U.S. instead of meandering from town to town in search of stock subscriptions as early railways typically did. Meaning "public aircraft transportation company" is from 1914.

bogart (v.)

drug slang, "to keep a joint in your mouth," dangling from the lip like Humphrey Bogart's cigarette in the old movies, instead of passing it on, 1969, first attested in "Easy Rider." The word also was used 1960s with notions of "get something by intimidation, be a tough guy" (again with reference to the actor and the characters he typically played). In old drinking slang, Captain Cork was "a man slow in passing the bottle."

accordion (n.)

"small, keyed, bellows-like wind instrument," 1830, from German Akkordion, from Akkord "musical chord, concord of sounds," from a verb similar to Old French acorder "agree, be in harmony," from Vulgar Latin *accordare (compare Italian accordare "to attune a musical instrument;" see accord (v.)), with suffix on analogy of clarion, etc. Invented 1829 by piano-maker Cyrill Demian of Vienna. The type with a keyboard instead of buttons is a piano accordion. Related: Accordionist.

pall (n.)

Middle English pal, from Old English pæll "rich cloth or cloak, purple robe, altar cloth," from Latin pallium "cloak, coverlet, covering," in Tertullian, the garment worn by Christians instead of the Roman toga; related to pallo "robe, cloak," palla "long upper garment of Roman women," perhaps from the root of pellis "skin." The notion of "cloth spread over a coffin" (mid-15c.) led to figurative sense of "dark, gloomy mood" (1742). The earlier figurative sense is "something that covers or conceals" (mid-15c.).

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