1550s, "pertaining to the planet Saturn;" 1610s, "pertaining to the god Saturn or his reign," from French saturnien, from Latin saturnius, from Saturn (see Saturn).
As a noun, 1590s as "one born under the influence of Saturn;" by 1738 as "a native or inhabitant of Saturn."
Some cold Saturnian, when the lifted tube
Shows to his wond'ring eye our pensile globe,
Pities our thirsty soil, and sultry air,
And thanks the friendly pow'r that fix'd him there.
[Richard Savage, "The Genius of Liberty," dated 1734, published in Gentleman's Magazine, June 1738]
"clayey soil used for fertilizer, mixture of clay and carbonate of lime," mid-14c. (late 13c. in place-names), from Old French marle (Modern French marne) and directly from Medieval Latin margila, diminutive of Latin marga "marl," which is said by Pliny to be a Gaulish word, but modern Celtic cognates are considered to be borrowed from English or French.
As a verb, "to manure with marl," by late 14c. (marlen, from Old French marler and Medieval Latin marlare). Medieval Latin margila also is the source of Dutch mergel, German Mergel.
late 14c., "soil of the earth; cultivated land;" also "a piece of land forming part of a clergyman's benefice," from Old French glebe, from Latin gleba, glaeba "clod, lump of earth," possibly from a PIE *glem- or *glom-, which might mean "contain, embrace" or "ball," or might be two different roots. Possible cognates include Old English clamm "a tie, fetter;" Old High German klamma "trap, gorge;" Old Irish glomar "gag, curb;" Latin globus "sphere," gleba, glaeba "clod, lump of earth;" Old English clyppan "to embrace;" Lithuanian glėbys "armful," globti "to embrace, support."
Old English creopan "to move the body near or along the ground as a reptile or insect does" (class II strong verb; past tense creap, past participle cropen), from Proto-Germanic *kreupanan (source also of Old Frisian kriapa, Middle Dutch crupen, Old Norse krjupa "to creep"), perhaps from a PIE root *g(e)r- "crooked" [Watkins].
From c. 1300 as "move secretly or to evade detection," also "move slowly, feebly, or timorously." In reference to imperceptible movements of things (soil, railway rails, etc.) from 1870s. Related: Crept; creeping.
c. 1600, "native to a country," from Latin vernaculus "domestic, native, indigenous; pertaining to home-born slaves," from verna "home-born slave, native," a word of Etruscan origin. Used in English in the sense of Latin vernacula vocabula, in reference to language. As a noun, "native speech or language of a place," from 1706.
For human speech is after all a democratic product, the creation, not of scholars and grammarians, but of unschooled and unlettered people. Scholars and men of education may cultivate and enrich it, and make it flower into the beauty of a literary language; but its rarest blooms are grafted on a wild stock, and its roots are deep-buried in the common soil. [Logan Pearsall Smith, "Words and Idioms," 1925]
late 14c., "a large mass;" mid-15c., "spherical solid body, a sphere," from Old French globe (14c.) and directly from Latin globus "round mass, sphere, ball" (also, of men, "a throng, crowd, body, mass"), which is related to gleba "clod, lump of soil" (see glebe) and perhaps also to glomus "a ball, ball of yarn."
Sense of "the planet earth," also "map of the earth or sky drawn on the surface of an artificial sphere" are attested from 1550s. Meaning "globe-shaped glass vessel" is from 1660s. "A globe is often solid, a sphere often hollow. The secondary senses of globe are physical; those of sphere are moral." [Century Dictionary].
Proto-Indo-European root meaning "earth."
It forms all or part of: antichthon; autochthon; autochthonic; bonhomie; bridegroom; camomile; chameleon; chernozem; chthonic; exhume; homage; hombre; homicide; hominid; Homo sapiens; homunculus; human; humane; humble; humiliate; humility; humus; inhumation; inhume; nemo; ombre; omerta.
It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit ksam- "earth" (opposed to "sky"); Greek khthōn "the earth, solid surface of the earth," khamai "on the ground;" Latin humus "earth, soil," humilis "low;" Lithuanian žemė, Old Church Slavonic zemlja "earth;" Old Irish du, genitive don "place," earlier "earth."
Old English eorþe "ground, soil, dirt, dry land; country, district," also used (along with middangeard) for "the (material) world, the abode of man" (as opposed to the heavens or the underworld), from Proto-Germanic *ertho (source also of Old Frisian erthe "earth," Old Saxon ertha, Old Norse jörð, Middle Dutch eerde, Dutch aarde, Old High German erda, German Erde, Gothic airþa), perhaps from an extended form of PIE root *er- (2) "earth, ground."
The earth considered as a planet was so called from c. 1400. Use in old chemistry is from 1728. Earth-mover "large digging machine" is from 1940.
"instrument for loosening soil in digging, shaped like a pickaxe but with broad instead of pointed ends," Middle English mattok, from Old English mttoc, formerly said to be probably from Vulgar Latin *matteuca "club," which is related to Latin mateola, a kind of mallet (see mace (n.1)), but this is not certain, and synonymous Russian motyka, Polish motyka, Lithuanian matikas, as well as Old High German medela "plow," Middle High German metz "knife" suggest rather a PIE *mat- as source of the Latin, Germanic, and Slavic words. OED says similar words in Welsh and Gaelic are from English.
