musical instrument with a trapezoidal body and metallic strings, late 15c., doucemer, from Old French doulce mer, variant of doulcemele, (compare obsolete Spanish dulcemele, Italian dolcemele), which is said to represent Latin *dulce melos, from dulce "sweet" (see dulcet) + melos "song" (from Greek melos "melody," which is of uncertain origin).

"sweetheart," 1748, from the name of Don Quixote's mistress in Cervantes' romance, the name is a Spanish fem. derivative of Latin dulce "sweet" (see dulcet).

mid-15c., divulgen, "make public, send or scatter abroad" (now obsolete in this general sense), from Latin divulgare "publish, make common," from assimilated form of dis- "apart" (see dis-) + vulgare "make common property," from vulgus "common people" (see vulgar). Sense of "to tell or make known something formerly private or secret" is from c. 1600. Related: Divulged; divulging.

Latin translation of the Bible, especially that completed in 405 by St. Jerome (c.340-420), c. 1600, from Medieval Latin Vulgata, from Late Latin vulgata "common, general, ordinary, popular" (in vulgata editio "popular edition"), from Latin vulgata, fem. past participle of vulgare "make common or public, spread among the multitude," from vulgus "the common people" (see vulgar). So called because the translations made the book accessible to the common people of ancient Rome.

late 14c., "one of a race of female warriors in Scythia," via Old French (13c.) or Latin, from Greek Amazon (mostly in plural Amazones), probably from an unknown non-Indo-European word, or possibly from an Iranian compound *ha-maz-an- "(one) fighting together" [Watkins]. But in folk etymology it has been long derived from a- "without" + mazos, variant of mastos "breast;" hence the story that the Amazons cut or burned off one breast so they could draw bowstrings more efficiently.

It was also used generally in early Modern English of female warriors; strong, tall, or masculine women; and the queen in chess.

The river in South America (originally called by the Spanish Rio Santa Maria de la Mar Dulce) was rechristened with this name by Francisco de Orellana, 1541, after an encounter with female warriors of the Tapuyas (or, as some say, beardless, long-haired male tribesmen). Others hold that the river name is a corruption of a native word in Tupi or Guarani meaning "wave."