the customs union of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg, formed October 1947.
"the Netherlands," 1630s, also an adjective, "Dutch" (1670s), old slang, from Dutch Hoog en Mogend "high and mighty," an honorific of the States General of Holland.
city in Netherlands, from Dutch Den Haag, short for 's Gravenhage, literally "the count's hedge" (i.e. the hedge-enclosed hunting grounds of the counts of Holland); see haw (n.). In French, it is La Haye.
1811, "a book printed by William Caxton (obit c. 1491), English merchant in the Netherlands who learned there the art of printing and introduced it to England. The surname is from the place in Cambridgeshire, literally "Kak's estate," from the Old Norse personal name Kakkr.
c. 1600, in reference to the Netherlands, Flanders, and Frisia, "boggy or marshy soil," especially a tract of marshy land which as been reclaimed and brought under cultivation, from Dutch polder, from Middle Dutch polre, related to East Frisian poller, polder, words of unknown origin.
1540s, "asphodel," a variant of Middle English affodill "asphodel" (c. 1400), from Medieval Latin affodillus, from Latin asphodelus, from Greek asphodelos, which is of unknown origin. The initial d- is perhaps from merging of the article in Dutch de affodil, the Netherlands being a source for bulbs. First reference to the yellow, early spring flower we know by this name (Narcissus pseudo-Narcissus) is from 1590s. The name has many, often fanciful, variant forms. Lent-lily for "daffodil" is from 1827.
late 14c., "member of the German race, person of German birth or ancestry," from Dutch (adj.) + man (n.). From 1590s in narrowed sense of "inhabitant of Holland or the Netherlands," though "Century Dictionary" as late as 1897 reports it "in the U.S. often locally applied to Germans, and sometimes to Scandinavians" (other 19c. sources also include Baltics).
From 1650s in nautical use as "Dutch ship." References to the ghost ship called the Flying Dutchman seem to begin late 18c. (see flying).
"breaker or destroyer of images," 1590s, from French iconoclaste and directly from Medieval Latin iconoclastes, from Late Greek eikonoklastes, from eikon (genitive eikonos) "image" + klastes "breaker," from klas- past tense stem of klan "to break" (see clastic).
Originally in reference to those in the Eastern Church in 8c. and 9c. whose mobs of followers destroyed icons and other religious objects on the grounds that they were idols. Applied to 16c.-17c. Protestants in Netherlands who vandalized former Catholic churches on similar grounds. Extended sense of "one who attacks orthodox beliefs or cherished institutions" is first attested 1842.
c. 1300, exclamation of thanks, later of surprise, from Old French grant-merci, gran merci "great thanks, many thanks," from gran (see grand (adj.)) + merci "reward, favor, thanks" (see mercy (n.)). Modern French merci "thank you" is a shortening of this.
New York City's Gramercy Park is named for the Gramercy Farm which once stood there; the first part of the name is an 18c. folk-etymology from Crommeshie Fly, the name of a former marsh or shallow pond that stood nearby, itself a mangling of New Netherlands Dutch Crommessie Vly, the first part of which represents either *Krom Moerasje "little crooked swamp" or *Krom Messje "little crooked knife," said to have been the name of a brook flowing into (or out of) the pond.
"political organization of a country, supreme civil power, government," c. 1300, from special use of state (n.1); this sense grew out of the meaning "condition of a country" with regard to government, prosperity, etc. (late 13c.), from Latin phrases such as status rei publicæ "condition (or existence) of the republic."
The sense of "a semi-independent political entity under a federal authority, one of the bodies politic which together make up a federal republic" is from 1774. The British North American colonies occasionally were called states as far back as 1630s; the States has been short for "the United States of America" since 1777; also of the Netherlands. State rights in U.S. political sense is attested from 1798; form states rights is first recorded 1858. Church and state have been contrasted from 1580s. State-socialism attested from 1850.
