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41 entries found.

city in southern California, U.S., founded 1781; the modern name is short for the original, given variously as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles or El Pueblo de la Reyna de los Ángeles.

Hallstatt

1866 in reference to an Iron Age civilization of Europe, from the name of a village in Upper Austria, where implements from this period were found. The Germanic name is literally "place of salt," in reference to ancient salt mines there, which preserved the bodies of the original miners.

Hayward

proper name, from Old English hege-weard "guardian of the fence/hedge" (see hedge (n.) + ward (n.)). His original duties seem to have been protecting the fences around the Lammas lands, when enclosed, to prevent cattle from breaking in while the crops grew.

Manchester

large city in Lancashire, Mameceastre (1086), from Mamucio (4c.), the original Celtic name, which is perhaps from *mamm "breast, breast-like hill," + Old English ceaster "Roman town" (see Chester). Adjective Mancunian is from the Medieval Latin form of the place-name, Mancunium.

Switzerland

named for Schwyz, one of its original cantons. On postage stamps, etc., identified by the Roman name for the region, Helvetia, to avoid having to print the four different forms of the name in the country's four official languages: Suisse, Schweiz, Svizzera, Svizra.

Toronto

city in Ontario, Canada, founded 1793 as York, renamed 1834 for a native village that appears on a 1656 map as Tarantou, from an Iroquoian source, original form and sense unknown; perhaps taron-to-hen "wood in the water," or Huron deondo "meeting place."

Byzantine (adj.)

pertaining to Byzantium (q.v., original name of Constantinople, modern Istanbul), 1770, from Late Latin Byzantinus; originally used of the style of art and architecture developed there 4c.-5c. C.E.; later in reference to the complex, devious, and intriguing character of the royal court of Constantinople (1937). As a noun from 1770. Byzantian is from 1610s.

Manila

1690s, capital of the Philippines, said to be from Tagalog may "there is" + nila "shrub of the indigo family," but this last element would not be a native word. It gave its name (with altered spelling) to manilla hemp (1814), the original source of manilla paper (1832); see manilla (1).

Edinburgh

older than King Edwin of Northumbria (who often is credited as the source of the name); originally Din Eidyn, Celtic, perhaps literally "fort on a slope." Later the first element was trimmed off and Old English burh "fort" added in its place." Dunedin in New Zealand represents an attempt at the original form.

Permian

1841, "pertaining to the uppermost strata of the Paleozoic era," named by British geologist Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (1792-1871) for the region of Perm in northwestern Russia, where Murchison had studied rocks from this epoch. His original definition of the rock system was somewhat broader in each direction, chronologically, than the current one.

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