How the heck do you spell "RE - PUH - TWAR"
- Thread starter Spooner
- Start date
A sample:
Apricot
This term, which comes from the French abricot--and was aubercot until the Fifteenth Century
Biscuit
From the mediaeval French 'Bis + cuit' meaning 'cooked twice'
Boudoir
Literally, "a place to sulk in" from the French "bouder," to pout.
Boulevard (French) Boulevard; and Bulwark
From the Old Dutch word, "bolwerk," a type of fortification: a "Bulwark." The word changed in French from, "boullewerc" to "bollewerc" to "boulever" and, ultimately, to "boulevard."
Butcher; Boucher (French); Beccaio (old Italian)
These terms date from the thirteenth century as a term denoting the person who prepared and cut up any kind of meat.
Cerveza (Spanish) Beer
This term, which means "beer" in Spanish, originally came from the medieval French word cervoise.
Cheers
From the Greek "Kara" for "face," via the Latin "Cara," and Old French "Chiere" for the same.
Coward
From the Old French "coe" meaning "tail." The OED adds, "The precise reference to tail is uncertain: it may be to an animal `turning tail' in flight, or to the habit in frightened animals of drawing the tail between the hinder legs:
Cretin
From the French "Crétin," which originally meant "Christian."
Curfew
From the French "couvrir feu," literally, "Cover Fire."
Essay
The English noun essay comes from the French verb "essayer," to try.
Forest
From the French meaning the same
Gin; Ginebra (Spanish); Genievre (French)
The English word "gin" comes from the French word genievre
Mayonnaise
The -aise suffix is French for "native to" or "originating in."
Marcher (French) To Walk
The OED says, "The etymology of Fr. marcher is obscure; the prevailing view is that the oldest recorded sense `to trample' was developed from a sense `to hammer', and that the word represents a Gaulish Latin *marcare, f. L. marcus hammer."
Mistress
From the French "Maîtresse," which originally meant "bride."
Omlette
Coming to English via the French word meaning the same,
Pedigree
From the French "Ped de gru," which means or meant, "Crane's foot," the /|\ symbol "used to denote succession in a genealogical table."
Regret
From the French "regretter," which originally meant, "lament over the dead."
Rich
In Old French, "riche" meant "powerful"; it came to mean wealthy only by semantic extension. Originally from the German, Reich.
Suede
Gants de Suede is French for "gloves of Sweden." It was in Sweden that the first leather was buffed to a fine softness, and the French bought the gants de Suede.
Tennis
"Tennis," a sport which first developed in France, was originally "tenez" (pronounced tuh-nay)
Travel
From the French "travail," meaning, "work."
Umpire
From French 'non partiere' (impartial, neutral).
I'm confused, could you clarify?Word History: Charles C. Boycott seems to have become a household word because of his strong sense of duty to his employer. An Englishman and former British soldier, Boycott was the estate agent of the Earl of Erne in County Mayo, Ireland. The earl was one of the absentee landowners who as a group held most of the land in Ireland. Boycott was chosen in the fall of 1880 to be the test case for a new policy advocated by Charles Parnell, an Irish politician who wanted land reform. Any landlord who would not charge lower rents or any tenant who took over the farm of an evicted tenant would be given the complete cold shoulder by Parnell's supporters. Boycott refused to charge lower rents and ejected his tenants. At this point members of Parnell's Irish Land League stepped in, and Boycott and his family found themselves isolatedwithout servants, farmhands, service in stores, or mail delivery. Boycott's name was quickly adopted as the term for this treatment, not just in English but in other languages such as French, Dutch, German, and Russian.
there are some words we use that are the same in french and then there are others that just come from french roots. I was voting to boycott frehcn words not all words with french roots. Comprende?
Not really. Well, it's not that I don't comprehend it's just that I differ with you on opinion regarding this not so contentious issue.
English is the b@stard child of every different language that has come down the pike. It makes for a supremely adaptive and dynamic language.
I would argue that popular use of a word defines its nationality. Not to say that croissant is no longer a French word, but that Americans use the term differently than the French and have therefore imparted our own distinct national flavor to its use.
A boycott of anything based on nationality alone is pretty dumb.
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