WELCOME TO JIM MALONEY’S
ETYMOLOGICAL PICKS PAGE
“Definitions are not enough to give you the real flavor and feeling of the words you use, for words grow and change like living things, and carry their history with them.”
--The Chambers Etymological English Dictionary (1966 paperback ed., page 1)
Below are links to some of my favorite word etymologies. Some refer to the selected word only in its limited use in a slang or other specific context, explaining not how the word itself originated, but only how it came into use in the specific context. In another case (millenium), I provide my own inferred etymology of the word as commonly misspelled (explaining what the misspelled version really ought to mean based on the Latin root involved). I have learned about some of the word origins from sources such as the dictionary cited above. But a few (e.g., familiar, omertà and schlemazel) I have figured out myself. I make no guarantee as to their accuracy, but I believe them to be correct (notwithstanding, in some cases, alternative theories), and I offer them for your consideration and entertainment. Click on a word for my writeup of its etymology.
apron
bread
familiar
gamut
millenium
omertà
orange
racketeering
raspberry
schlemazel
stevedore
