Friday, August 04, 2006

All the wings on the moor, all the fish in the flow

In the event that you don't know Persian, Latin, Greek, Tamil, French, and Old English, this handy website will assist you in finding the pesky word histories you've so longed for. Today, I looked up "catamaran" and "pajamas." See if you can guess what they mean before you look it up in the Online Etymology Dictionary. Answers after the jump


catamaran
1673, from Tamil kattu-maram "tied wood," from kattu "tie" + maram "wood, tree."
pajamas
1800, pai jamahs "loose trousers tied at the waist," worn by Muslims in India and adopted by Europeans there, especially for nightwear, from Hindi pajama, probably from Pers. paejamah, lit. "leg clothing," from pae "leg" (from PIE *ped- "foot," see foot) + jamah "clothing." Modern spelling is from 1845.


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