Lucifer Most people recognize Lucifer as a name for the devil, for Satan, but fewer know that it is also a name for the planet Venus. How did this rather odd double meaning come about? The name is from the Latin lucifer, or light-bearer (luci- / lux-, light. + -fer, bearing). The Latin
deer Deer can be traced back to the Old English word deor, but the word’s use in Old English was somewhat different than deer’s is today. In Old English, deor was a more general term, referring to any, usually but not necessarily undomesticated, four-legged animal, including fabulous beasts of
sodium Sodium is a chemical element with atomic number 11 and the symbol Na. It is a soft, silvery-white, alkali metal that is highly reactive. It’s the sixth most abundant element in the earth’s crust. Sodium has myriad uses, perhaps most familiarly in the form sodium chloride or table
Dreamtime / Songline Dreamtime and Songline are two words associated with Australian Aboriginal culture. But they are terms that have been misunderstood by Western popular culture, and the English calques are poor translations of the Aboriginal words. Tony Swain, who has studied Aboriginal religion extensively, writes: Few topics have more allure than the
dismal Originally a noun (and still a noun in some isolated uses), the adjective dismal comes into English, like many of our words, with the Normans, a compound formed from the Old French phrase dis mal, which in turn is from the Latin dies mali (evil days), a name for two
tungsten / wolfram Tungsten is a chemical element with atomic number 74 and the symbol W. It is also known as Wolfram. While it was known through its ores much earlier, chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele was the first to identify it as a distinct element in 1781. Tungsten has a wide variety of
armistice / Armistice Day An armistice is a formal suspension of hostilities. In early use, the word was used to refer to a ceasefire or short truce, and later it came to refer to the end of all hostilities between warring nations prior to negotiating a formal peace treaty. The English word is a
full monty, the If you became aware of the phrase the fully monty from the name of the 1997 film (e.g., you’re an American) you might think the phrase refers to being totally nude, but that is only a particular subsense of the phrase. More generally the full monty means everything,
titanium / menaccanite Titanium is a chemical element with atomic number 22 and the symbol Ti. It is a lustrous, silver, transition metal with low density and high strength. It is also corrosion resistant. It is widely used in alloys for objects ranging from spacecraft to jewelry. The element was independently discovered by
acre Acre, the unit of land measurement, comes down to us from the Old English æcer, which inherited it from a common Germanic root. The word has cognates in other Indo-European languages too, like the Latin ager (which gives us the agri- in agriculture), the Greek ἀγρός (field), and the Sanskrit
ghost / give up the ghost (Originally published 30 October 2020) The Present-Day English word ghost comes from the Old English gast, which carried most of the meanings that the word does today. For instance, gast could refer to the apparition of a dead person, which is perhaps the most common sense of the word today.
close, but no cigar The phrase close, but no cigar is traditionally uttered when someone falls just short of achieving a goal. The phrase comes to us from the early twentieth-century practice of giving out cigars as prizes for winning games of chance or skill at carnivals, fairs, and other attractions. The following description
Halloween (Originally posted 31 October 2021) Halloween is a Scottish shortening of All-Hallow’s Eve, or more exactly its older form All-Hallow-Even. It is, of course, the day before All Saint’s Day, which falls on 1 November. Many people associate the Celtic, pagan festival of Samhain with Halloween, largely because
