Dave Wilton

Dave has a PhD in medieval English literature from the University of Toronto and has been publishing Wordorigins.org since 1997.

Epiphany / Twelfth Night

The Christian festival of Epiphany celebrates the visit of the Magi to worship the newborn Jesus. It falls on the sixth of January. According to tradition, Christ’s baptism and the wedding at Cana, where he turned water into wine, fell on the anniversary of the Magi’s visit. Doctrinally,

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auld lang syne

What should be a straightforward history is muddled by an incompetent 19th century editor

calcium

Calcium is a chemical element with atomic number 20 and the symbol Ca. It is a reactive, alkaline earth metal, dull gray or silver in color with a yellow tint. When exposed to air it forms a dark oxide layer on the surface. Calcium is essential for life as we

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gold (paid)

2024 Wordorigins Words of the Year (WOTY)

As in past years, I’ve come up with a list of Words of The Year (WOTY). I do things a bit differently from other sites in that I don’t try to select one term to represent the entire year. Instead, I select twelve terms, one for each month.

poinsettia

This flower (Euphorbia pulcherrima), native to Mexico and associated with Christmas, has a rather straightforward etymology. It is named after Joel Roberts Poinsett, who served as the U.S. minister (i.e., ambassador) to Mexico from 1825–30. An amateur botanist, Poinsett sent samples of the flower back to the

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Epiphany / Twelfth Night (paid)

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Santa Claus

(I’m reposting some older, seasonal articles on the feed’s off days. This article was first published on Wordorigins.org on 13 December 2023.) The name Santa Claus is a dialectal variation on the Dutch Sint Klaas. The Sint, or Sante in the Dutch dialect of early New York,

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Boxing Day

(I’m reposting some older, seasonal articles on the feed’s off days. This article was first published on Wordorigins.org on 20 December 2023.) Boxing Day is 26 December, the day after Christmas. It is celebrated in Britain and many of the Commonwealth countries, including Canada, but not in

zinc

Zinc is a chemical element with atomic number 30 and the symbol Zn. It is a brittle metal at room temperature with a shiny, gray color. Trace amounts of zinc are essential for life as we know it, and the metal is used in a wide variety of alloys. The

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calcium (paid)

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Father Christmas

(I’m reposting some older, seasonal articles on the feed’s off days. This article was first published on Wordorigins.org on 16 December 2021.) Father Christmas is a British personification of Christmas. In centuries prior, there were other personifications of the holiday, but Father Christmas’s name and iconic

merry / God rest you merry

Merry has a quite straightforward origin, although the title and first line of the Christmas carol God rest you merry, gentlemen is confusing to some. Merry comes from the Old English myrige, meaning pleasant or delightful. An example of the Old English can be found in Ælfric of Eynsham’s

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Christmas / Xmas

(I’m reposting some older, seasonal articles on the feed’s off days. This article was first published on Wordorigins.org on 18 December 2023.) Christmas has a rather straightforward and obvious etymology. It is Christ’s mass, the religious service and festival associated with Jesus’s birthday. The word

reindeer

Reindeer, Rangifer tarandus, are a species of deer native to the arctic and subarctic of Europe, Siberia, and North America. The word is a borrowing from the Scandinavian languages—it’s hreindýri in Old Icelandic and rendjur in Swedish. (The usual word in Swedish is simply ren, but rendjur is

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poinsettia (paid)

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Scrooge / screw

(I’m reposting some older, seasonal articles on the feed’s off days. This article was first published on Wordorigins.org on 13 December 2021.) A scrooge is a miser, a stingy person. And most of us recognize that the word comes from the name of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles

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mistletoe

(I’m reposting some older, seasonal articles on the feed’s off days. This article was first published on Wordorigins.org on 10 December 2021.) Mistletoe is a hemiparasitic plant of the order Santalales, especially European mistletoe (Viscum album). A hemiparasitic plant derives water and nutrients from its host plant

yttrium

Yttrium is a chemical element with atomic number 39 and the symbol Y. It is a silvery transition metal. It is used in the production of numerous electronic devices, notably in the phosphors in LED lights and formerly in cathode-ray tubes. Yttrium is toxic, and exposure to airborne yttrium dust

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zinc (paid)

wassail

Wassail and wassailing are associated with Yuletide revels and overindulgence, although many people are a bit fuzzy on what the words mean. That’s somewhat understandable as the words have a variety of meanings. Wassail started out as a simple greeting, became a drinking toast, then became the drink and

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merry / God rest you merry (paid)

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Jack Frost

(I’m reposting some older, seasonal articles on the feed’s off days. This article was first published on Wordorigins.org on 21 December 2021.) Jack Frost is a personification of cold weather or of winter more generally. The etymology is quite straightforward, the personal name Jack + frost. The name

carol / carrel / corral

Why do we call them Christmas carols? The word carol was introduced into English by the Normans and comes from the Old French carole. It shares a root with words like chorus and choir. But in what may be surprising to most, the first English carols were not just songs;

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reindeer (paid)