Dave Wilton

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

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Dreamtime / Songline (paid)

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dismal (paid)

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,

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dipshit

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tungsten / wolfram (paid)

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

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armistice / Armistice Day (paid)

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.

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full monty, the (paid)

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

mischief night, and other names

(Originally posted 30 October 2021) The night before Halloween, 30 October, is traditionally a night when children and teens play pranks, such as smashing pumpkins, throwing eggs, toilet papering trees, and the like. Sometimes though, the night becomes violent, with acts of serious vandalism and arson. The night goes by

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titanium / menaccanite (paid)

tin

Tin is a chemical element with atomic number 50 and the symbol Sn, which is from the Latin name for the metal, stannum. It is a soft, easily cut, silvery metal. It has been known since antiquity and has myriad applications. The word tin comes from a common Germanic root,

trick or treat / beggar's night

(Originally posted 7 November 2021) Trick or treating is the custom of children going from door to door in costume on Halloween begging for candy or other sweets. The trick is a threat of mischief or minor vandalism that will be delivered upon the household if the treat is not

beam me up, Scotty

Beam me up, Scotty! is a slang catchphrase inspired by the original Star Trek television series (1966–69). It used as a jocular expression of a desire to be somewhere other than the present place or situation. To beam is a verb used in the series to describe the process

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acre (paid)

holt

Holt, a word for a wooded area, a copse, goes back to Old English. Its root is common Germanic, with cognates found in Old Norse, Old Frisian, Old Saxon, Old High German, and others. The word appears in Beowulf when the hero’s men abandon him when faced with the

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close, but no cigar (paid)

thorium

Thorium is a chemical element with atomic number 90 and the symbol Th. It is named after the Norse god Thor + -ium. It is a soft, malleable, silver-colored metal. All the isotopes of thorium are radioactive, but the most stable one, 232Th, has a half-life of over 14 billion years,

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tin (paid)

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beam me up, Scotty (paid)

heaven / seventh heaven

The word heaven can be traced to the Proto-Germanic root *hemina- / *hemna-. That root gives us the Old English heofon, which is cognate with the Old Saxon heƀan, the Old Icelandic himinn, and the Old High German himil, among others. Going further back, the exact connection to Proto-Indo-European is muddy

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holt (paid)