pike, pick, peck, pickaxe, pitchfork, & piggyback

Pike (the weapon) and pick (the tool) come from the Middle English pik/pyk and pic, respectively, all via the Old English piic, “pointed object, pickaxe.” The verbs pick and peck also come from Middle English, in this case piken and picken, respectively, all via the Old English pician “to prick,” and perhaps from the Old Norse pikka.  Pickaxe is often thought to be a compound word of “pick” and “axe,” but is actually from the Middle English (13c) picas, ultimately from the Medieval Latin picosa. In 15c it was altered via folk etymology to include axe. Axe itself is from the Old English æces/æx, via the Proto-Germanic akusjo, via the Proto-Indo-European agw(e)si-.  In some Middle English and Early Modern English dialects, pick and pitch were synonymous. Because of this, we also have pitchfork and piggyback. Pitchfork was originally pic-forken in Middle English (13c), and piggyback was originally pick pack (1560), from the act of pitching a bag over one’s shoulder.  Pickle (15c) is unrelated, and of uncertain origin.  Toothpick is Early Modern English, but Old English had toðsticca, “tooth-stick.”

October

October, from the Latin October, meaning “eighth month." In the original Roman calendar, the year began in March, hence October was the eighth month. It replaced the Old English winterfylleð, "winter full moon.”

walrus

Walrus (1650), from the Dutch walrus. This probably came from the Old Norse rosmhvalr (”walrus”)or hrosshvalr (literally “horse-whale”), but was altered via folk etymology by the Dutch walvis (”whale”) and ros (”horse”).  Old English also had horschwæl, literally “horse-whale,” and morse from the Sami morsa or Finnish mursu.

ginger & gingerbread

Ginger (14c), is from the Old English gingifer/gingiber, via the Late Latin gingiber, via the Latin zingiberi, via the Greek zingiberis, via the Prakrit singabera, via the Sanskrit srngaveram.  Gingerbread (13c) was originally gingerbrar, from the Old French ginginbrat, meaning “ginger preserve.” It was changed to gingerbrede in 14c via folk etymology.

shamefaced

Shamefaced (1550), is a folk etymology of shamefast, from the Old English scamfæst, from “shame” plus “fast,” meaning “restrained by shame.”

penthouse

Penthouse, from the Middle English pendize (14c), via the Anglo-French pentiz, via the Old French apentis meaning “an attached building” or “appendage,” via the Medieval Latin appendicium, from the Latin appendere meaning “to hang.” The modern spelling (c. 1530) is a folk etymology of the French pente (”slope”) plus house. The modern meaning is from 1921. 

greyhound

Why aren’t all greyhounds gray? Surprisingly, the first part of this compound word has undergone three meanings without changing form much. The Old English grighund/greghund came from grig, a Nordic word meaning “bitch,” and hund, meaning “dog.” In Middle English, the word was altered by Grew, meaning “Greek.” In Modern English, the first part of the compound was understood to reference the color gray. 

posthumous

Posthumous (15c), from the Latin postumus, meaning “last,” and originally used to describe a last-born child. In Late Latin, it was influenced by humare, “to bury,” and took on the meaning of “a child born after the death of their father.” Old English had æfterboren (”after-born”) to describe this final meaning.

bridegroom

Most people assume that groom derives from bridegroom, but the relationship is much more complicated. Bridegroom comes from the Old English brydguma, a compound of “bride” and guma, meaning “man.” By 16c, since guma was no longer in use, the word was influenced by groom, originally meaning “a young man.” Due to this, the word groom took on the exclusive connotation of a husband-to-be in 17c. 

innocent & ignorant

Innocent is often speculated as having the same etymology as ignorant: from the Latin for “not knowing.” This much is true for ignorant (14c), which, via the Old French ignorant, is from the Latin ignorantia/ignorantem, “not to know.” Innocent (14c) also came via Old French (inocent), but from the Latin innocentem. This word, in turn, is from the prefix in- (”not”) and nocere, meaning “to harm.” Innocent, then, doesn’t etymologically mean “knowledgeless,” but rather “harmless.”

island vs. isle

Despite similarities in spelling and meaning, islands and isles are only related through folk etymology. Isle (13c) comes from the Old French ile/isle, originally via the Latin insula.  Island (16c) comes from the Middle English yland and Old English igland, from the root ieg (from the same root as aqua-), meaning “island,” and a redundant -land.  The spelling of isle was altered in 16c to reflect its Latin roots, and so the spelling of island was also changed due to the assumption that its etymology was isle + land. 

crayfish

Crayfish is a 16c folk etymology of the Middle English crevis, from the Old French crevice, from a Germanic diminutive of “crab.” 

outrage vs. regular rage

Outrage been assumed to be an excessive form of rage. However, it’s etymologically not rage at all-- it’s just excessive.  Rage (14c) comes via the French rage/raige from the Latin rabies-- the same source of our modern cognate. Outrage (14c) also comes via French (outrage), but from a different Latin source: ultraticum/ultragium. This sense of outrage is still maintained somewhat in “outrageous” when it is used to mean extravagant, inordinate, and superfluous. However, this usage still often takes the connotation of “so excessive it makes me angry.” Due to folk etymology, outrage escalated from “excess” to “excess anger.”

Hymen, Greek god of marriage

Hymen, the Greek god of marriage, and hymen, the part of the vulva, are related words-- though not for the reason you might think. Both ultimately derive from the Proto-Indo-European syu-, meaning “to sew,” and both come to us via Greek. The god is probably named for this original sense (figuratively sewing two people together), but the general Greek ὑμήν instead means a “thin skin or membrane.”

acorn & acre

Acorn is from the Old English æcern, generally meaning “nut,” and is related to the Old English æcer, meaning “acre.” An acre was open pasture land (as opposed to farmland), and an acorn was any produce of that land. Acorn became specified as meaning an oak nut due to their importance as food for foraging hogs, and an acre became a measurement as the amount of pastureland a yolk of oxen could plow in one day.  Acorn took on its modern spelling via folk etymology in early Modern English due to an understandable assumption that the word was derived from the Old English ac (oak) and corn (grain/seed). 

hangnail

Hangnail, from the Old English agnail/angnail, from ang- meaning “painful” (as in the root of anger), and nail as in the metal spike. The word originally meant a corn or callus on the foot, literally a “painful spike.” Through folk etymology, the word was altered into “hangnail,” changing both aspects of the word and eventually taking on its current denotation of a “loose strip of skin by the fingernail” around 1670. 

In Old English, September was also called haligmonað, “holy month,” probably in reference to the harvest and in thanksgiving for the year’s crops. 

September

September, from the Latin September, meaning “seventh month.” The -mber suffix comes from the Latin membris, meaning “month.” In the original Roman calendar, the year began in March, hence September was the seventh month. It replaced the Old English hærfestmonað, “month of harvest/autumn."