davering – Riding or walking in a dazed condition. More…
dressage – The art of riding and training horses, from French dresser, “to train.” More…
road – First meant “riding” or “hostile incursion on horseback”—a sense preserved in “inroads.” More…
jounce – To move roughly or violently up and down, as when one is riding a horse. More…
fetus – A human embryo starts to be called a fetus at nine weeks. More…
Catholic twins – Siblings born within 12 months of each other. More…
half-birthday – One’s half-birthday is the day exactly six months before or after one’s real birth date. More…
semester – First meant six months, as it comes from Latin semestris, “of six months.” More…
ashtanga – Sanskrit for “having eight parts”—referring to the eight limbs or sutras of yoga; ashtanga yoga is also known as power yoga. More…
basket case – Originally slang denoting a soldier who had lost all four limbs, thus unable to move independently. More…
stretch – Originally meant “lengthening the limbs” or making them stiffer by stretching. More…
hurkle, hurple – To hurkle or hurple is to draw one’s limbs in and scrunch up the shoulders in reaction to the cold or in a storm. More…
jaup, jawp – A jaup or jawp is the splash of liquid against a surface or the sound made by liquid sloshing around in a container. More…
jabble – Turbulence on the surface of water; to jabble is “to splash or splatter.” More…
spritzer – From German, meaning “splash.” More…
swab – As in “mop the decks,” it is a back-formation from swabber, “sailor who mops the decks,” from a Germanic base meaning “splash.” More…
gale – A very strong wind, probably related to Old Norse galinn, “frantic, mad.” More…
mad as a hatter – Refers to the fact that hat makers suffered mental illness in the old days when they got mercury poisoning from treating fur. More…
madding – In “far from the madding crowd,” madding is a poetic survival meaning “wild, furious, raving, mad.” More…
rabid, rabies – Rabid and rabies come from Latin rabere, “be mad.” More…
ultrasound, ultrasonography – Ultrasounds and ultrasonography work on the principle that sound is reflected at different speeds by tissues or substances of different densities. More…
adjoining – Implies meeting and touching at some point or line. More…
tact, taction – Tact first referred to the sense of touch, from Latin tactus, “touch, sense of touch”; taction is the action of touching. More…
contact – Its underlying notion is “touching,” from Latin tangere, “touch.” More…
attinge, attingent – To attinge is to touch or come into contact with; attingent is touching or being in contact. More…
boycott, embargo – A boycott is an organized popular protest, named for Captain Charles C. Boycott (1832-97), a land agent in Ireland to whom this was done in 1880; an embargo is usually imposed by a government. More…
silentium – A place where silence is imposed (library, religious retreat). More…
Pax Romana – An uneasy peace, as one imposed by a powerful state on a weaker or vanquished state. More…
mumbletypeg – The children’s game was first mumble-the-peg, descriptive of one of the penalties imposed on the loser. More…