Sometimes, the original meaning of a word is so bloody obvious that you can't believe that you don't use it that way any more. Such...

Nobody knows where the dan  in dandruff  comes from, but the second syllable probably derives from the Old English  hreofla meaning leper ...

POLONIUS: My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently. HAMLET: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel? ...

It's an odd little reverse of the expected that sodium is actually derived from soda, which was a fifteenth century term for a mysteri...

Those of you who have read The Etymologicon may just remember that in chapter two I recount how the French game of poule , where you threw...

Today is, according to the Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English (1857), Egg Saturday - being the Saturday before Shrove Tuesday. I...

Just a little something for those who remember Bagpuss: a yaffle is, or was, a Kentish dialect term for the Green Woodpecker.