Animals’ names are common not only in the origins of ordinary words – in which case they often refer either to the shape of something (as in PLYCHON) or to its character (as in CALLET) – but also in the origins of proper nouns, including first names like Philip, adapted from the Greek Philippos, meaning ‘lover of horses’; Bernard and Bernadette, descended from the Norse word for ‘bear’, bera; and names like Leon, Lionel and Leonard, all of which are forms of the Latin word for ‘lion’, leo. Place names too often make reference to animals, with examples found all over the world: Oxford would originally have referred to a fording point on a river where oxen could cross; the capital of Switzerland, Bern, is said to be named from the German for ‘bear’, bär; Panama is said to mean literally ‘an abundance of fish’ in a local native language; and Singapore takes its name from a Malay word meaning ‘lion city’. Slightly more unusual examples, however, include the Ghanaian capital Accra, whose name literally means ‘ants’ on account of the vast number of anthills in the area, and Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, whose name is derived from an Arabic word meaning ‘the end of the elephant’s trunk’, referring to the city’s position on a narrow strip of land formed by the confluence of the Blue and White Niles.
The obscure seventeenth-century word antipelargy means a ‘mutual love or kindness’, especially in reference to the reciprocal love between a child and its parents, or to a child’s love and care for its parents in their old age. Adapted into English from an earlier equivalent French term, the word is ultimately derived from the Ancient Greek for stork, pelargos, as storks were once considered to be particularly affectionate to their young.
The word arctic is derived from the Greek word arktos, meaning ‘bear’. Despite popular belief, this meaning does not refer to the polar bears living in the far north of Europe, but rather to the prominent position of the constellation Ursa Major, ‘The Great Bear’, in the northern sky. Ultimately, on its first appearance in English in the fourteenth century, the word arctic was used as an adjective to refer to the celestial North Pole, and it was not until the mid-sixteenth century that the word came to be used to describe the northernmost region of the earth.
The English insult callet or callat dates from the sixteenth century. Used several times by Shakespeare, the word describes either a lewd or lasciviously brazen woman (‘a beggar in his drink / Could not have laid such terms upon his callat’, Othello, IV. ii), or else a nagging old scold or carp (‘A callat / Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband / And now baits me!’, The Winter’s Tale, II. iii). Either way, the word is thought to be derived from an Old French word for a fool, caillette, which is itself a diminutive of the French word for the quail, caille, a tiny game bird that has long been regarded as a supposedly foolish creature.
Canopy was borrowed into the English language from French in the fourteenth century. In the sense of a thin, protective covering, the word is descended via the Latin conopeum from the Ancient Greek word for a mosquito net or a covered chair, konopeion, which is in turn a derivative of the Greek word for ‘mosquito’ or ‘gnat’, konops. The French culinary term canapé is of identical origin, but was originally the name of a type of couch fitted with a thin canopy known as a bandaquin – the fillings of a canapé were said to sit atop a layer of pastry in the same way as a person would sit upon a couch.
Chouette is the French name for the barn owl, and has been used in English since the late nineteenth century as the name of a form of play in certain games – most notably backgammon, but also some card games like bezique and gin rummy – in which one player competes against all of the other players together, who must effectively work as a team in order to win. The term derives from an earlier French expression faire la chouette, which was used more generally to refer to several players of any game turning against a single player all at once. It is likely that the phrase pertains to the fact that like many other birds of prey, barn owls are often mobbed by gangs of smaller birds when they believe it poses a threat.
A popular family of flowering plants, typically with tall spikes of blue or purple flowers, the name delphinium is of Latin origin but is based on the Ancient Greek word delphis, meaning ‘dolphin’. So called as the nectarbearing parts of the flower heads are said to resemble dolphins, the delphinium was given its name by the noted Swedish botanist and zoologist Carl Linnaeus in the mid-eighteenth century.
The plychon is the name of an early dentist’s tool thought to have been used to extract teeth. First recorded in the seventeenth century, the word plychon likely derives from a misinterpretation or corruption of pelican, which besides being the name of a seabird was once also the name of a kind of two-pronged and hinged surgical tool, presumably named in reference to its shape. Both plychon and, in this sense at least, pelican have long since dropped out of use in English, as thankfully have the tools that they describe.
In its earliest use in English dating back to the early 1200s, the word sturdy variously meant ‘brave’, ‘reckless’ or ‘furious’, and it was not until the late fourteenth century that it came to be used to mean ‘strong’ or ‘robust’. The word is presumed to be of French origin and is likely based on an old-fashioned word, estourdi, meaning ‘stunned’ or ‘dazed’, which is in turn descended from the Latin word for the thrush, turdus. Quite where this association comes from is unclear, yet as drunk as a thrush was once a popular saying in France.
Perhaps one of the strangest animal-related etymologies in the whole of the English language, the word tragedy derives via French and Latin from a Greek word, tragodia, literally meaning ‘goat-song’. Precisely why Ancient Greek tragedies were given this name is unknown, although one suggestion claims that the word perhaps refers to actors dressing in goatskins and other animal furs so as to portray the satyrs and other mythical beings that often appeared in the stories.
Since it was first recorded in the English language in the late thirteenth century, the word urchin has come to be used to describe a variety of different things, including a hunchback (early 1500s); a badly behaved child (mid-1500s); a goblin or elf (late 1500s); a demon (late 1500s); an ugly, ill-tempered woman or hag (1500s-1600s); a sea urchin (1600s); and part of an engine (mid-1800s). In its earliest use, however, an urchin was actually a hedgehog and the word itself is believed to be derived from the creature’s Latin name, ericius.