Folk Etymology - Other Languages

Other Languages

The French verb savoir "to know" was formerly spelled sçavoir on the false belief it was derived from Latin scire "to know". In fact it is comes from sapere "to be wise".

The Italian word liocorno "unicorn" is a folk etymology, based on lione (mod. leone) "lion", of older lunicorno (13th cent.), itself due to the fusion of il "the" + unicorno. Similarly, the medieval byform alicorno (14th cent.) was from a similar fusion (al "to the" + liocorno).

Medieval Latin widerdonum (Old French guerdon) was an alteration, due to confusion with Latin donum "gift", of Old High German widarlōn "reward, pay-back".

Medieval Latin has a word, bachelarius (bachelor), of uncertain origin, referring to a junior knight, and by extension to the holder of a University degree inferior to Master or Doctor. This was later re-spelled baccalaureus to reflect a false derivation from bacca laurea "laurel berry", alluding to the graduate's capability of growing to achieve the laurel crown of a poet or conqueror.

Latin stilus (pen) was later re-spelled stylus in the erroneous belief that it was derived from Greek stylos (column). The English words "style" and "stylus" reflect this belief.

Olisippo (Lisbon) was explained as deriving from the city's supposed foundation by Ulysses (Odysseus), though the settlement certainly antedates any Greek presence.

In Southern Italy in the Greek period there was a city Maloeis (gen. Maloentos), meaning "fruitful". This was rendered in Latin as Maleventum, "ill come" or "ill wind", and renamed Beneventum, "welcome" or "good wind", after the Roman conquest.

The Dutch word for "hammock" is hangmat, "hanging mat", folk-etymologized from Spanish hamaca. A similar story applies to Swedish hängmatta and German Hängematte.

The Finnish compound word for "jealous" mustasukkainen literally means "black-socked" (musta "black" and sukka "sock"). However, the word is a case of a misunderstood loan translation from Swedish svartsjuk "black-sick". The Finnish word sukka fit with a close phonological equivalent to the Swedish sjuk

Islambol (Islambol as one of the names of Istanbul used after the Ottoman conquest of 1453).