Etymology of Hamburger
The term hamburger originally derives from Hamburg, Germany's second largest city, from which many people emigrated to the United States. In High German, Burg means fortified settlement or fortified refuge; and is a widespread component of place names. Hamburger can be a descriptive noun in German, referring to someone from Hamburg (compare London → Londoner) or an adjective describing something from Hamburg. Similarly, frankfurter and wiener, names for other meat-based foods, are also used in Germany and Austria as descriptive nouns for people and as adjectives for things from the cities of Frankfurt and Wien (Vienna), respectively. The term "burger" is associated with many different types of sandwiches similar to a (ground beef) hamburger, using different meats, such as a buffalo burger, venison, kangaroo, turkey, elk, lamb, salmon burger or veggie burger.
Read more about this topic: Hamburger
Famous quotes containing the words etymology and/or hamburger:
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)
“To think that between a Hamburger and a Humburger, she would—invariably, with icy precision—plump for the former.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)