Rothschild (German Rotshild : ), meaning "red shield", is a surname derived from a house distinguished with a red shield (Middle High German rot (or roth)= "red" + schild = "shield"), the earliest recorded example dating from the 13th century. In English-speaking countries it is often pronounced as "Roth's child".
The German surname "Rothschild" is not related to the Scottish/Irish surname of "Rothchilds" from the United Kingdom.
Famous quotes containing the word rothschild:
“Here was a little of everything in a small compass to satisfy the wants and the ambition of the woods,... but there seemed to me, as usual, a preponderance of children’s toys,—dogs to bark, and cats to mew, and trumpets to blow, where natives there hardly are yet. As if a child born into the Maine woods, among the pine cones and cedar berries, could not do without such a sugar-man or skipping-jack as the young Rothschild has.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)