Etymology
The name is presumed to be a corruption of the Old Norse "Petlandsfjörð", meaning "the fjord of Pictland", and is completely unrelated to the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh.
Prior to the Norse occupation of Orkney the strait was known as the "Sea of Orcs" - a reference to the Pictish tribe who inhabited Orkney. Such was their marine prowess that there are also instances of this name referring to the sea lanes of the entire west coast of Scotland down to Kintyre. One version of the 9th century Historia Brittonum states that "the Britons originally filled the whole island with their peoples from the English Channel to the Sea of Orcs".
Read more about this topic: Pentland Firth
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“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)