Etymology
The word wych has its origins in Middle English wiche, from the Old English wice, meaning pliant or supple, and which also gives us wicker and weak. Owing to its former abundance in Scotland, it was occasionally known as the 'Scotch (sic) Elm', the name Loch Lomond, a corruption of the Gaelic Lac Leaman, or 'Lake of the Elms'.
Read more about this topic: Ulmus Glabra
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“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)
“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)