this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
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Etymology

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This magazine is for discussions and articles about the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history.

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As Latin became Old French, /vi/ & /bi/ between vowels unusually became /dʒ/ (the "j" sound). This has given English pairs like rabies/rage, lobby/lodge, salvia/sage, ruby/rouge, subservient/sergeant (self.Etymology)
submitted 1 year ago by Savirius to c/[email protected]
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  • rage comes from Old French rage, from Late Latin rabia, a regularization of Classical Latin rabies.
  • lobby and lodge are both from Late Latin laubia, a loanword from Frankish laubija, meaning "arbour" or "shelter".
  • sage (the plant) comes directly from its Latin name salvia. (As a sidenote, the psychedelic salvia is one of many salvia/sage species and is native to Mexico).
  • rouge is from Latin rubeus ("red"), while ruby is from Latin rubinus. This means that while ruby and rouge are closely related, they're not a neat doublet like the others.
  • The latter half of (sub)servient and sergeant are both from Latin servientem meaning "serving".

Other pairs include sapient/sage (meaning wisdom, as in sage advice) and cavity/cage (the latter from Latin cavea > *cavia).

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[–] teft 1 points 1 year ago

I always wondered why rabia is rage in Spanish and this explains it. Que interesante!