Etymology: Five Words That Have Vastly Changed Their Meanings

Nice: This is probably my favourite, so it comes first. Nice comes to us from the Latin for ignorant; nescius (ne- “not” and scire “to know”). The French got hold of it and in 1290 it meant “foolish, senseless.” It then developed to mean “wanton” then “strange, rare” and on to “coy, reserved.” From here it moved on to mean “timid” then “fussy in around 1380; on to “dainty” in 1405; “precise, careful” in the 1500s (think about “nice and early” or “nice and simple”). In 1769 it meant “agreeable” and then “kind” in 1830.

It has had so many meanings that Henry Fowler, in his 1926 dictionary said of it; “too great a favorite with the ladies, who have charmed out of it all its individuality and converted it into a mere diffuser of vague and mild agreeableness.”

Blue:

Image via Wikipedia

This word has its roots in the ancient, ancient Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language. The original word was bhel which meant “to shine, flash, burn,” none of which you would usually associate with blue. The related term bhle-was also meant “light coloured” and together they have given the world;

Blue
White
French blanc (and thus blank)
Russian белый, belyi meaning “white” (and thus beluga whale)
Greek phalos (white)
Latin flavus (yellow)
Wlesh blawr (grey)
Blond
Black (from the “burnt” part of the definition)
Bleach
Bleak
Blind
Blush
Blaze
Flame
Fulminate
Flagrant
and Phlegm!

Our definition of ‘blue’ came via the Old French bleu from the Germanic (an oddity in itself) blao (shining).

Just plain weird. Speaking of…

Weird: This is another word that can be traced back to PIE; wert- meaning “to turn, wind.” It came through Germany as wurthis and arrived in Old English as wyrd, a synonym for “fate” (”to turn” changing into “to become”) and in the plural meant the the goddesses that controlled human destiny (the Greek Fates and the the Norse Norns). In Middle English is had become an adjective that meant “having the power to control destiny.”

Image via Wikipedia

The definition of “uncanny, odd” was not recorded until 1815. The various Fates were usually described as frightening or odd in appearance, and so wyrd came to be used to describe anything that was also odd-looking… and then anything strange.

Naughty; If you think about it, this one’s quite obvious. In the 14th century it meant “having nothing” and naught is still used to mean “nothing” (at least in Britain). The original spelling, naugti, came from Old English nawiht meaning “nothing”). By 1529 it had somehow (and no one seems to know how) come to mean “wicked, evil.” Only the vilest criminals were described as naughty. It took little more than a century for the term to come to mean simple “disobedient,” especially when speaking of children. Although between 1530 and 1750 it meant a woman of bad character. *sigh*

And to speak of women of bad character…

Punk: This one is hilarious, especially in connection with steam punk (steam meaning “scented, perfumed”). Punk was first used as a word for a harlot or prostitute in 1596. No one really knows where it came from. It was also used to describe the submissive partner in a homosexual relationship, so when it was used to mean “criminal’s apprentice” in 1904 it had heavy overtones of “catamite.” However, it soon lost the overtones and simply meant “apprentice, inexperienced person” by 1923. In the 1970s the “young criminal” aspect was the inspiration for the naming of punk rock and so “punk” has simply come to mean “person of no worth.”

So steam punk; perfumed harlot? *snort*