#false etymology
Many of us have heard that the word sophomore comes from the Greek sophosandmoros, meaning “wise” and “foolish” respectively. However, the person calling others “wise fools” should instead learn dramatic irony. Sophomore originates in the 1650′s as sophumer, which is indeed from the Greek sophos. A sophum was a learning exercise in which students would debate, making a sophumer an “arguer” rather than a “wise fool.”
This false etymology is probably very old, since our current spelling came about in the 1680′s (additionally making it a folk etymology), influenced by the Greek moros.
Afalse etymology is an untrue belief about the origin of a word. Many false etymologies have complex backstories akin to urban legends.
Folk etymology is how a word changes form and/or meaning over time due to how people (fasely) believe it originated.
If you know of any examples or are wondering about a suspicious etymology, feel free to submit!
Innocent is often speculated as having the same etymology as ignorant: from the Latin for “not knowing.”
This much is true for ignorant (14c), which, via the Old French ignorant, is from the Latin ignorantia/ignorantem, “not to know.”
Innocent (14c) also came via Old French (inocent), but from the Latin innocentem. This word, in turn, is from the prefix in- (”not”) and nocere, meaning “to harm.” Innocent, then, doesn’t etymologically mean “knowledgeless,” but rather “harmless.”
Hymen, the Greek god of marriage, and hymen, the part of the vulva, are related words– though not for the reason you might think. Both ultimately derive from the Proto-Indo-European syu-, meaning “to sew,” and both come to us via Greek. The god is probably named for this original sense (figuratively sewing two people together), but the general Greek ὑμήν instead means a “thin skin or membrane.”
The Spanish term gringo, referring to non-Hispanic people in/from the United States, is usually explained through a story of US troops dressed in green being told to “go home,” or US troops singing about some green, growing thing.
Instead, gringo is mentioned sixty years before the Mexican-American War in the Diccionario Castellano (1787) as referring to people who speak Spanish poorly. The word itself may originate from the Spanish for Greek, griego.
Golf is not an acronym for “gentlemen only, ladies forbidden.” That false etymology can be traced back to 1997, while the Scottish gouf and golf are traced back to the 15th century. While the exact etymology is uncertain, golf is probably a variation of the Middle Dutch colf/colve, meaning “stick, club, bat” from the Proto-Germanic kulth-.
