Deep and Hollow

From a neat blog called Wordmonger:

Deep & hollow

The word deep comes from an old word meaning deep & hollow. Though the people who used this ancient root never wrote it down, etymologists write it *dheub-. Like our modern word, deep, the original root also carried the figurative meanings profound, inspiring, solemn, mysterious, awful.

Of course, *dheub- was far too deep a word to give us only the word deep.

About the year 1200, it gave us dive, to descend or plunge headfirst into water. I’m compelled to note that the idiom dive bar was born in the 1800s. It appears to have come from the fact that many low-end drinking establishments could only be accessed by walking downstairs from street level, thus diving into the bar.

Quarrelsome as they are, etymologists are still duking it out over the etymology of typhus typhoon. They may have come from Arabic, Mandarin, Cantonese, or Greek. They may also have come from *dheu-, a form of *dheub that meant smoke. Or they may have come directly from *dheub-. I suppose both typhoon typhus can be seen to embrace the concept of depth.

It actually goes on from there, though that seems to be a pretty, ahem, deep dive into these words already!

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Published on October 10, 2024 22:37
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