40 Weird Word Origins - mental_floss on YouTube (Ep.46)

Hi, I'm John Green. Welcome to my salon. This is Mental Floss on YouTube

And did you know that the word lemur comes from a Latin word meaning spirits of the dead

Carl Linnaeus, who named the animal, said, I call them lemurs because they go around mainly by night in a certain way similar to humans and roam with a slow pace

So they're basically zombies then. And that's the first of many word origins I'm gonna share with you today

Muscle comes from the Latin root for a little mouse, because back in the 14th century, people

thought that mussels looked like mice living under their skin. Obviously they never saw my guns

How do you say fat honey badger in Latin? In the 12th century, a Latin love poem became very popular in Europe

It was copied many times and passed from person to person. The poem was titled Pamphilis, giving us the word for pamphlet

Yankee started with the Dutch, who lived in New York during the 1600s, when it was called New Amsterdam

Though the details can't be confirmed, the word is probably a combination of two Dutch names, Jan and Kies

This was either an insult that the English colonists called the Dutch, or the other way around

The meaning switched and became a positive word for American. I mean, unless you're a Southerner

Hippocampus is the Greek word for a horse-fish hybrid. In classic mythology, these monsters were associated with Neptune

the hippocampus in your brain apparently looks like those sea creatures. Which I guess means the hippocampus looks something like this

The word berserk comes from ancient Norse fighters, also known as berserkers

The original term came from the Norse words bear and shirt, which is what the berserkers wore

Salmon comes from the Latin word salmo, or tlip. The origin of ketchup is hotly debated, but many people believe it came from China

The ancient Chinese used a similar word for the brine that they used to pickle fish

Which is connected to ketchup in that they are both liquid food phenomena Another controversial term is kibosh though most claim it can be traced back to Ireland where a similar sounding term referred to the so cap of death the hat that a

judge would wear when sentencing someone to death. In the 13th century, the French used the expression mortgage, meaning death-pledge

This term gave us the word mortgage. Aloof came from an English term in the 1500s for weather-gage

The English borrowed this root from the Dutch word loof, which meant the windward side of

a ship. What does any of that have to do with being aloof

Ever wonder why English is the only language in the world that uses pineapple rather than

some form of ananas? Pineapple used to be a word for pinecone, which is what the fruit

looked like to early explorers, you know, who were apparently blind. While we're talking about fruit, the word cantaloupe emerged in the 18th century. It's

named after its place of origin, Cantalupo, Italy. The town's name literally translates

to singing wolf. Mayonnaise is another food named after a place. The French captured the island of Menorca during the Seven Years' War, a victory that

was apparently celebrated with the condiment. The island's capital is Port Mahon, and the suffix "-ase," means native to

But of course, the joke was on the French. Sure, they won Menorca, but then they had to have mayonnaise

War has been in the English language since the 11th century. It actually comes from a Germanic root that meant to confuse, which is kind of confusing

In Greek, kynikos was a term for followers of the philosopher Anticines, but the literal

translation is dog-like. Anyway, that gave us the word cynic. The word dunce is also a reference to philosophy

John Duns Scotus was a philosopher whose teachings were largely religious and influenced the

Catholic Church. His followers were called dunces. Later, philosophers weren't so impressed with his work, so dunce took on a negative connotation

Lukewarm is a tautology. Luke meant warm in Middle English, so when we say lukewarm, we're saying warm-warm

Heresy comes from Greek. It meant choice. Apprehend emerged in the 1300s from the Latin word apprehendere which meant to grasp So when you apprehend you are grasping meaning or grasping someone in arrest Jumbo probably was originally the word for elephant in a West African language The word

took on the meaning of large when an elephant in the London Zoo was named Jumbo in the 1860s

Which makes me dream of a world in which we actually had jumbo shrimp

In Old English, W-Y-R-D meant fate. Weirdly, that gave us the term weird

Ancient Romans who were running for office wore white, so the Latin word for white-robed gave us the term candidate

The fabric denim originally appeared in Nimes, France, so it was first called Serge de Nimes or fabric from Nimes

but the Serge soon disappeared, leaving us just with de Nimes. Similarly, jeans were named after their place of origin, Genoa, Italy

The French word for Genoa is jeans, or possibly gens, as you might have guessed, I don't speak French

Nice comes from the Latin word for ignorant. So maybe that's why nice guys finish last

Curfew is a combination of two French words, curvir, to cover, and foo, fire

So curfew literally means to cover fire. Noon comes from the Latin nona ora, meaning ninth hour

In ancient Rome, noon was actually around 3 p.m. During the 12th and 13th centuries, noon slowly moved back to, you know, noon

Presumably this change was driven by people wanting to eat lunch earlier. Bankrupt is from the Italian term bancarotta, literally meaning broken bench

In Old English, night originally meant boy or servant. Now, of course, it means a bad pun in a Tom Cruise movie title

Night and day? Anybody? No? I'm the only person who saw that? I think I might literally be the only person who saw that

Let's face it, Tom Cruise didn't even see that Tom Cruise movie. Anyway, the Old English word for worm, spelled W-U-R-M, gave us the word worm

But that word came from another Old English word meaning serpent or dragon, which makes me wonder, how big were worms in medieval Europe

The word money emerged in Rome because of the Temple of Juno Mineta which reminds me There a link in the description so you can redeem your shroot bucks from metal floss t Shroot bucks The only currency that Mark and Meredith are ever paid in Anyway the ancient Romans used that temple as a mint because she was a goddess associated with money

Moneta came to mean mint and then money. Escape came from the Latin ex, meaning out, and kappa, meaning cloak

The literal meaning probably comes from the idea that if a person was being pursued, they would disappear, leaving only their cloak behind

The Latin word for walking is ambulant, which resulted in ambulance. Ambulance first meant like a moving hospital before it became a specific term

The word didn't refer to an actual wagon carrying the wounded until the Crimean War in the 1850s

Also in the 19th century, Americans borrowed the word promenade, which referred to a formal walk that would occur at balls, and was shortened to prom

Lobster comes from a Latin word that also means locust. That is disgusting

Nostril is a combination of the Old English words for nose and hole

In the 13th century, the French gave us the meaning of cider that we use, but the original

term that it derived from meant strong or alcoholic drink. Ancient Romans gave us senator, but before the word had its current meaning, it came

from a word for old, and in fact is a relative of the word senile

I'm not surprised. comes from Ross Montgomery who asks where does the term purse as in you know funerals come from

Thanks Ross now I get to talk about another word origin. Purse comes from the Oscan term for wolf

But by the 13th century it had become a term for decorative candles or a canopy over a coffin

How? I don't know maybe people draped wolves over their coffins. Anyway eventually the meaning transformed into the hearse that we know today

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