That means a lot…: Adam Jacot de Boinod on strange journeys certain words have taken

There are some words so simple, it is possible they will never mean anything else: pain, rain, love.

More complex terms can have quite the journey, nodding backwards, eternally, to their complicated and often-distant roots. Let’s start with one of my favourites.

The Arabic “al-kuhul” was originally “a powder used to darken the eyelids”. This of course is where we get the word kohl. But, in laboratories of the time, the term began to be used to refer to any fine powder. Then it began to be used for any refined liquid (typically purified through distillation). Soon, it became the term for all distilled liquids.

From there, it was a short skip to, you guessed it: alcohol.

Fast-forward a bit for an intriguing one. Theriake, in Ancient Greek, meant “an antidote against a poisonous bite”. It then came to be used for any medicine doused in sugar syrup to disguise its taste. And from there we get: “treacle”.

Ancient Greek also gave us the word “enthusiasm”, which originally meant “divinely inspired” (from enthousiasmos; the second syllable drawn from Theos or God). In the 17th century, it became the term for someone possessed by a divine or artistic frenzy. In the 18th century, it came to indicate a “misguided religious emotion”.

It was only fairly recently that enthusiasm lost all its religious connotations, and became a term for someone simply passionate or keen.

Similarly, klimax, in Ancient Greek, was originally just “ladder”. By the 16th century, it was any ascending series of expressions or emotions. And now, of course, it is simply their culmination.

Meanwhile, “manu operare”, Latin for “to work by hand”, gave us, of course, manually operated. But it also came to include the act of cultivating, and dressing soil. Along the way, we ended up with manoeuvre… and manure!

“Nice”, meanwhile, comes to us from the Latin “nescio” (aka nescient aka ignorant or foolish; also, lazy, strange or effeminate). A thorough insult, in other words. In common English usage, it segued into a term for “delicate” or “precise”; then “fastidious”. Somewhere along the way, it simply became “pleasant”. (Talk about a turnaround.)

To end with, two of my favourites.

First, “sine nobilitate”. This Latin term originally meant ‘without nobility”. It was used to refer to any member of the non-aristocratic classes. Soon enough, it became the term for members of such as class who despised their own people and aspired to membership of a higher echelon. And from this we get… “snob”.

In a final tip of the hat to Latin (for now), let’s turn to “glamour”. It comes to us from the Latin “glomeria”, meaning “grammar”. But “glamour” has its roots in Scotland. Here’s how that happened.

By the 18th century, the study of Latin in large parts of present-day UK, including Scotland, had begun to be regarded with suspicion among all but the elite. Were these spells? Were they incantations? How did anyone even learn a language so inscrutable?

From this suspicion came the phrase “to cast the glamour over”, meaning “to put a spell on” (typically using enchantment, deception or charm). Eventually, just the enchantment, deception and charm remained — all of which still linger in “glamour”.

In a sense, we all have a bit of glamour, then, don’t we? We’re all speaking at least a bit of Greek and Latin.

(Adam Jacot de Boinod is the author of The Meaning of Tingo and Other Extraordinary Words from Around the World)