Word Origins  

Did you ever wonder where words comes from? What did they originally mean? The study of word origins is etymology and it's my passion. I find it extremely interesting. Here are some everyday words in English, and the words they derived from:

'Hysteria' comes from the Greek 'hyster' meaning 'womb'.
'Allegory' comes from the Greek 'allos' meaning 'other'.
'Elite' comes from the Latin 'elire' meaning 'to choose'.
'Hazard' comes from the Arabic 'al zahr' meaning 'the dice'.
'Silly' comes from the German 'selig' meaning 'happy'.
Both 'sugar' and 'candy' come from the sanskrit 'sarkara' meaning 'grit'.
'Incentive' comes from the Latin 'incanere' meaning 'to sing to'.
'Nice' comes from the Latin 'nescius' meanig 'ignorant'.
'Idea', 'idol' and 'ideal' all come from the Latin ''idein' meaning 'to see'.
Rhubarb is named after the Volga River. In Greek, the name of the Volga is Rha, and barb means "uncultivated." Rhubarb is thus a wild plant that grows along the Volga.
'Toboggan' is derived from the Algonquin language and loosely meant 'instrument with which to drag a cord'.
The Dalmatian dog is named for the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia, where it is believed to have been originally bred.
Beets reminded early cooks of a bleeding animal when they cut them open, so they started calling them "beets." This was derived from the French word 'bête', meaning "beast."
The ‘v’ in the name of a court case does not stand for ‘versus’, but for ‘and’ (in civil proceedings) or ‘against’ (in criminal proceedings).
According to one source, the Los Angeles Dodgers coined the term "high five." Outfielder Glenn Burke is credited with originating it in 1977.
The word "toady" originally referred to a magician's assistant who literally ate toads a part of the show. Toads were once thought to be poisonous; when the "toady" recovered from eating one of them it was considered an indication of the magician's power.
It is the internet myth that the name of the popular Scottish game Golf stands for "Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden." The word golf originates form medieval Scottish and Dutch dialects. Back in a day before the creation of dictionaries, there was no standardized spelling of any given word. So it is believed that word golf originates from Dutch word "kolf" or "kolve" which meant "club." Later on old Scots dialect transformed the word into "gouf" or "golve ."