Difference between revisions of "Civilisation/Language"

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== World languages ==
 
A '''language isolate''', in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical (or ‘genetic’) relationship with other living languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common to any other language, e.g. Basque, Korean
 
A '''language isolate''', in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical (or ‘genetic’) relationship with other living languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common to any other language, e.g. Basque, Korean
  
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Clicks – speech sounds that occur as consonants in many languages of southern Africa
 
Clicks – speech sounds that occur as consonants in many languages of southern Africa
  
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== Alphabets ==
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Greek alphabet
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[[File:Greek alphabet.png|center|thumb|500x500px]]
  
Runic alphabets – a set of related alphabets using letters (known as runes) formerly used to write Germanic languages before and shortly after the Christianization of Scandinavia and the British Isles. The Scandinavian variants are also known as Futhark
 
  
Hebrew alphabet – 22 letters, from aleph to tav
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Hebrew alphabet
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[[File:Heebrea tähestik.gif|center|thumb|alt=|400x400px]]
  
There are seven vowels in the Greek alphabet
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 +
Runic alphabets – a set of related alphabets using letters (known as runes) formerly used to write Germanic languages before and shortly after the Christianization of Scandinavia and the British Isles. The Scandinavian variants are also known as Futhark
  
 
Welsh alphabet has eight digraphs, and seven vowels
 
Welsh alphabet has eight digraphs, and seven vowels
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Ogham – an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the Old Irish language, and occasionally the Brythonic language
 
Ogham – an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the Old Irish language, and occasionally the Brythonic language
  
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== Grammar ==
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Conjunction – a word or group of words that joins together words, groups, or clauses; e.g. and, because, but
  
Aardvark Dutch for ‘earth pig’
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Types of verb indicative, interrogative, subjunctive and imperative
  
Abacus Latin word came from Greek abax, ‘board strewn with sand or dust used for drawing geometric figures or calculating’
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A transitive verb a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects
  
Aber means ‘mouth of a river’
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Intransitive verb – a verb that has a subject but not an object, e.g. die, complain
  
Abigail traditional term for a waiting-woman
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Types of noun collective, proper and common
  
Aborigine means ‘from the beginning’
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Proper noun a noun that in its primary application refers to a unique entity, such as London, as distinguished from a common noun, which usually refers to a class of entities (cities)
  
Absinthe known as ‘the green fairy’
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Abstract nouns concepts, e.g. peace, truth and joy
  
Ab urbe condita ‘from the founding of the city’
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Conditional clauses introduced by ‘if’ or ‘unless’
  
Acephalous means ‘headless’, whether literally or metaphorically
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Adjective a describing word
  
Acid from Latin for ‘sour’
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Adverb a describing word for anything other than a noun
  
Acoustics from Greek for ‘to hear’
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Pronoun a word that stands in place of a noun
  
Ad hoc means ‘for this purpose’. A solution designed for a specific problem
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Preposition a word placed in front of a noun or pronoun to show its relationship to another part of the sentence, e.g. at, in, on. For example, in the sentence ‘The cat sleeps on the sofa’, the word ‘on’ is a preposition
  
Ad hominem Latin for ‘to the man’, short for argumentum ad hominem, means responding to arguments by attacking a person's character, rather than to the content of their arguments
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Interjection – a word that expresses emotion, e.g. alas!
  
Ad lib short for ad libitum, literally ‘according to pleasure’
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Himself reflexive form of ‘him’
  
Ad nauseum Latin phrase meaning ‘to a sickening degree’
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Infinitives to ‘go’, to ‘do’
  
Adieu means ‘to God’
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The definite article
  
Adrenal means ‘on the kidney’
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A, an indefinite articles
  
Advent anglicized from the Latin word adventus meaning ‘coming’
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Phrase a group of words that does not contain a verb
  
Aeroflot means ‘volunteer force’ or ‘air fleet’
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Myself reflexive personal pronoun of ‘me’
  
Aficianado ardent fan (Spanish). Used to describe fans of bullfighting
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Comma most used punctuation mark
  
Afon means ‘river’
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The plural is sometimes formed by simply changing the vowel sound of the singular, in a process called umlaut (these are sometimes called mutated plurals) e.g. geese, men, women, feet
  
Afrikaner South African of European descent with Afrikaans as the native language. Descendants of the Boers
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Irregular plural has an unusual ending added, e.g. wives, potatoes, cacti
  
AG Aktiengesellschaft, a German company traded on the stock market
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Reduplicated words the stem of a word, or only part of it, are repeated e.g. chit-chat, hanky-panky, mumbo-jumbo
  
Agenda Latin for ‘things to be done’
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Pluperfect tense also called past perfect in English, is used to refer to an event that has completed before another past action
  
Agent provocateur inciting agent (French)
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Metanalysis the act of breaking down a word or phrase into segments or meanings not original to it
  
Aglet metal or plastic sheath over the end of a shoelace. French for 'small needle'
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Eye rhyme a rhyme consisting of words, such as champagne and lasagne, with same ending but different sounds
  
Aileron French for ‘little wing’
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Cognate anagrams a rearrangement of letters, where the original word or phrase is related in meaning to the anagram, e.g. ‘unto a star’ and ‘astronaut’
  
A la carte – French for ‘according to the menu’
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A dependent clause (sometimes called a subordinate clause) is a clause that augments an independent clause with additional information, but which cannot stand alone as a sentence
  
A la mode – French for ‘fashionable’
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Cognates are words that have a common etymological origin
  
Alba Gaelic name for Scotland
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Auxiliary verb a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it appears
  
Albuquerque means ‘white oak’
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Participle a form of a verb that is used in a sentence to modify a noun, noun phrase, verb or verb phrase
  
Alcatraz – means ‘penguin’
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Subject–verb–object (SVO) is a sentence structure where the subject comes first, the verb second, and the object third. Languages may be classified according to the dominant sequence of these elements
  
Alcohol from Arabic al-kuḥl, the kohl, a powder used as an eyeliner
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Fricatives – a type of consonant
  
Al dente – Italian for ‘to the tooth’. Used to describe the way pasta should be served – cooked through but still firm
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Voiceless dental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some oral languages. It is familiar to English speakers as the 'th' in thing
  
Alea iacta est ‘the die is cast’
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== Words derived from foreign languages ==
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Aardvark Dutch for ‘earth pig’
  
Al forno Italian for ‘dish cooked in the oven’
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Abacus Latin word came from Greek abax, ‘board strewn with sand or dust used for drawing geometric figures or calculating’
  
Al fresco in the fresh (Italian). Slang term for ‘in prison’ in Italy
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Aber means ‘mouth of a river’
  
Algarve from an Arabic word meaning ‘the west’
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Abigail traditional term for a waiting-woman
  
Algebra comes from the Arabic language (al-jabr, literally, ‘restoration’'')''
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Aborigine means ‘from the beginning’
  
Algia means pain, e.g. neuralgia
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Absinthe known as ‘the green fairy’
  
Algorithm a corruption of the name of Arabic mathematician Al-Khwarizmi
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Ab urbe condita ‘from the founding of the city’
  
Alibi Latin for ‘elsewhere’ or ‘in another place’
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Acephalous means ‘headless’, whether literally or metaphorically
  
Aliphatic – from the Greek aleiphar meaning ‘fat’ or ‘oil’
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Acid – from Latin for ‘sour’
  
Al Jazeera means ‘the island’ or ‘the peninsula’
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Acoustics from Greek for ‘to hear’
  
Allah Akbar Arabic for ‘God is great’
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Ad hoc means ‘for this purpose’. A solution designed for a specific problem
  
Allegory from Greek for ‘speaking otherwise’
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Ad hominem Latin for ‘to the man’, short for argumentum ad hominem, means responding to arguments by attacking a person's character, rather than to the content of their arguments
  
Alligator from Spanish for ‘lizard’
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Ad lib short for ad libitum, literally ‘according to pleasure’
  
Alma mater – Latin for ‘nourishing mother’. Your university
+
Ad nauseum – Latin phrase meaning ‘to a sickening degree’
  
Allosaurus – means ‘different lizard’
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Adieu – means ‘to God’
  
Amaretto from the Italian amaro, meaning ‘bitter’
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Adrenal means ‘on the kidney’
  
Amarillo Spanish for ‘yellow’
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Advent anglicized from the Latin word adventus meaning ‘coming’
  
Amen Hebrew for ‘truth’
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Aeroflot means ‘volunteer force’ or ‘air fleet’
  
Amnesty means ‘official pardon’
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Aficianado ardent fan (Spanish). Used to describe fans of bullfighting
  
Amok furious attack (Malay). To run amok
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Afon means ‘river’
  
Amphibian Greek for ‘double life’
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Afrikaner South African of European descent with Afrikaans as the native language. Descendants of the Boers
  
Amuse-bouche mouth amuser (French). Complementary taster chosen by the chef
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AG Aktiengesellschaft, a German company traded on the stock market
  
Amy means ‘beloved’
+
Agenda Latin for ‘things to be done’
  
Andalucia from Arabic for ‘the west’
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Agent provocateur inciting agent (French)
  
Andante means ‘going’, in Italian
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Aglet metal or plastic sheath over the end of a shoelace. French for 'small needle'
  
Andro prefix meaning ‘man’
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Aileron French for ‘little wing’
  
Android from the Greek ‘man’ and the suffix ''-''oid ‘having the form or likeness of’
+
A la carte French for ‘according to the menu’
  
Anesthesia from Greek for ‘without feeling’
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A la mode French for ‘fashionable’
  
Angel from Greek word meaning ‘messenger’
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Alba Gaelic name for Scotland
  
Angkor Wat derived from Sanskrit word for ‘city’ and Khmer word for ‘temple’
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Albuquerque means ‘white oak’
  
Angle from the Latin word angulus, meaning ‘a corner’
+
Alcatraz means ‘penguin’
  
Angst fear (German)
+
Alcohol from Arabic al-kuḥl, the kohl, a powder used as an eyeliner
  
Ankh means ‘life’
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Al dente Italian for ‘to the tooth’. Used to describe the way pasta should be served – cooked through but still firm
  
Anno domini Medieval Latin for ‘in the year of the Lord’
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Alea iacta est ‘the die is cast’
  
Anorak heavy hooded jacket (Greenland Inuit)
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Al forno Italian for ‘dish cooked in the oven’
  
Anschluss German for ‘connection’ or ‘union’
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Al fresco in the fresh (Italian). Slang term for ‘in prison’ in Italy
  
Antarctica named by Greeks as anti-arctos, i.e. anti-bear
+
Algarve from an Arabic word meaning ‘the west’
  
Antipasto – (plural antipasti) means ‘before the meal’
+
Algebra comes from the Arabic language (al-jabr, literally, ‘restoration’'')''
  
Antipodes from Greek: ‘opposed’ and ''‘''foot’ refers to any point on the Earth's surface which is diametrically opposite to it
+
Algia means pain, e.g. neuralgia
  
Apartheid means ‘separateness’
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Algorithm a corruption of the name of Arabic mathematician Al-Khwarizmi
  
Aperture from Latin for ‘to open’
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Alibi – Latin for ‘elsewhere’ or ‘in another place’
  
Aphorism – from the Greek aphorismos meaning ‘to define’
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Aliphatic – from the Greek aleiphar meaning ‘fat’ or ‘oil’
  
Apocalypse meaning 'un-covering', translated literally from Greek, is a disclosure of knowledge
+
Al Jazeera means ‘the island’ or ‘the peninsula’
  
Apostle ‘one sent forth’
+
Allah Akbar Arabic for ‘God is great’
  
A posteriori ‘from the late’. Experience is important (see a priori)
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Allegory from Greek for ‘speaking otherwise’
  
Appellation controlee officially certified origin (French)
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Alligator from Spanish for ‘lizard’
  
A priori ‘from the earlier’. Experience is not important. Latin for ‘from what precedes’ (see a posteriori)
+
Alma mater – Latin for ‘nourishing mother’. Your university
  
Apropos on the subject of (French). Means ‘apt’ or ‘by the way’
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Allosaurus means ‘different lizard’
  
Arable – from Latin ‘to plough’
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Amaretto – from the Italian amaro, meaning ‘bitter’
  
Archbishop Greek for ‘chief bishop’
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Amarillo Spanish for ‘yellow’
  
Archipelago from Greek for ‘chief’ and ‘sea’
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Amen Hebrew for ‘truth’
  
Architect from Greek for ‘chief builder’
+
Amnesty means ‘official pardon’
  
Arctic from Greek word for ‘bear’
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Amok furious attack (Malay). To run amok
  
Argon from the Greek for ‘lazy’ or ‘inactive’
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Amphibian – Greek for ‘double life’
  
Arpeggio Italian for ‘to play on a harp’
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Amuse-bouche mouth amuser (French). Complementary taster chosen by the chef
  
Arriviste a person who has arrived (French)
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Amy means ‘beloved’
  
Ars gratia artis MGM slogan, means ‘art for art’s sake’
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Andalucia from Arabic for ‘the west’
  
Ars longa, vita brevis the art is long, life is short (Latin). Coined by Hippocrates
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Andante means ‘going’, in Italian
  
Arthropod means ‘jointed foot’
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Andro prefix meaning ‘man’
  
Asafa means ‘rising to the occasion’
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Android from the Greek ‘man’ and the suffix ''-''oid ‘having the form or likeness of’
  
Asbestos – from the Greek for ‘unquenchable’ or ‘inextinguishable’
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Anesthesia – from Greek for ‘without feeling’
  
Ashkabat Persian meaning ‘City of Love’
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Angel from Greek word meaning ‘messenger’
  
Assassin may have derived from Arabic for ‘hashish eater’
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Angkor Wat – derived from Sanskrit word for ‘city’ and Khmer word for ‘temple’
  
Assiette French word for ‘plate’
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Angle from the Latin word angulus, meaning ‘a corner’
  
Assize refers to the sittings or sessions (Old French ‘assises’) of the judges, known as ‘justices of assize’
+
Angst fear (German)
  
Asterisk Greek for ‘little star’
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Ankh means ‘life’
  
Aswad Arabic for ‘black’
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Anno domini Medieval Latin for ‘in the year of the Lord’
  
Altamira Spanish for 'high view'
+
Anorak heavy hooded jacket (Greenland Inuit)
  
Alter ego other self (Latin)
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Anschluss German for ‘connection’ or ‘union’
  
Atom from Greek ‘atomas’, meaning indivisible
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Antarctica named by Greeks as anti-arctos, i.e. anti-bear
  
Atelier a French word literally translated as ‘workshop.’ In English, it is used to refer to an artist's working studio, typically a fashion studio for Haute couture
+
Antipasto (plural antipasti) means ‘before the meal’
  
Atlantic Ocean – from ‘sea of Atlas’
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Antipodes – from Greek: ‘opposed’ and ''‘''foot’ refers to any point on the Earth's surface which is diametrically opposite to it
  
Au fait informed (French)
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Apartheid means ‘separateness’
  
Auld Lang Syne means ‘Old Long Since’
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Aperture from Latin for ‘to open’
  
Au Revoir ‘until we meet again’
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Aphorism from the Greek aphorismos meaning ‘to define’
  
Autarchism – from Greek ‘belief in self rule’ is a political philosophy that upholds the principle of individual liberty, rejects compulsory government, and supports the elimination of government in favor of ruling oneself and no other
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Apocalypse meaning 'un-covering', translated literally from Greek, is a disclosure of knowledge
  
Aurum means ‘shiny dawn’
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Apostle ‘one sent forth’
  
Auto-da-fe act of faith (Portuguese). Comes from the Spanish Inquisition. In English the term is used to describe an image of a heretic being burned at the stake
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A posteriori ‘from the late’. Experience is important (see a priori)
  
Avalanche snow slide (Romansh)
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Appellation controlee officially certified origin (French)
  
Avant-garde means ‘advance guard’ or ‘vanguard’
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A priori ‘from the earlier’. Experience is not important. Latin for ‘from what precedes’ (see a posteriori)
  
Avocado Nahuatl word
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Apropos on the subject of (French). Means ‘apt’ or ‘by the way’
  
Avoirdupois – from Old French, literally ‘goods of weight’
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Arable – from Latin ‘to plough’
  
Ayatollah means ‘sign of God (Allah)’
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Archbishop Greek for ‘chief bishop’
  
Azure – from the Persian ‘Lazheward’, which is the name of a place in Afghanistan that in ancient times was the main source for lapis lazuli
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Archipelago – from Greek for ‘chief’ and ‘sea’
  
Ba'al a northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning ‘master’ or ‘lord’ that is used for various gods who were patrons of cities in the Levant
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Architect from Greek for ‘chief builder’
  
Babylon Rastafarian word for the western world
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Arctic from Greek word for ‘bear’
  
Baccala Italian for ‘salt cod’
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Argon from the Greek for ‘lazy’ or ‘inactive’
  
Bacteria from Greek for ‘staff’ or ‘cane’, because the first ones to be discovered were rod-shaped
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Arpeggio Italian for ‘to play on a harp’
  
Bad German for ‘bath’
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Arriviste a person who has arrived (French)
  
Bagel from a High German word
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Ars gratia artis MGM slogan, means ‘art for art’s sake’
  
Baghdad means ‘Garden of God’
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Ars longa, vita brevis the art is long, life is short (Latin). Coined by Hippocrates
  
Bahamas Spanish for ‘shallow water’
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Arthropod means ‘jointed foot’
  
Bahrain – means ‘two seas’
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Asafa – means ‘rising to the occasion’
  
Bain-marie means ‘Mary’s bath’. French cooking utensil
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Asbestos from the Greek for ‘unquenchable’ or ‘inextinguishable’
  
Baksheesh ‘gift’ (Persian)
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Ashkabat – Persian meaning ‘City of Love’
  
Bald means ‘white-headed’
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Assassin may have derived from Arabic for ‘hashish eater’
  
Bambi known as ‘prince of the forest’
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Assiette French word for ‘plate’
  
Banal – French for ‘feudal service’
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Assize refers to the sittings or sessions (Old French ‘assises’) of the judges, known as ‘justices of assize’
  
Banana means ‘fruit of wise men’
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Asterisk Greek for ‘little star’
  
Bandana ‘to tie’ (Hindi, via Sanskrit)
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Aswad Arabic for ‘black’
  
Bank derives from the Italian word banco ‘desk/bench’, used during the Renaissance by Florentines bankers, who used to make their transactions above a desk covered by a green tablecloth
+
Altamira Spanish for 'high view'
  
Banshee Irish for ‘female of the elves / fairies’
+
Alter ego other self (Latin)
  
Baptism – from Greek for ‘to bathe or dip’
+
Atom – from Greek ‘atomas’, meaning indivisible
  
Barack Swahili for ‘blessing’
+
Atelier a French word literally translated as ‘workshop.’ In English, it is used to refer to an artist's working studio, typically a fashion studio for Haute couture
  
Barbados – from the Portuguese for ‘bearded’
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Atlantic Ocean – from ‘sea of Atlas’
  
Barbarian someone whose first language was not Greek
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Au fait informed (French)
  
Baroque from Portuguese for ‘misshapen pearl’
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Auld Lang Syne means ‘Old Long Since’
  
Bascule French for ‘seesaw’
+
Au Revoir ‘until we meet again’
  
Basilica – from Greek for ‘royal’
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Autarchism – from Greek ‘belief in self rule’ is a political philosophy that upholds the principle of individual liberty, rejects compulsory government, and supports the elimination of government in favor of ruling oneself and no other
  
Basset hound from the French word ‘bas’ meaning ‘low’
+
Aurum means ‘shiny dawn’
  
Baton Rouge French for ‘red stick’
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Auto-da-fe act of faith (Portuguese). Comes from the Spanish Inquisition. In English the term is used to describe an image of a heretic being burned at the stake
  
Baumwolle German name for ‘cotton’
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Avalanche snow slide (Romansh)
  
Bayonet from French town of Bayonne where it was made
+
Avant-garde means ‘advance guard’ or ‘vanguard’
  
Bazaar ‘marketplace’ (Persian)
+
Avocado Nahuatl word
  
Beagle – from French begueule meaning ‘open throat’
+
Avoirdupois – from Old French, literally ‘goods of weight’
  
Beaumaris French for ‘fair marsh’
+
Ayatollah means ‘sign of God (Allah)’
  
Beelzebub means ‘Lord of the Flies’
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Azure from the Persian ‘Lazheward’, which is the name of a place in Afghanistan that in ancient times was the main source for lapis lazuli
  
Belgrade means ‘white city’
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Ba'al a northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning ‘master’ or ‘lord’ that is used for various gods who were patrons of cities in the Levant
  
Belgium named after an ancient Celtic tribe, the Belges
+
Babylon Rastafarian word for the western world
  
Belvedere means ‘fair view’ in Italian, refers to any architectural structure sited to take advantage of such a view
+
Baccala – Italian for ‘salt cod’
  
Ben Nevis Gaelic for ‘terrible mountain’
+
Bacteria from Greek for ‘staff’ or ‘cane’, because the first ones to be discovered were rod-shaped
  
Berserk bear shirt (Old Norse)
+
Bad German for ‘bath’
  
Bete noire black beast (French)
+
Bagel from a High German word
  
Bethlehem – means ‘house of bread’
+
Baghdad – means ‘Garden of God’
  
Betws-y-Coed means ‘Prayer house in the wood’
+
Bahamas Spanish for ‘shallow water’
  
Bharata Sanskrit name for Indian subcontinent
+
Bahrain means ‘two seas’
  
Bichon Frise – French, literally meaning ‘curly lap dog’
+
Bain-marie means ‘Mary’s bath’. French cooking utensil
  
Bidet French for ‘pony’
+
Baksheesh ‘gift’ (Persian)
  
Bijou jewel (French)
+
Bald means ‘white-headed’
  
Bimbo derived from Italian for ‘child’ (bambino)
+
Bambi known as ‘prince of the forest’
  
Biology Greek for ‘life study’
+
Banal French for ‘feudal service’
  
Bis in die Latin for ‘twice a day’. Seen on prescriptions
+
Banana means ‘fruit of wise men’
  
Bismillah means ‘in the name of God’ in Arabic
+
Bandana ‘to tie’ (Hindi, via Sanskrit)
  
Bizarre – from the Basque word for ‘beard’
+
Bank derives from the Italian word banco ‘desk/bench’, used during the Renaissance by Florentines bankers, who used to make their transactions above a desk covered by a green tablecloth
  
Blasé from French blaser, ‘to cloy’
+
Banshee Irish for ‘female of the elves / fairies’
  
Bloemfontein means ‘fountain of flowers’
+
Baptism from Greek for ‘to bathe or dip’
  
Blunderbuss Dutch for ‘thunder gun’
+
Barack Swahili for ‘blessing’
  
Boche contemptuous term used to refer to a German, especially a German soldier
+
Barbados from the Portuguese for ‘bearded’
  
Boer Dutch word for ‘farmer’
+
Barbarian someone whose first language was not Greek
  
Boko Haram means ‘Western education is forbidden’
+
Baroque from Portuguese for ‘misshapen pearl’
  
Bolshevik means ‘majority’
+
Bascule French for ‘seesaw’
  
Bolshoi means ‘grand’
+
Basilica from Greek for ‘royal’
  
Bonanza Spanish for ‘good weather’
+
Basset hound from the French word ‘bas’ meaning ‘low’
  
Bona Fide ‘in good faith’
+
Baton Rouge French for ‘red stick’
  
Bonhomie simple good-heartedness (French)
+
Baumwolle German name for ‘cotton’
  
Bon mot ‘right word’ (French). A quip or witty remark
+
Bayonet from French town of Bayonne where it was made
  
Boondocks from Tagalog word for ‘mountain’
+
Bazaar ‘marketplace’ (Persian)
  
Bordello brothel (Italian)
+
Beagle from French begueule meaning ‘open throat’
  
Bosquet – French, from Italian bosco, "grove, wood". A plantation of trees in a French formal garden
+
Beaumaris – French for ‘fair marsh’
  
Botany derived from Greek word for ‘herb’
+
Beelzebub means ‘Lord of the Flies’
  
Boudicca – means ‘victory’ in Old Welsh
+
Belgrade – means ‘white city’
  
Bouffant French for ‘puff out’
+
Belgium named after an ancient Celtic tribe, the Belges
  
La Bourse – means ‘the purse’
+
Belvedere – means ‘fair view’ in Italian, refers to any architectural structure sited to take advantage of such a view
  
Bowery from Old Dutch word for ‘farm’
+
Ben Nevis Gaelic for ‘terrible mountain’
  
Brandy from Dutch for ‘burnt wine’
+
Berserk bear shirt (Old Norse)
  
Breve a diacritical mark ˘, shaped like the bottom half of a circle
+
Bete noire black beast (French)
  
Bric-a-brac French expression meaning ‘at random’
+
Bethlehem means ‘house of bread’
  
Brio vigour, vivacity (Spanish / Italian)
+
Betws-y-Coed means ‘Prayer house in the wood’
  
Brochet French for ‘pike’
+
Bharata Sanskrit name for Indian subcontinent
  
A la brochette means ‘on a skewer’
+
Bichon Frise French, literally meaning ‘curly lap dog’
  
Broccoli from Italian for ‘little shoot’ or ‘cabbage sprout’
+
Bidet French for ‘pony’
  
Brogue Irish for ‘leg covering’
+
Bijou jewel (French)
  
Bromance a portmanteau of the words bro or brother and romance
+
Bimbo derived from Italian for ‘child’ (bambino)
  
Brontosaurus means ‘thunder lizard’
+
Biology Greek for ‘life study’
  
Buccaneer from ‘barbequer’
+
Bis in die Latin for ‘twice a day’. Seen on prescriptions
  
Budgerigar from ‘good cockatoo’ in Aboriginal
+
Bismillah means ‘in the name of God’ in Arabic
  
Budget – from French for ‘little bag’ or ‘purse’
+
Bizarre – from the Basque word for ‘beard’
  
Bugle – from Latin for ‘bullock’
+
Blasé – from French blaser, ‘to cloy’
  
Bulb from the Greek for ‘onion’
+
Bloemfontein means ‘fountain of flowers’
  
Bulimia Greek for ‘ox’ and ‘hunger’
+
Blunderbuss Dutch for ‘thunder gun’
  
Burrito Spanish for ‘small donkey’
+
Boche contemptuous term used to refer to a German, especially a German soldier
  
Buttero a shepherd or cowboy in Tuscany
+
Boer Dutch word for ‘farmer’
  
Cab short for cabriolet (as in taxi cab)
+
Boko Haram means ‘Western education is forbidden’
  
Cadmium from Greek word for ‘calamine’
+
Bolshevik means ‘majority’
  
Cagoule French for ‘hood’
+
Bolshoi means ‘grand’
  
Cairngorms Gaelic name for ‘Blue Rocky Hill’
+
Bonanza Spanish for ‘good weather’
  
Calculus comes from the Latin word for ‘pebble’
+
Bona Fide ‘in good faith’
  
Cafeteria Spanish for ‘coffee shop’
+
Bonhomie simple good-heartedness (French)
  
Caldo Italian for ‘hot’
+
Bon mot ‘right word’ (French). A quip or witty remark
  
Caliph Arabic for ‘successor’
+
Boondocks from Tagalog word for ‘mountain’
  
Calli means ‘beautiful’, as in calligraphy
+
Bordello brothel (Italian)
  
Callipygian Greek for ‘beautiful buttocks’
+
Bosquet French, from Italian bosco, "grove, wood". A plantation of trees in a French formal garden
  
Calzone means ‘trouser leg’
+
Botany derived from Greek word for ‘herb’
  
Camouflage from French word meaning ‘to disguise’
+
Boudicca means ‘victory’ in Old Welsh
  
Campanella Italian for ‘little bell’
+
Bouffant French for ‘puff out’
  
Campus – means ‘field’ in Latin
+
La Bourse – means ‘the purse’
  
Canada – from a First Nations word kanata for ‘settlement’, ‘village’, or ‘land’
+
Bowery – from Old Dutch word for ‘farm’
  
Cancan French for ‘scandal’
+
Brandy from Dutch for ‘burnt wine’
  
Candidate from the Latin candidatus (‘white-robed’), because candidates for office in Rome were clothed in a white toga
+
Breve a diacritical mark ˘, shaped like the bottom half of a circle
  
Cannelloni means ‘big tubes’
+
Bric-a-brac French expression meaning ‘at random’
  
Canto a principal form of division in a long poem, especially the epic. The word comes from the Latin cantus, meaning ‘song’
+
Brio vigour, vivacity (Spanish / Italian)
  
Canyon from Spanish for ‘tube’
+
Brochet French for ‘pike’
  
Capercaillie largest member of the grouse family. Name derived from the Gaelic capull coille, meaning ‘horse of the woods’
+
A la brochette means ‘on a skewer’
  
Capiche – Italian for ‘do you understand’
+
Broccoli from Italian for ‘little shoot’ or ‘cabbage sprout’
  
Capo tasto, or simply capo, is a device used for shortening the strings, and hence raising the pitch, of a stringed instrument
+
Brogue – Irish for ‘leg covering’
  
Carfax derives from the French carrefour ‘crossroads’, or quatre-face ‘four-face’
+
Bromance a portmanteau of the words bro or brother and romance
  
Carnival from Italian for ‘removal of meat’
+
Brontosaurus means ‘thunder lizard’
  
Carpe diem a phrase from a Latin poem by Horace. It is popularly translated as ‘seize the day’
+
Buccaneer – from ‘barbequer’
  
Carte blanche white or blank card (French). Military term meaning surrender from 1700s when a blank piece of paper was given to a victorious commander on which they could write their terms
+
Budgerigar – from ‘good cockatoo’ in Aboriginal
  
Carthage 'new town' in Phoenician
+
Budget from French for ‘little bag’ or ‘purse’
  
Cartoon – from Italian cartone, meaning ‘heavy paper’
+
Bugle – from Latin for ‘bullock’
  
Casablanca means ‘white house’ in Spanish
+
Bulb from the Greek for ‘onion’
  
Casbah means citadel (fortress) in Arabic
+
Bulimia Greek for ‘ox’ and ‘hunger’
  
Casino from Italian for ‘little house’
+
Burrito Spanish for ‘small donkey’
  
Cassette French for ‘little box’
+
Buttero a shepherd or cowboy in Tuscany
  
Cassock from Italian for ‘long coat’
+
Cab short for cabriolet (as in taxi cab)
  
Cataclysm the Greek expression for the Biblical Great Flood of Noah, from the Greek kataklysmos, to ‘waste down’
+
Cadmium from Greek word for ‘calamine’
  
Catamaran Tamil for ‘tied wood’
+
Cagoule French for ‘hood’
  
Catastrophe Greek for ‘down turning’
+
Cairngorms Gaelic name for ‘Blue Rocky Hill’
  
Catena – Latin for ‘chain’
+
Calculus comes from the Latin word for ‘pebble’
  
Caucus Algonquin for ‘meeting of tribal leaders’
+
Cafeteria Spanish for ‘coffee shop’
  
Cause celebre ‘famous case’ (French). Became common after the false conviction of Alfred Dreyfuss in 1894
+
Caldo Italian for ‘hot’
  
Cava from the Spanish word for ‘cellar’
+
Caliph Arabic for ‘successor’
  
Cavalier derives from the same Latin root as the French word chevalier (as well as the Spanish word caballero), the word caballarius, meaning ‘horseman’
+
Calli means ‘beautiful’, as in calligraphy
  
Cavatappi pasta, from Italian for ‘corkscrew’
+
Callipygian Greek for ‘beautiful buttocks’
  
Cenotaph – means ‘empty tomb’
+
Calzone – means ‘trouser leg’
  
Cephalophore (from the Greek for ‘head-carrier’) is a saint who is generally depicted carrying his or her own head; in art, this was usually meant to signify that the subject in question had been martyred by beheading
+
Camouflage – from French word meaning ‘to disguise’
  
Cephalopod means ‘head foot’
+
Campanella Italian for ‘little bell’
  
Ceramic from Greek for ‘pottery’
+
Campus means ‘field’ in Latin
  
Cerebellum Latin for ‘little brain’
+
Canada from a First Nations word kanata for ‘settlement’, ‘village’, or ‘land’
  
Cerise a purplish red colour. From the French word meaning ‘cherry’
+
Cancan – French for ‘scandal’
  
Chagrin distress (French)
+
Candidate from the Latin candidatus (‘white-robed’), because candidates for office in Rome were clothed in a white toga
  
Chaise type of carriage. From French for ‘chair’
+
Cannelloni means ‘big tubes’
  
Chambre French for ‘bedroom’
+
Canto a principal form of division in a long poem, especially the epic. The word comes from the Latin cantus, meaning ‘song’
  
Champs Elysses French for Elysian Fields
+
Canyon from Spanish for ‘tube’
  
Chanterelle means ‘drinking cup’
+
Capercaillie largest member of the grouse family. Name derived from the Gaelic capull coille, meaning ‘horse of the woods’
  
Chapacubra from chupar ‘to suck’ and cabra ‘goat’, literally ‘goat sucker’, is a legendary creature rumoured to inhabit parts of the Americas
+
Capiche Italian for ‘do you understand’
  
Charmarghz – Afghan word for walnut .Means ‘four brains’
+
Capo tasto, or simply capo, is a device used for shortening the strings, and hence raising the pitch, of a stringed instrument
  
Chauvinism named after Nicolas Chauvin, a follower of Napoleon
+
Carfax derives from the French carrefour ‘crossroads’, or quatre-face ‘four-face’
  
Checkmate Persian for ‘the king is dead’
+
Carnival from Italian for ‘removal of meat’
  
Cheetah – from Sanskrit for ‘speckled’
+
Carpe diem a phrase from a Latin poem by Horace. It is popularly translated as ‘seize the day’
  
Chenille – French word for ‘caterpillar’
+
Carte blanche white or blank card (French). Military term meaning surrender from 1700s when a blank piece of paper was given to a victorious commander on which they could write their terms
  
Cherchez la femme look for the woman (French). Taken from the 1854 book ''Les Mohicans de Paris'' by Alexandre Dumas pere
+
Carthage – 'new town' in Phoenician
  
-chester, -caster or -cester on an English place name indicates that it is of Roman origin, referring to a camp or fort
+
Cartoon – from Italian cartone, meaning ‘heavy paper’
  
Chic elegant (French)
+
Casablanca means ‘white house’ in Spanish
  
Chicago a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, meaning ‘wild onion’ or ‘wild garlic’
+
Casbah means citadel (fortress) in Arabic
  
Chili con carne ‘chili with meat’
+
Casino from Italian for ‘little house’
  
Chindit a corruption of the Burmese word for ‘winged stone lion’
+
Cassette French for ‘little box’
  
Chipolata comes from the Italian for ‘a dish of onions’
+
Cassock – from Italian for ‘long coat’
  
Chipping in a place name means ‘market’
+
Cataclysm the Greek expression for the Biblical Great Flood of Noah, from the Greek kataklysmos, to ‘waste down’
  
Chi Rho the first two letters (chi = ch and rho = r) in the Greek spelling of the word ‘Christ’
+
Catamaran Tamil for ‘tied wood’
  
Chiromancy from Greek ‘hand divination’
+
Catastrophe – Greek for ‘down turning’
  
Chiroptera Greek for ‘hand wing’
+
Catena Latin for ‘chain’
  
Chloe from the Greek meaning ‘young green shoot’
+
Caucus Algonquin for ‘meeting of tribal leaders’
  
Chocolate Nahuatl for ‘bitter water’
+
Cause celebre ‘famous case’ (French). Became common after the false conviction of Alfred Dreyfuss in 1894
  
Chop chop hurry (Chinese, as Pidgin English)
+
Cava from the Spanish word for ‘cellar’
  
Chop suey mixed pieces (Chinese)
+
Cavalier derives from the same Latin root as the French word chevalier (as well as the Spanish word caballero), the word caballarius, meaning ‘horseman’
  
Chorea ancient Greek for ‘dance’
+
Cavatappi pasta, from Italian for ‘corkscrew’
  
Chow mein Chinese for ‘fried noodles’
+
Cenotaph means ‘empty tomb’
  
Christ ancient Greek Christos, meaning ‘anointed’
+
Cephalophore (from the Greek for ‘head-carrier’) is a saint who is generally depicted carrying his or her own head; in art, this was usually meant to signify that the subject in question had been martyred by beheading
  
Chromosome from Greek for ‘coloured body’
+
Cephalopod means ‘head foot’
  
Chrys prefix referring to gold, from Greek chrysos
+
Ceramic – from Greek for ‘pottery’
  
Chrysanthemum means ‘golden flower’ in Greek. National flower of Japan
+
Cerebellum Latin for ‘little brain’
  
Chthonic Greek for ‘subterranean’, pertains to deities or spirits of the underworld
+
Cerise a purplish red colour. From the French word meaning ‘cherry’
  
Chukka from Sanskrit for ‘circle’ or ‘wheel’
+
Chagrin distress (French)
  
Chutney ‘to taste’ (Hindi)
+
Chaise type of carriage. From French for ‘chair’
  
Chutzpah Yiddish word meaning ‘nerve or self-confidence’
+
Chambre French for ‘bedroom’
  
Ciabatta Italian for ‘slipper’
+
Champs Elysses French for Elysian Fields
  
Cilium Latin for ‘eyelash’
+
Chanterelle means ‘drinking cup’
  
Cinema – from Greek for ‘motion’
+
Chapacubra – from chupar ‘to suck’ and cabra ‘goat’, literally ‘goat sucker’, is a legendary creature rumoured to inhabit parts of the Americas
  
Cirrhosis from Greek word meaning ‘tawny’
+
Charmarghz Afghan word for walnut .Means ‘four brains’
  
Cirrus means ‘filament of hair’
+
Chauvinism named after Nicolas Chauvin, a follower of Napoleon
  
Clair de lune French for ‘moonlight’
+
Checkmate Persian for ‘the king is dead’
  
Claptrap originally a theatrical trick to win applause
+
Cheetah from Sanskrit for ‘speckled’
  
Clavis latin for ‘key’
+
Chenille French word for ‘caterpillar’
  
Cliche – from the name of a printing plate in France cast from movable type. This is also called a stereotype
+
Cherchez la femme look for the woman (French). Taken from the 1854 book ''Les Mohicans de Paris'' by Alexandre Dumas pere
  
Climate – from Greek for ‘slope’
+
-chester, -caster or -cester on an English place name indicates that it is of Roman origin, referring to a camp or fort
  
Cloaca Maxima means ‘greatest sewer’. Constructed in Rome c. 600 BC
+
Chic elegant (French)
  
Cloche – French for ‘bell’
+
Chicago a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, meaning ‘wild onion’ or ‘wild garlic’
  
Clone derived from the Greek word for ‘trunk, branch’, referring to the process whereby a new plant can be created from a twig
+
Chili con carne ‘chili with meat’
  
Cobra Portuguese for ‘snake’
+
Chindit a corruption of the Burmese word for ‘winged stone lion’
  
Codeine Greek for ‘poppy head’
+
Chipolata comes from the Italian for ‘a dish of onions’
  
Coelacanth – means 'hollow spine' in Greek
+
Chipping in a place name means ‘market’
  
Coffee – the term was introduced to Europe by the Ottoman Turkish ‘kahve’, which is, in turn, derived from the Arabic ‘qahweh’
+
Chi Rho – the first two letters (chi = ch and rho = r) in the Greek spelling of the word ‘Christ’
  
Cognoscenti those who know (Italian)
+
Chiromancy from Greek ‘hand divination’
  
Coleoptera ‘sheath-winged’, beetles
+
Chiroptera Greek for ‘hand wing’
  
Coleslaw – from Dutch for ‘cabbage salad’
+
Chloe – from the Greek meaning ‘young green shoot’
  
Collage French for ‘to glue’
+
Chocolate Nahuatl for ‘bitter water’
  
Comet from Greek for ‘long haired’
+
Chop chop hurry (Chinese, as Pidgin English)
  
Commissar means ‘one trusted’. An official of the Communist Party who was assigned to teach party principles to a military unit
+
Chop suey mixed pieces (Chinese)
  
Commode French for ‘chest of drawers’
+
Chorea ancient Greek for ‘dance’
  
Compere someone who introduces acts. French word for ‘godfather’
+
Chow mein Chinese for ‘fried noodles’
  
Compos mentis a sound mind (Latin)
+
Christ ancient Greek Christos, meaning ‘anointed’
  
Compostela comes from Latin campus stellae, i.e. ‘field of stars’, making Santiago de Compostela ‘St. James of the Field of Stars’. This name would come from the belief that the bones of St. James were taken from the Middle East to Spain
+
Chromosome – from Greek for ‘coloured body’
  
Compos mentis ‘of sound mind’
+
Chrys prefix referring to gold, from Greek chrysos
  
Conchiglie from the Italian for ‘seashell’
+
Chrysanthemum means ‘golden flower’ in Greek. National flower of Japan
  
Conchobar Irish male name meaning ‘lover of hounds’. It is the source of the Irish names Conor, Connor, etc. It is a name borne by several figures from Irish history and legend
+
Chthonic Greek for ‘subterranean’, pertains to deities or spirits of the underworld
  
Conclave Latin for ‘lockable room’
+
Chukka from Sanskrit for ‘circle’ or ‘wheel’
  
Concrete –from the Latin word concretus, meaning ‘compact’ or ‘condensed’
+
Chutney – ‘to taste’ (Hindi)
  
Confetti sweets (Italian). The term is used in Italy for sugared almonds, which are eaten at weddings
+
Chutzpah Yiddish word meaning ‘nerve or self-confidence’
  
Connoisseur expert (French)
+
Ciabatta Italian for ‘slipper’
  
Conspiracy means ‘breathing together’
+
Cilium Latin for ‘eyelash’
  
Contract – from Latin for ‘to draw together’
+
Cinema – from Greek for ‘motion’
  
Contrapposto an Italian term that means ‘counterpose’. It is used in the visual arts to describe a human figure standing with most of its weight on one foot
+
Cirrhosis from Greek word meaning ‘tawny’
  
Contretemps ‘against the time’ (French). Originally a mistimed thrust in a fencing bout
+
Cirrus means ‘filament of hair’
  
Copa del Rey Spanish for ‘king’s cup’
+
Clair de lune French for ‘moonlight’
  
Cordillera Spanish for ‘little rope’
+
Claptrap originally a theatrical trick to win applause
  
Cordon Bleu means ‘blue ribbon’
+
Clavis latin for ‘key’
  
Coriander – from the Greek for ‘resembling a bedbug’
+
Cliche – from the name of a printing plate in France cast from movable type. This is also called a stereotype
  
Corgi Welsh for ‘dwarf dog’
+
Climate from Greek for ‘slope’
  
Cornet from Latin for ‘horn’
+
Cloaca Maxima means ‘greatest sewer’. Constructed in Rome c. 600 BC
  
Cornichon – French for ‘gherkin’
+
Cloche – French for ‘bell’
  
Coronary comes from the Latin ‘corona’ and Greek ‘koron’ meaning crown
+
Clone derived from the Greek word for ‘trunk, branch’, referring to the process whereby a new plant can be created from a twig
  
Corpus delicti legal term meaning ‘the essence of the crime’
+
Cobra Portuguese for ‘snake’
  
Corpus luteum Latin for ‘yellow body’
+
Codeine Greek for ‘poppy head’
  
Corrida Spanish word for ‘bullfighting’
+
Coelacanth means 'hollow spine' in Greek
  
Corrida de toros Spanish for ‘running of bulls’
+
Coffee the term was introduced to Europe by the Ottoman Turkish ‘kahve’, which is, in turn, derived from the Arabic ‘qahweh’
  
Cosi Fan Tutte – Italian for ‘thus do they all’
+
Cognoscenti those who know (Italian)
  
Cossack from Turkish for ‘adventurer’ or ‘freeman’
+
Coleoptera ‘sheath-winged’, beetles
  
Costard a now-extinct medieval variety of large, ribbed apple
+
Coleslaw from Dutch for ‘cabbage salad’
  
Cotyledon Greek for ‘seed leaf’
+
Collage French for ‘to glue’
  
Count – from the French ‘comte’
+
Comet – from Greek for ‘long haired’
  
Coulis from French for ‘strained liquid’
+
Commissar means ‘one trusted’. An official of the Communist Party who was assigned to teach party principles to a military unit
  
Coup d’etat – French for ‘strike/blow of state’
+
Commode – French for ‘chest of drawers’
  
Coup de grace ‘blow of mercy’ (French). A final death blow that ends the suffering of someone who is wounded
+
Compere – someone who introduces acts. French word for ‘godfather’
  
Cowboy from the Spanish ‘vaquero’
+
Compos mentis a sound mind (Latin)
  
Cowling – from Latin for ‘hood’
+
Compostela comes from Latin campus stellae, i.e. ‘field of stars’, making Santiago de Compostela ‘St. James of the Field of Stars’. This name would come from the belief that the bones of St. James were taken from the Middle East to Spain
  
Crayon from French for ‘chalk’
+
Compos mentis ‘of sound mind’
  
Creche French for ‘crib’ or ‘manger’
+
Conchiglie from the Italian for ‘seashell’
  
Creed means ‘I believe’
+
Conchobar Irish male name meaning ‘lover of hounds’. It is the source of the Irish names Conor, Connor, etc. It is a name borne by several figures from Irish history and legend
  
Creme brulee means ‘burnt cream’
+
Conclave Latin for ‘lockable room’
  
Croon – from Dutch words
+
Concrete –from the Latin word concretus, meaning ‘compact’ or ‘condensed’
  
Csarda Hungarian for ‘country inn’
+
Confetti sweets (Italian). The term is used in Italy for sugared almonds, which are eaten at weddings
  
La Cuccaracha ‘the cockroach’
+
Connoisseur expert (French)
  
Cui bono literally ‘for who’s good?’
+
Conspiracy means ‘breathing together’
  
Cuisse de grenouilles frogs’ legs
+
Contract from Latin for ‘to draw together’
  
Curate form Latin for ‘care’
+
Contrapposto an Italian term that means ‘counterpose’. It is used in the visual arts to describe a human figure standing with most of its weight on one foot
  
Curriculum vitae ‘course of life’ (Latin)
+
Contretemps ‘against the time’ (French). Originally a mistimed thrust in a fencing bout
  
Curry derived from the Tamil word for ‘sauce’
+
Copa del Rey Spanish for ‘king’s cup’
  
Cushy ‘easy’ (Urdu)
+
Cordillera Spanish for ‘little rope’
  
Cyclamen Greek for ‘circle’
+
Cordon Bleu means ‘blue ribbon’
  
Cymbal derived from Greek word for ‘cup’
+
Coriander – from the Greek for ‘resembling a bedbug’
  
Cynosure French for ‘dog’s tail’. Something that is the centre of attention
+
Corgi Welsh for ‘dwarf dog’
  
Cyst – from Greek for ‘bladder’
+
Cornet – from Latin for ‘horn’
  
Dachshund German for ‘badger dog’
+
Cornichon French for ‘gherkin’
  
Dada French for ‘hobby horse’
+
Coronary comes from the Latin ‘corona’ and Greek ‘koron’ meaning crown
  
Daktari Swahili for ‘doctor’
+
Corpus delicti legal term meaning ‘the essence of the crime’
  
Dale comes from a Nordic/Germanic word for ‘valley’
+
Corpus luteum Latin for ‘yellow body’
  
Damask named after the city of Damascus
+
Corrida Spanish word for ‘bullfighting’
  
Damson derived from the Latin ''Prunum damascunum'', ‘plum of Damascus’
+
Corrida de toros Spanish for ‘running of bulls’
  
Dandelion means ‘lions tooth’
+
Cosi Fan Tutte Italian for ‘thus do they all’
  
Darjeeling Hindi for ‘land of the thunderbolt’
+
Cossack from Turkish for ‘adventurer’ or ‘freeman’
  
Debacle ‘collapse’ (French)
+
Costard a now-extinct medieval variety of large, ribbed apple
  
Decimation a form of military discipline used by officers in the Roman Army to punish mutinous or cowardly soldiers. The word decimation is derived from Latin meaning ‘removal of a tenth’
+
Cotyledon Greek for ‘seed leaf’
  
Decoy – from Dutch word for ‘duck cage’
+
Count – from the French ‘comte’
  
Decree nisi unless (French). Means ‘not final’, as in a conditional divorce
+
Coulis from French for ‘strained liquid’
  
Decus et tutamen means ‘an ornament and a safeguard’
+
Coup d’etat French for ‘strike/blow of state’
  
Dei gratia ‘by the grace of god’
+
Coup de grace ‘blow of mercy’ (French). A final death blow that ends the suffering of someone who is wounded
  
Deja vu means ‘already seen’. The term was coined by a French psychic researcher, Emile Boirac
+
Cowboy from the Spanish ‘vaquero’
  
Delphinium named because it resembles a dolphin’s head
+
Cowling from Latin for ‘hood’
  
Demi-monde –‘ half-world’ (French). Means mistresses, or those on the edges of respectable society
+
Crayon – from French for ‘chalk’
  
Democracy Greek for ‘people rule’
+
Creche French for ‘crib’ or ‘manger’
  
De mortuis nil nisi bonum – means ‘don’t speak ill of the dead’
+
Creed – means ‘I believe’
  
Denim came from the name of a French material, serge de Nimes: serge (a kind of material) from Nimes (a town in France)
+
Creme brulee means ‘burnt cream’
  
Denouement an untying (French). Tying up the loose ends after the climax of a story
+
Croon from Dutch words
  
Deo valento ‘God willing’
+
Csarda Hungarian for ‘country inn’
  
Deportivo means 'sporting'
+
La Cuccaracha ‘the cockroach’
  
De profundis ‘from the depths’
+
Cui bono literally ‘for who’s good?’
  
Derelict from Latin for ‘to abandon’
+
Cuisse de grenouilles frogs’ legs
  
De rigueur necessary (French)
+
Curate form Latin for ‘care’
  
Deshabille undressed (French)
+
Curriculum vitae ‘course of life’ (Latin)
  
Des Moines means ‘of the monks’
+
Curry derived from the Tamil word for ‘sauce’
  
Detente French for ‘relaxation’
+
Cushy ‘easy’ (Urdu)
  
De trop in excess (French)
+
Cyclamen Greek for ‘circle’
  
Deus ex machine ‘god from the machine’ (Latin). A plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new character, ability, or object
+
Cymbal derived from Greek word for ‘cup’
  
Diablo Spanish for ‘devil’
+
Cynosure French for ‘dog’s tail’. Something that is the centre of attention
  
Dialysis – Greek for ‘split’ or ‘separate’
+
Cyst from Greek for ‘bladder’
  
Diaspora community living away from their homeland (Greek for ‘disperse’ or ‘scatter’). Originated with the exodus of Jews in 5th century BC
+
Dachshund German for ‘badger dog’
  
Diego Spanish equivalent of James
+
Dada French for ‘hobby horse’
  
Dies Irae day of wrath. Name of a 13th century Latin hymn
+
Daktari Swahili for ‘doctor’
  
Diet – from Medieval Latin dieta, meaning both ‘parliamentary assembly’ and ‘daily food allowance’
+
Dale comes from a Nordic/Germanic word for ‘valley’
  
Diglossia a situation in which two dialects or usually closely related languages are used by a single language community
+
Damask named after the city of Damascus
  
Diktat something dictated (German). A punitive decree issued to a defeated nation
+
Damson derived from the Latin ''Prunum damascunum'', ‘plum of Damascus’
  
Dilettante ‘one who delights’ (Italian)
+
Dandelion means ‘lions tooth’
  
Dim sum Chinese for ‘touch the heart’
+
Darjeeling Hindi for ‘land of the thunderbolt’
  
Dinosaur means ‘terrible lizard’. Term coined by Richard Owen
+
Debacle ‘collapse’ (French)
  
Diocese – the district or churches under the jurisdiction of a bishop; a bishopric. Means ‘to administer’
+
Decimation a form of military discipline used by officers in the Roman Army to punish mutinous or cowardly soldiers. The word decimation is derived from Latin meaning ‘removal of a tenth’
  
Diptera ‘two pairs of wings’, flies
+
Decoy from Dutch word for ‘duck cage’
  
Diptheria Greek for ‘pair of leather scrolls’
+
Decree nisi unless (French). Means ‘not final’, as in a conditional divorce
  
Dipthong – a complex speech sound or glide that begins with one vowel and gradually changes to another vowel within the same syllable
+
Decus et tutamen means ‘an ornament and a safeguard’
  
Dis prefix means ‘abnormal’
+
Dei gratia ‘by the grace of god’
  
Disaster ‘bad star’ in Greek
+
Deja vu means ‘already seen’. The term was coined by a French psychic researcher, Emile Boirac
  
Diva goddess (Italian)
+
Delphinium named because it resembles a dolphin’s head
  
Divan – Persian word for ‘bed’ or ‘long seat’
+
Demi-monde –‘ half-world’ (French). Means mistresses, or those on the edges of respectable society
  
Dodo from Portuguese for ‘stupid’
+
Democracy Greek for ‘people rule’
  
Dolcelatte Italian cheese, means ‘sweet milk’
+
De mortuis nil nisi bonum – means ‘don’t speak ill of the dead’
  
Dolce vita ‘sweet life’ (Italian)
+
Denim came from the name of a French material, serge de Nimes: serge (a kind of material) from Nimes (a town in France)
  
Dolmades from Turkish for ‘something filled’
+
Denouement an untying (French). Tying up the loose ends after the climax of a story
  
Doner kebab Turkish for ‘rotating roast’
+
Deo valento ‘God willing’
  
Doolally camp fever (Urdu). The British Army camp of Deolali is the source of the British slang noun doolally tap, loosely meaning ‘camp fever’, and referring to the apparent madness of men waiting for ships back to Britain after finishing their tour of duty
+
Deportivo means 'sporting'
  
Domine dirige nos ‘Lord, direct (guide) us’, is the Latin motto of the City of London
+
De profundis ‘from the depths’
  
Donegal means ‘fort of the foreigners’
+
Derelict from Latin for ‘to abandon’
  
Doosra means ‘the second one’ or ‘the other one’
+
De rigueur necessary (French)
  
Dopiaza means ‘double onion’
+
Deshabille undressed (French)
  
Doppelganger –‘ double walker’ (German)
+
Des Moines – means ‘of the monks’
  
Dose from French for ‘appropriate measure’
+
Detente – French for ‘relaxation’
  
Dottir Icelandic for ‘daughter’
+
De trop in excess (French)
  
Double entendre –‘ double understanding’ (French)
+
Deus ex machine – ‘god from the machine’ (Latin). A plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new character, ability, or object
  
Doyen senior member of a group (French)
+
Diablo Spanish for ‘devil’
  
Draconian Draco was the first legislator of ancient Athens in the 7th century BC. The stringency of his legal code gave rise to the modern English word draconian
+
Dialysis Greek for ‘split’ or ‘separate’
  
Dressage French for ‘training’
+
Diaspora community living away from their homeland (Greek for ‘disperse’ or ‘scatter’). Originated with the exodus of Jews in 5th century BC
  
Dromedary from Greek for ‘running’
+
Diego Spanish equivalent of James
  
Druid means ‘knowing the oak tree’
+
Dies Irae day of wrath. Name of a 13th century Latin hymn
  
Duce an Italian word meaning ‘leader’
+
Diet from Medieval Latin dieta, meaning both ‘parliamentary assembly’ and ‘daily food allowance’
  
Dushanbe means ‘Monday’ in Tajik
+
Diglossia a situation in which two dialects or usually closely related languages are used by a single language community
  
Duke from Latin for ‘leader’
+
Diktat something dictated (German). A punitive decree issued to a defeated nation
  
Dungarees Hindi word for coarse cotton cloth
+
Dilettante ‘one who delights’ (Italian)
  
Dushanbe means ‘Monday’ in Tajik
+
Dim sum Chinese for ‘touch the heart’
  
Dynamo from the Greek word dynamis, meaning ‘power’
+
Dinosaur means ‘terrible lizard’. Term coined by Richard Owen
  
E pluribus unum Latin for ‘Out of many, one’, is a motto on the Seal of the United States
+
Diocese the district or churches under the jurisdiction of a bishop; a bishopric. Means ‘to administer’
  
Easter from pagan goddess Eostre
+
Diptera ‘two pairs of wings’, flies
  
Ebeniste French word for a cabinetmaker
+
Diptheria Greek for ‘pair of leather scrolls’
  
Eclair means ‘lightning’
+
Dipthong a complex speech sound or glide that begins with one vowel and gradually changes to another vowel within the same syllable
  
Eclat splinter, brilliance, burst (French)
+
Dis prefix means ‘abnormal’
  
Economy from Greek words ‘oikos’ (house) and ‘nemein’ (to manage)
+
Disaster ‘bad star’ in Greek
  
Edda Icelandic for ‘great-grandmother’
+
Diva goddess (Italian)
  
Eelam native Tamil name for Sri Lanka
+
Divan Persian word for ‘bed’ or ‘long seat’
  
e.g. exempli gratia
+
Dodo from Portuguese for ‘stupid’
  
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik – means ‘a small serenade’
+
Dolcelatte Italian cheese, means ‘sweet milk’
  
Eistedffod means ‘to be sitting together’
+
Dolce vita ‘sweet life’ (Italian)
  
Elan leap, fervour, burst (French). More sophisticated than eclat
+
Dolmades from Turkish for ‘something filled’
  
El Cid means ‘lord’
+
Doner kebab Turkish for ‘rotating roast’
  
Electron from the Greek word for ‘amber’ (also electric)
+
Doolally camp fever (Urdu). The British Army camp of Deolali is the source of the British slang noun doolally tap, loosely meaning ‘camp fever’, and referring to the apparent madness of men waiting for ships back to Britain after finishing their tour of duty
  
Elegy from the Greek word for ‘lament’
+
Domine dirige nos ‘Lord, direct (guide) us’, is the Latin motto of the City of London
  
Ellan Vannin Manx for ‘Isle of Man’
+
Donegal means ‘fort of the foreigners’
  
El largato alligator, means ‘the lizard’ in Spanish
+
Doosra – means ‘the second one’ or ‘the other one’
  
El Paso Spanish for ‘the pass’
+
Dopiaza means ‘double onion’
  
El Salvador – means ‘the saviour’
+
Doppelganger –‘ double walker’ (German)
  
Embonpoint in good condition, fleshy (French). Like the women in Rubens’ paintings
+
Dose from French for ‘appropriate measure’
  
Eminence Grise ‘grey cardinal’, someone who exercises power in the background, named after Cardinal Richelieu’s advisor
+
Dottir Icelandic for ‘daughter’
  
Enchilada – means ‘seasoned with chili’
+
Double entendre –‘ double understanding’ (French)
  
Endo prefix meaning ‘inside’
+
Doyen senior member of a group (French)
  
Endogenous from Greek ‘proceeding from within’
+
Draconian Draco was the first legislator of ancient Athens in the 7th century BC. The stringency of his legal code gave rise to the modern English word draconian
  
England from Angle-Land
+
Dressage French for ‘training’
  
Ennui ‘boredom’ (French)
+
Dromedary from Greek for ‘running’
  
Entre nous ‘between ourselves’ (French)
+
Druid means ‘knowing the oak tree’
  
Ergo means ‘therefore’
+
Duce an Italian word meaning ‘leader’
  
Ersatz a German word literally meaning ‘substitute’ or ‘replacement’, usually an inferior one
+
Dushanbe means ‘Monday’ in Tajik
  
Erse a 16th century to19th century Scots name for Scottish Gaelic
+
Duke from Latin for ‘leader’
  
Esau Hebrew word meaning ‘hairy’
+
Dungarees Hindi word for coarse cotton cloth
  
Eskimo – means ‘eater of raw flesh’
+
Dushanbe – means ‘Monday’ in Tajik
  
Esprit de corps ‘group spirit’ (French)
+
Dynamo from the Greek word dynamis, meaning ‘power’
  
Estrus derived via Latin oestrus (frenzy, gadfly), from Greek (gadfly, breeze, sting, mad impulse). Specifically, this refers to the gadfly that Hera sent to torment Io, who had been won in her heifer form by Zeus
+
E pluribus unum – Latin for ‘Out of many, one’, is a motto on the Seal of the United States
  
ETA Euskadi Ta Askatusuna, ‘Basque Homeland and Freedom’
+
Easter from pagan goddess Eostre
  
Et al Et alia, ‘and other people’
+
Ebeniste French word for a cabinetmaker
  
Et cetera ‘and the rest’ (Latin)
+
Eclair means ‘lightning’
  
Ethiopia from Greek for ‘burnt face’
+
Eclat splinter, brilliance, burst (French)
  
Etienne (French) – Steven (English)
+
Economy – from Greek words ‘oikos’ (house) and ‘nemein’ (to manage)
  
Eucharist from Greek for ‘thanksgiving’
+
Edda Icelandic for ‘great-grandmother’
  
Eugenics means ‘good birth’
+
Eelam native Tamil name for Sri Lanka
  
Eunomia Greek for ‘good order’. Governance according to good laws
+
e.g. exempli gratia
  
Eureka – means ‘I have it’
+
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik – means ‘a small serenade’
  
Ex cathedra with the authority derived from one's office or position, literally meaning ‘from the chair’
+
Eistedffod means ‘to be sitting together’
  
Exchequer named after the chequer-patterned table used in the medieval period for financial calculations
+
Elan leap, fervour, burst (French). More sophisticated than eclat
  
Exeunt omnis ‘all leave the stage’
+
El Cid means ‘lord’
  
Ex gratia given as a favour or gratuitously where no legal obligation exists, literally meaning ‘out of kindness’
+
Electron from the Greek word for ‘amber’ (also electric)
  
Ex libris ‘from the books of’ (Latin). Denotes the ownership of a book
+
Elegy from the Greek word for ‘lament’
  
Expletive from Latin ‘to fill out’
+
Ellan Vannin Manx for ‘Isle of Man’
  
Exo prefix meaning ‘outside’
+
El largato alligator, means ‘the lizard’ in Spanish
  
Ex officio ‘by virtue of his/her office’
+
El Paso Spanish for ‘the pass’
  
Exogenous from Greek ‘proceeding from outside’
+
El Salvador means ‘the saviour’
  
Excalibur means ‘cut steel’
+
Embonpoint in good condition, fleshy (French). Like the women in Rubens’ paintings
  
Factotum ‘do everything’ (Latin). A jack of all trades
+
Eminence Grise ‘grey cardinal’, someone who exercises power in the background, named after Cardinal Richelieu’s advisor
  
Fajita Spanish for ‘little belt’
+
Enchilada means ‘seasoned with chili’
  
Falun Gong literally means ‘Dharma Wheel Practice’
+
Endo prefix meaning ‘inside’
  
Farce – from Old French for ‘to stuff’
+
Endogenous – from Greek ‘proceeding from within’
  
Farrier – from Middle French: ferrier (blacksmith), from the Latin word ferrum (iron)
+
England – from Angle-Land
  
Fartlek means ‘speed play’ in Swedish, is a form of interval training which puts stress on the whole aerobic energy system
+
Ennui ‘boredom’ (French)
  
Fascism is derived from the Italian word fascio, which means ‘bundle’ or ‘group’
+
Entre nous ‘between ourselves’ (French)
  
Fatah – means ‘conquest’
+
Ergo – means ‘therefore’
  
Fauji Punjabi term for army foot soldiers
+
Ersatz a German word literally meaning ‘substitute’ or ‘replacement’, usually an inferior one
  
Faux pas ‘wrong step’ (French)
+
Erse a 16th century to19th century Scots name for Scottish Gaelic
  
Feldgrau German for ‘field grey’, the traditional colour of uniforms
+
Esau Hebrew word meaning ‘hairy’
  
Fell old Norse origin
+
Eskimo means ‘eater of raw flesh’
  
Femme fatale ‘deadly woman’ (French)
+
Esprit de corps ‘group spirit’ (French)
  
Feng Shui means ‘wind and water’
+
Estrus derived via Latin oestrus (frenzy, gadfly), from Greek (gadfly, breeze, sting, mad impulse). Specifically, this refers to the gadfly that Hera sent to torment Io, who had been won in her heifer form by Zeus
  
Fennel from Latin word for ‘hay’
+
ETA Euskadi Ta Askatusuna, ‘Basque Homeland and Freedom’
  
Feral Latin for ‘wild beast’
+
Et al Et alia, ‘and other people’
  
Feta Greek for ‘slice’
+
Et cetera ‘and the rest’ (Latin)
  
Fianna Fail ‘Soldiers of destiny’
+
Ethiopia from Greek for ‘burnt face’
  
Fianna Gael ‘Gaelic nation’
+
Etienne (French) Steven (English)
  
Fiasco failure, or bottle with rope wound around the bottom (Italian)
+
Eucharist from Greek for ‘thanksgiving’
  
Filibuster from Spanish word for ‘pirate’
+
Eugenics means ‘good birth’
  
Fin de siecle French for ‘end of the century’
+
Eunomia Greek for ‘good order’. Governance according to good laws
  
Firth old Norse for ‘fjord’
+
Eureka means ‘I have it’
  
Fission named from Otto Frisch
+
Ex cathedra with the authority derived from one's office or position, literally meaning ‘from the chair’
  
Fitz a prefix to patronymic surnames of Anglo-Norman origin. This usage derives from the Norman fiz / filz, meaning ‘son of’
+
Exchequer named after the chequer-patterned table used in the medieval period for financial calculations
  
Flagellum Latin for ‘whip’
+
Exeunt omnis ‘all leave the stage’
  
Flanders means ‘flooded land’
+
Ex gratia given as a favour or gratuitously where no legal obligation exists, literally meaning ‘out of kindness’
  
Flotilla Spanish for ‘little fleet’
+
Ex libris ‘from the books of’ (Latin). Denotes the ownership of a book
  
Fluxus – from a Latin word meaning ‘to flow’
+
Expletive – from Latin ‘to fill out’
  
Foccacia derived from the Latin focus meaning ‘centre’ and also ‘fireplace’
+
Exo prefix meaning ‘outside’
  
Foetus has recognisable features. Means ‘little one’
+
Ex officio ‘by virtue of his/her office’
  
Foie Gras French for ‘fat liver’
+
Exogenous from Greek ‘proceeding from outside’
  
Folies Bergeres from French for ‘leaves’ and ‘shepherdesses’
+
Excalibur means ‘cut steel’
  
Forensics comes from the Latin adjective ‘forensis’ meaning ‘of or before the forum’
+
Factotum ‘do everything’ (Latin). A jack of all trades
  
Formosa means ‘beautiful’ in Portuguese
+
Fajita Spanish for ‘little belt’
  
Fortes Fortuna Adiuvat (or juvat) Fortune favours the brave
+
Falun Gong literally means ‘Dharma Wheel Practice’
  
Forum Latin for ‘marketplace’, as in Blandford Forum
+
Farce from Old French for ‘to stuff’
  
Fosse – Latin for ‘ditch’
+
Farrier from Middle French: ferrier (blacksmith), from the Latin word ferrum (iron)
  
Friar from Latin for ‘brother’. A member of one of the mendicant orders
+
Fartlek means ‘speed play’ in Swedish, is a form of interval training which puts stress on the whole aerobic energy system
  
Fram – means ‘forward’
+
Fascism is derived from the Italian word fascio, which means ‘bundle’ or ‘group’
  
Framboise French for ‘raspberry’
+
Fatah means ‘conquest’
  
Franchise from French ‘to set free’
+
Fauji Punjabi term for army foot soldiers
  
Fresa Spanish for ‘strawberry’
+
Faux pas ‘wrong step’ (French)
  
Fritillary from Latin for ‘dice-box’
+
Feldgrau German for ‘field grey’, the traditional colour of uniforms
  
Frisson –‘ shiver’ (French)
+
Fell – old Norse origin
  
Frottage ‘rubbing’ (French)
+
Femme fatale ‘deadly woman’ (French)
  
Fulcrum from Latin ‘fulcire’, to prop
+
Feng Shui means ‘wind and water’
  
Functus officio no longer having power of jurisdiction
+
Fennel from Latin word for ‘hay’
  
Furore excitement / controversy (Italian)
+
Feral Latin for ‘wild beast’
  
Fuselage French for ‘spindle-shaped’
+
Feta Greek for ‘slice’
  
Gabreselassie (Haile) means ‘servant of the trinity’
+
Fianna Fail ‘Soldiers of destiny’
  
Galact prefix meaning ‘milk’
+
Fianna Gael ‘Gaelic nation’
  
Galapagos means ‘islands of tortoises’
+
Fiasco failure, or bottle with rope wound around the bottom (Italian)
  
Galaxy – from Greek for ‘milky’
+
Filibuster – from Spanish word for ‘pirate’
  
Gaman Japanese term of Zen Buddhist origin which means ‘enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity’
+
Fin de siecle French for ‘end of the century’
  
Gamelan ‘struck with a hammer’
+
Firth old Norse for ‘fjord’
  
Gamine impish girl or urchin (French)
+
Fission named from Otto Frisch
  
Gangnam means ‘south of the river’
+
Fitz a prefix to patronymic surnames of Anglo-Norman origin. This usage derives from the Norman fiz / filz, meaning ‘son of’
  
Gasket French for ‘thin rope’
+
Flagellum Latin for ‘whip’
  
Gastropod – means ‘stomach foot’ in Greek
+
Flanders – means ‘flooded land’
  
Gaza Italian for ‘magpie’
+
Flotilla Spanish for ‘little fleet’
  
Gazelle – from Arabic for ‘wild goat’
+
Fluxus – from a Latin word meaning ‘to flow’
  
Geisha Japanese for ‘artisan’
+
Foccacia derived from the Latin focus meaning ‘centre’ and also ‘fireplace’
  
Gen or genic suffix meaning ‘producing’
+
Foetus has recognisable features. Means ‘little one’
  
Genesis means ‘origin’ in Greek
+
Foie Gras – French for ‘fat liver’
  
Genocide –  coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish legal scholar, in 1944, firstly from the Latin ‘gens, gentis,’ meaning ‘birth, race, stock, kind’ or the Greek root genos (same meaning); secondly from Latin -cidium (cutting, killing) via French -cide
+
Folies Bergeres – from French for ‘leaves’ and ‘shepherdesses’
  
Geography – from Greek ‘ge’ (earth) and ‘graphein’ (to write)
+
Forensics comes from the Latin adjective ‘forensis’ meaning ‘of or before the forum’
  
Geology from Greek for 'earth and 'word'
+
Formosa means ‘beautiful’ in Portuguese
  
Geometry means ‘earth measure’
+
Fortes Fortuna Adiuvat (or juvat) Fortune favours the brave
  
Ger Mongolian tent, means ‘home’
+
Forum Latin for ‘marketplace’, as in Blandford Forum
  
Gesamtkunstwerk German for ‘total work of art’, is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so
+
Fosse Latin for ‘ditch’
  
Gestapo abbreviation of Geheime Staatspolizei, Secret State Police
+
Friar from Latin for ‘brother’. A member of one of the mendicant orders
  
Gesundheit – means ‘good health’ (German / Yiddish)
+
Fram – means ‘forward’
  
Ghoul from Arabic ‘to seize’
+
Framboise French for ‘raspberry’
  
Giacomo Italian equivalent of James
+
Franchise from French ‘to set free’
  
Gibbous from Latin for ‘humpbacked’
+
Fresa Spanish for ‘strawberry’
  
Gift German for ‘poison’
+
Fritillary from Latin for ‘dice-box’
  
Giovanni – Italian equivalent of John
+
Frisson –‘ shiver’ (French)
  
Giraffe from Arabic word for ‘fast walker’
+
Frottage ‘rubbing’ (French)
  
Glenfiddich means ‘Valley of the Deer' in Scottish Gaelic
+
Fulcrum from Latin ‘fulcire’, to prop
  
Glitch ‘slip up’ (Yiddish and German)
+
Functus officio no longer having power of jurisdiction
  
Glockenspiel German, ‘set of bells’ or ‘play-[of-] bells’, also known as orchestra bells
+
Furore excitement / controversy (Italian)
  
Glossolalia the practice of making unintelligible utterances, often as part of religious practice. Means ‘speaking in tongues’
+
Fuselage French for ‘spindle-shaped’
  
Glottal stop a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English the feature is represented for example by the hyphen in uh-oh!
+
Gabreselassie (Haile) means ‘servant of the trinity’
  
GmbH '''' Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung – (English: company with limited liability)
+
Galact prefix meaning ‘milk’
  
Gobi – means ‘flat, bare and partly vegetated’ or ‘waterless place’
+
Galapagos – means ‘islands of tortoises’
  
Golgotha means ‘place of the skull’
+
Galaxy from Greek for ‘milky’
  
Goulash – means ‘herdsman’s meat’
+
Gaman Japanese term of Zen Buddhist origin which means ‘enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity’
  
Gran Chaco means ‘great hunting ground’
+
Gamelan ‘struck with a hammer’
  
Graphite from Greek for ‘to write’
+
Gamine impish girl or urchin (French)
  
Gravitas ‘seriousness’ (Latin)
+
Gangnam means ‘south of the river’
  
Greenland means ‘land of the Kalaallit’
+
Gasket French for ‘thin rope’
  
Grotesque word derived from Italian for ‘cave painting’
+
Gastropod means ‘stomach foot’ in Greek
  
Guerrilla means ‘little war’
+
Gaza Italian for ‘magpie’
  
Guevedoce Spanish for ‘eggs at twelve’. Genetic abnormality seen in Dominican Republic where boys don’t develop testicles (‘eggs’) until their early teens
+
Gazelle from Arabic for ‘wild goat’
  
Guiseppe Italian equivalent of Joseph
+
Geisha Japanese for ‘artisan’
  
Gummy bear from German for ‘rubber bear’. Invented by Hans Riegel, the founder of Haribo (Hans Riegel, Bonn)
+
Gen or genic suffix meaning ‘producing’
  
Gung Ho – Mandarin Chinese for ‘work together’
+
Genesis means ‘origin’ in Greek
  
Guru – teacher (Sanskrit). From the Sanskrit root ‘gru’ which means ‘heavy’
+
Genocide –  coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish legal scholar, in 1944, firstly from the Latin ‘gens, gentis,’ meaning ‘birth, race, stock, kind’ or the Greek root genos (same meaning); secondly from Latin -cidium (cutting, killing) via French -cide
  
Guyana means ‘land of many waters’
+
Geography from Greek ‘ge’ (earth) and ‘graphein’ (to write)
  
Gymkhana – from Hindi for ‘racket court’
+
Geology – from Greek for 'earth and 'word'
  
Gymnasium – means ‘to train naked’
+
Geometry – means ‘earth measure’
  
Gymnosperm – means ‘naked seed’, as the seeds are not encased in a carpel
+
Ger Mongolian tent, means ‘home’
  
Gypsy from ‘Egyptian’
+
Gesamtkunstwerk German for ‘total work of art’, is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so
  
Habeas corpus ‘you have the body’ (Latin). A writ that commands a prison to bring an inmate to court so that a judge can ascertain whether they have been imprisoned lawfully or whether they should be released
+
Gestapo abbreviation of Geheime Staatspolizei, Secret State Police
  
Hacek Czech for ‘little hook’. A diacritic ˇ placed over a letter, an inverted circumflex. Also known as a caron
+
Gesundheit means ‘good health’ (German / Yiddish)
  
Hacienda Spanish word for an estate
+
Ghoul from Arabic ‘to seize’
  
Halo from Greek for ‘disc’
+
Giacomo Italian equivalent of James
  
Halogen originates from 18th century scientific French nomenclature based on adaptations of Greek roots: hals (sea) or halas (salt), and gen- (to generate) — referring to elements which produce a salt in union with a metal
+
Gibbous – from Latin for ‘humpbacked’
  
Hamas from Arabic for ‘enthusiasm’
+
Gift German for ‘poison’
  
Hank a shortened form of Henry
+
Giovanni Italian equivalent of John
  
Hannukah – from the Hebrew word for ‘dedication’
+
Giraffe – from Arabic word for ‘fast walker’
  
Hanoi – means ‘eastern capital’
+
Glenfiddich – means ‘Valley of the Deer' in Scottish Gaelic
  
Hapax legomenon a word that occurs only once within a context. From Greek for ‘once said’
+
Glitch ‘slip up’ (Yiddish and German)
  
Hara-kiri – ritual suicide. Means ‘belly cut’. Formal term is seppuku
+
Glockenspiel – German, ‘set of bells’ or ‘play-[of-] bells’, also known as orchestra bells
  
Haram an Arabic term meaning ‘forbidden’. In Islam it is used to refer to anything that is prohibited by the faith. Its antonym is halal
+
Glossolalia – the practice of making unintelligible utterances, often as part of religious practice. Means ‘speaking in tongues’
  
Haram means ‘sanctuary’ or ‘holy site’ in Arabic
+
Glottal stop a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English the feature is represented for example by the hyphen in uh-oh!
  
Hasta means ‘until’ in Spanish
+
GmbH '''' Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung – (English: company with limited liability)
  
Hasta la vista ‘see you later’ (Spanish)
+
Gobi means ‘flat, bare and partly vegetated’ or ‘waterless place’
  
Haute couture French for ‘high sewing’
+
Golgotha means ‘place of the skull’
  
Haute cuisine ‘high cooking’ (French)
+
Goulash means ‘herdsman’s meat’
  
Haversack from German word habersack
+
Gran Chaco means ‘great hunting ground’
  
Hazard – from Arabic for ‘the dice’
+
Graphite – from Greek for ‘to write’
  
Heckling originates from the textile trade, where to heckle was to tease or comb out flax or hemp fibres
+
Gravitas ‘seriousness’ (Latin)
  
Helicopter from Greek ‘helikos’ (spiral) and ‘pteron’ (wing)
+
Greenland means ‘land of the Kalaallit’
  
Henchman referred originally to one who attended a horse for his employer, i.e. a horse groom
+
Grotesque word derived from Italian for ‘cave painting’
  
Hermaphrodite a combination of the names of the gods Hermes (male) and Aphrodite (female)
+
Guerrilla means ‘little war’
  
Herzegovina means ‘duke’s land’
+
Guevedoce Spanish for ‘eggs at twelve’. Genetic abnormality seen in Dominican Republic where boys don’t develop testicles (‘eggs’) until their early teens
  
Heuristic from the Greek for ‘find’
+
Guiseppe Italian equivalent of Joseph
  
Hex Pennsylvania Dutch, from German ‘hexen’
+
Gummy bear – from German for ‘rubber bear’. Invented by Hans Riegel, the founder of Haribo (Hans Riegel, Bonn)
  
Hezbollah means ‘party of God’
+
Gung Ho Mandarin Chinese for ‘work together’
  
Hibiscus from Greek for ‘marshmallow’
+
Guru teacher (Sanskrit). From the Sanskrit root ‘gru’ which means ‘heavy’
  
Hic jacet sepultus ‘here lies buried’
+
Guyana means ‘land of many waters’
  
Himalayas Sanskrit for ‘abode of the snow’
+
Gymkhana from Hindi for ‘racket court’
  
Hindu Kush – means ‘Hindu Killer’
+
Gymnasium – means ‘to train naked’
  
Hinomaru Japanese flag. Means ‘circle of the sun’
+
Gymnosperm means ‘naked seed’, as the seeds are not encased in a carpel
  
Hinterland ‘backcountry’ (German). Also refers to the area from which products are delivered to a port for shipping elsewhere
+
Gypsy – from ‘Egyptian’
  
Hoi polloi ‘the many’ (Greek)
+
Habeas corpus ‘you have the body’ (Latin). A writ that commands a prison to bring an inmate to court so that a judge can ascertain whether they have been imprisoned lawfully or whether they should be released
  
Holm from the Old Norse holmr, meaning ‘a small and rounded islet’
+
Hacek Czech for ‘little hook’. A diacritic ˇ placed over a letter, an inverted circumflex. Also known as a caron
  
Holocaust comes from the Greek word holokauston, an animal sacrifice offered to a god in which the whole (holos) animal is completely burnt (kaustos). Its Latin form (holocaustum) was first used with specific reference to a massacre of Jews by the chroniclers Roger of Howden and Richard of Devizes in the 1190s
+
Hacienda Spanish word for an estate
  
Hoi Oligi – Greek for ‘the few’ (oligarchy). Opposite of Hoi Polloi
+
Halo from Greek for ‘disc’
  
Hoi Polloi – Greek for ‘the many’
+
Halogen originates from 18th century scientific French nomenclature based on adaptations of Greek roots: hals (sea) or halas (salt), and gen- (to generate) — referring to elements which produce a salt in union with a metal
  
Homard French for ‘lobster’
+
Hamas from Arabic for ‘enthusiasm’
  
Honcho Japanese for ‘squad leader’
+
Hank a shortened form of Henry
  
Honolulu means ‘sheltered harbour’
+
Hannukah from the Hebrew word for ‘dedication’
  
Hooch short for ''''hoochinoo'','' a distilled liquor made by the Hoochinoo Indians from Alaska
+
Hanoi means ‘eastern capital’
  
Hoplite from Greek for ‘weapon’
+
Hapax legomenon a word that occurs only once within a context. From Greek for ‘once said’
  
Horoscope from Greek ‘ora’ (time) and ‘skopein’ (to observe)
+
Hara-kiri ritual suicide. Means ‘belly cut’. Formal term is seppuku
  
Hors de combat literally meaning ‘outside the fight’, is a French term used to refer to soldiers who are incapable of performing their military function
+
Haram an Arabic term meaning ‘forbidden’. In Islam it is used to refer to anything that is prohibited by the faith. Its antonym is halal
  
L’Hotel de Ville French town hall
+
Haram means ‘sanctuary’ or ‘holy site’ in Arabic
  
Hovis Hominis Vis, ‘strength of man’
+
Hasta means ‘until’ in Spanish
  
Howe in a place name means ‘hill’ or ‘mound’
+
Hasta la vista ‘see you later’ (Spanish)
  
Howitzer Czech word
+
Haute couture French for ‘high sewing’
  
Hoy means ‘high island’
+
Haute cuisine – ‘high cooking’ (French)
  
Hue and Cry former means of apprehending a criminal, by raising the alarm. Means ‘public outcry’
+
Haversack from German word habersack
  
Humerus Latin for ‘shoulder’
+
Hazard from Arabic for ‘the dice’
  
Hustings – from old Norse word
+
Heckling originates from the textile trade, where to heckle was to tease or comb out flax or hemp fibres
  
Hydrangea – from Greek for ‘water’ and ‘vessel’
+
Helicopter – from Greek ‘helikos’ (spiral) and ‘pteron’ (wing)
  
Hymenoptera ‘membrane-winged’, wasps, bees and ants
+
Henchman referred originally to one who attended a horse for his employer, i.e. a horse groom
  
Hymn from Greek for ‘ode’ or ‘song in praise of a god or hero’
+
Hermaphrodite a combination of the names of the gods Hermes (male) and Aphrodite (female)
  
Hypo – means ‘under normal levels’
+
Herzegovina – means ‘duke’s land’
  
Hyundai – from Korean for ‘modernity’
+
Heuristic – from the Greek for ‘find’
  
Ibidem ‘in the same place’
+
Hex Pennsylvania Dutch, from German ‘hexen’
  
Ich dien ‘I serve’
+
Hezbollah means ‘party of God’
  
Ichthyosaur – Greek for ‘fish lizard’
+
Hibiscus from Greek for ‘marshmallow’
  
Idiopathic means ‘arising spontaneously or from an obscure or unknown cause’
+
Hic jacet sepultus ‘here lies buried’
  
Igloo Inuit for ‘house’
+
Himalayas Sanskrit for ‘abode of the snow’
  
Imbroglio Latin for ‘entangle’
+
Hindu Kush means ‘Hindu Killer’
  
Impi Zulu word for any armed body of men. However, in English it is often used to refer to a Zulu regiment, which is called an ibutho in Zulu
+
Hinomaru Japanese flag. Means ‘circle of the sun’
  
Impresario – from Italian meaning ‘an enterprise or undertaking’
+
Hinterland ‘backcountry’ (German). Also refers to the area from which products are delivered to a port for shipping elsewhere
  
In camera literally ‘in the room’. Legal term that means in private with a judge rather than in an open court
+
Hoi polloi ‘the many’ (Greek)
  
Incognito ‘in disguise’ (Latin)
+
Holm from the Old Norse holmr, meaning ‘a small and rounded islet’
  
Incommunicado ‘cut off from communication’ (Spanish)
+
Holocaust comes from the Greek word holokauston, an animal sacrifice offered to a god in which the whole (holos) animal is completely burnt (kaustos). Its Latin form (holocaustum) was first used with specific reference to a massacre of Jews by the chroniclers Roger of Howden and Richard of Devizes in the 1190s
  
In dei nomini ‘in the name of God’
+
Hoi Oligi Greek for ‘the few’ (oligarchy). Opposite of Hoi Polloi
  
In dulci jubilo ‘in sweet rejoicing’
+
Hoi Polloi Greek for ‘the many’
  
In flagrante delicto ‘in the blazing offence’ (Latin). Legal term that means that someone has been caught in the act of committing a crime
+
Homard French for ‘lobster’
  
Infra dig ‘beneath one's dignity’
+
Honcho Japanese for ‘squad leader’
  
In loco parentis ‘in place of a parent’ (Latin), e.g. foster carer
+
Honolulu means ‘sheltered harbour’
  
In medias res – a literary and artistic technique where the narrative starts in the middle of the story instead of from its beginning
+
Hooch short for ''''hoochinoo'','' a distilled liquor made by the Hoochinoo Indians from Alaska
  
Innis means ‘island’, e.g. Isle of Innisfree
+
Hoplite from Greek for ‘weapon’
  
Innuendo ‘by nodding’ in Latin
+
Horoscope from Greek ‘ora’ (time) and ‘skopein’ (to observe)
  
In Shalah means ‘God willing’
+
Hors de combat literally meaning ‘outside the fight’, is a French term used to refer to soldiers who are incapable of performing their military function
  
Intifada an Arabic word which literally means ‘shaking off’, though it is usually translated into English as ‘uprising’, ‘resistance’ or ‘rebellion’
+
L’Hotel de Ville French town hall
  
Inter alia ‘amongst other things’
+
Hovis Hominis Vis, ‘strength of man’
  
Intercostal ‘between the ribs’
+
Howe in a place name means ‘hill’ or ‘mound’
  
Investiture from the Latin preposition in and verb vestire, 'dress' from vestis 'robe'
+
Howitzer Czech word
  
In vino veritas ‘in wine, truth’
+
Hoy means ‘high island’
  
In vitro –‘ in glass’ (Latin)
+
Hue and Cry – former means of apprehending a criminal, by raising the alarm. Means ‘public outcry’
  
In vivo ‘within the living’
+
Humerus Latin for ‘shoulder’
  
Iodine – from Greek for ‘violet’
+
Hustings – from old Norse word
  
Ipso facto ‘by the fact itself ‘ (Latin). An effect is the result of the action being discussed
+
Hydrangea from Greek for ‘water’ and ‘vessel’
  
Isotope from Greek for ‘equal place’
+
Hymenoptera ‘membrane-winged’, wasps, bees and ants
  
Itis suffix meaning ‘inflammation’
+
Hymn from Greek for ‘ode’ or ‘song in praise of a god or hero’
  
Ivan Russian equivalent of John
+
Hypo means ‘under normal levels’
  
Iwo Jima means ‘sulphur island’
+
Hyundai from Korean for ‘modernity’
  
Jaguar means ‘any large carnivore’
+
Ibidem ‘in the same place’
  
Jamaica means ‘well watered’
+
Ich dien ‘I serve’
  
Jamahiriya Arabic term meaning ‘state of the masses’
+
Ichthyosaur Greek for ‘fish lizard’
  
Jeep derived from ‘General Purpose’ (GP)
+
Idiopathic means ‘arising spontaneously or from an obscure or unknown cause’
  
Jezebel wicked, blasphemous woman (Hebrew)
+
Igloo Inuit for ‘house’
  
Jihad Arabic for ‘struggle’
+
Imbroglio Latin for ‘entangle’
  
Joie de vie ‘joy of life’ (French)
+
Impi Zulu word for any armed body of men. However, in English it is often used to refer to a Zulu regiment, which is called an ibutho in Zulu
  
Joie de vivre ‘joy of living’ (French)
+
Impresario from Italian meaning ‘an enterprise or undertaking’
  
Jubilee Hebrew word
+
In camera literally ‘in the room’. Legal term that means in private with a judge rather than in an open court
  
Judo means ‘the way of gentleness’
+
Incognito ‘in disguise’ (Latin)
  
Jugendstil German for ‘youth style’. Art Nouveau
+
Incommunicado ‘cut off from communication’ (Spanish)
  
Juggernaut Lord of the Universe (Sanskrit). A form of Krishna. Large statue pushed around on a chariot
+
In dei nomini ‘in the name of God’
  
Junta ‘committee’ (Spanish)
+
In dulci jubilo ‘in sweet rejoicing’
  
Jurassic from Jura mountains in Switzerland
+
In flagrante delicto ‘in the blazing offence’ (Latin). Legal term that means that someone has been caught in the act of committing a crime
  
Kaftan cotton or silk tunic (Persian). First worn by 14th century Sultans of the Ottoman Empire
+
Infra dig ‘beneath one's dignity’
  
Kahuna priest, expert or wizard (Hawaiian)
+
In loco parentis ‘in place of a parent’ (Latin), e.g. foster carer
  
Kangchenjunga means ‘The Five Treasures of Snows’. The treasures represent the five repositories of God, which are gold, silver, gems, grain, and holy books
+
In medias res a literary and artistic technique where the narrative starts in the middle of the story instead of from its beginning
  
Kaput ‘broken’ (German)
+
Innis means ‘island’, e.g. Isle of Innisfree
  
Karma act, action, performance (Sanskrit). The idea that one’s actions influence one’s future in a cycle of cause and effect
+
Innuendo ‘by nodding’ in Latin
  
Karoshi can be translated literally from Japanese as ‘death from overwork’
+
In Shalah means ‘God willing’
  
Kaur – means ‘prince’ or ‘princess’
+
Intifada an Arabic word which literally means ‘shaking off’, though it is usually translated into English as ‘uprising’, ‘resistance’ or ‘rebellion’
  
Kayak ‘hunter’s boat’ (Inuit)
+
Inter alia ‘amongst other things’
  
Kebab cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer (Arabic / Turkish)
+
Intercostal ‘between the ribs’
  
Keirin Japanese for ‘fight’ or ‘battle’
+
Investiture from the Latin preposition in and verb vestire, 'dress' from vestis 'robe'
  
Kendo means ‘way of the sword’
+
In vino veritas ‘in wine, truth’
  
Ketchup – fish brine (Malay)
+
In vitro –‘ in glass’ (Latin)
  
Kettle originates from Latin ‘catillus’
+
In vivo ‘within the living’
  
Khartoum means ‘elephant trunk’
+
Iodine from Greek for ‘violet’
  
Khaki used in Urdu language (meaning ‘dusty’) and is from Persian language meaning ‘earth colour’
+
Ipso facto ‘by the fact itself ‘ (Latin). An effect is the result of the action being discussed
  
Kimono means ‘thing to wear’ or ‘clothing’
+
Isotope from Greek for ‘equal place’
  
Kiosk Turkish word meaning ‘pavilion’
+
Itis suffix meaning ‘inflammation’
  
Kismet Turkish for ‘fate’ or ‘fortune’
+
Ivan Russian equivalent of John
  
Kitsch German word for ‘trash’ or ‘tat’
+
Iwo Jima means ‘sulphur island’
  
Klutz –‘ blockhead’ (Yiddish)
+
Jaguar – means ‘any large carnivore’
  
Koala – means ‘no drink’
+
Jamaica – means ‘well watered’
  
Kohen Hebrew for ‘priest’
+
Jamahiriya Arabic term meaning ‘state of the masses’
  
Koh-I-Noor means ‘mountain of light’
+
Jeep derived from ‘General Purpose’ (GP)
  
Kohl ‘black powder’ (Arabic)
+
Jezebel wicked, blasphemous woman (Hebrew)
  
Kohl German for ‘cabbage’
+
Jihad Arabic for ‘struggle’
  
Kosher suitable and pure (Yidddish)
+
Joie de vie ‘joy of life’ (French)
  
Kowtow ‘knock the head’ (Chinese)
+
Joie de vivre ‘joy of living’ (French)
  
Kraftwerk means ‘power plant’ in German
+
Jubilee Hebrew word
  
Kuaizi Chinese for ‘chopsticks’
+
Judo means ‘the way of gentleness’
  
Kudos glory, renown (Greek)
+
Jugendstil German for ‘youth style’. Art Nouveau
  
Kuklos Greek for ‘circle’
+
Juggernaut Lord of the Universe (Sanskrit). A form of Krishna. Large statue pushed around on a chariot
  
Kulak Russian for ‘fist’
+
Junta ‘committee’ (Spanish)
  
Kurgan the Russian word for a tumulus, a type of burial mound or barrow, heaped over a burial chamber, often of wood
+
Jurassic from Jura mountains in Switzerland
  
Kuznetsov Russian equivalent of Smith
+
Kaftan cotton or silk tunic (Persian). First worn by 14th century Sultans of the Ottoman Empire
  
Kvetch Yiddish word meaning ‘to complain or nag’
+
Kahuna priest, expert or wizard (Hawaiian)
  
Kylie Aboriginal for ‘boomerang’
+
Kangchenjunga means ‘The Five Treasures of Snows’. The treasures represent the five repositories of God, which are gold, silver, gems, grain, and holy books
  
Kyrie, eleison Greek for ‘Lord, have mercy’
+
Kaput ‘broken’ (German)
  
Laconic using few words; terse or concise. Named after the inhabitants of Laconia, in Greece
+
Karma act, action, performance (Sanskrit). The idea that one’s actions influence one’s future in a cycle of cause and effect
  
Lacrosse ‘game of hooked sticks’ (French Canadian)
+
Karoshi can be translated literally from Japanese as ‘death from overwork’
  
Lager from the German lagern, meaning ‘to store’
+
Kaur means ‘prince’ or ‘princess’
  
Laika Russian for ‘barker’
+
Kayak ‘hunter’s boat’ (Inuit)
  
Laissez-faire ‘leave alone’ (French)
+
Kebab cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer (Arabic / Turkish)
  
Lambada Portuguese for ‘a beating’
+
Keirin Japanese for ‘fight’ or ‘battle’
  
Lame from Latin for ‘thin plate’
+
Kendo means ‘way of the sword’
  
Lammas Anglo-Saxon for ‘loaf-mas’
+
Ketchup fish brine (Malay)
  
Lampoon – from French for ‘let us drink’
+
Kettle originates from Latin ‘catillus’
  
Landtag German for ‘state meeting’
+
Khartoum means ‘elephant trunk’
  
Language –from Latin lingua, ‘tongue’
+
Khaki – used in Urdu language (meaning ‘dusty’) and is from Persian language meaning ‘earth colour’
  
Lanthanum from Greek word for ‘hidden’
+
Kimono means ‘thing to wear’ or ‘clothing’
  
La Paz Spanish for ‘our lady of peace’
+
Kiosk Turkish word meaning ‘pavilion’
  
Lapin French for ‘rabbit’
+
Kismet Turkish for ‘fate’ or ‘fortune’
  
Lapis Latin for ‘stone’
+
Kitsch German word for ‘trash’ or ‘tat’
  
Lebensraum – ‘living space’ (German). The space that Hitler decided the German people needed to become a great race, hence the invasions
+
Klutz –‘ blockhead’ (Yiddish)
  
Lefebvre French equivalent of Smith
+
Koala means ‘no drink’
  
Lent from the old English word for ‘the spring’
+
Kohen Hebrew for ‘priest’
  
Lepidoptera ‘scale-winged’
+
Koh-I-Noor means ‘mountain of light’
  
L’esprit de l’escalier a French term used in English that describes the predicament of thinking of the perfect retort too late. Means ‘staircase wit’
+
Kohl ‘black powder’ (Arabic)
  
Leviathan in Modern Hebrew, means ‘whale’
+
Kohl German for ‘cabbage’
  
Lex talionis the law of retaliation equivalent to an offense; the principle of retributive justice based on the Mosaic law of ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth’ in Exodus. Also called ''talion''
+
Kosher suitable and pure (Yidddish)
  
Libretto Italian for ‘little book’
+
Kowtow ‘knock the head’ (Chinese)
  
Liebchen – German for ‘sweetheart’ or ‘darling’
+
Kraftwerk means ‘power plant’ in German
  
Limey term for British sailor who drank lime juice to prevent scurvy
+
Kuaizi Chinese for ‘chopsticks’
  
Limousine derived from the name of the French region Limousin, because this covered compartment physically resembled the cloak hood worn by the shepherds there
+
Kudos glory, renown (Greek)
  
Lingua franca (originally Italian for ‘Frankish language’) is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language
+
Kuklos Greek for ‘circle’
  
Linguine means ‘little tongues’
+
Kulak Russian for ‘fist’
  
Links from Old English for ‘rising ground’
+
Kurgan the Russian word for a tumulus, a type of burial mound or barrow, heaped over a burial chamber, often of wood
  
Lithium from Greek for ‘stone’
+
Kuznetsov Russian equivalent of Smith
  
Llan prefix in place names meaning ‘church’
+
Kvetch Yiddish word meaning ‘to complain or nag’
  
Loch Gaelic for ‘lake’ or ‘sea inlet’
+
Kylie Aboriginal for ‘boomerang’
  
Locum short for Locum Tenens. Means ‘to hold the place of’
+
Kyrie, eleison Greek for ‘Lord, have mercy’
  
Lo mein Chinese for ‘tossed noodles’
+
Laconic using few words; terse or concise. Named after the inhabitants of Laconia, in Greece
  
Longbow Welsh word
+
Lacrosse ‘game of hooked sticks’ (French Canadian)
  
Loot ‘plunder’ (Anglo-Indian, from the Hindi lut)
+
Lager – from the German lagern, meaning ‘to store’
  
Louche decadent, shady (French)
+
Laika Russian for ‘barker’
  
Luge from French for ‘sledge’
+
Laissez-faire ‘leave alone’ (French)
  
Lula Brazilian for ‘squid’
+
Lambada Portuguese for ‘a beating’
  
Lumpen Proletariat term coined by Karl Marx. Means ‘beneath the working classes’
+
Lame from Latin for ‘thin plate’
  
Lundy Old Norse for ‘puffin island’
+
Lammas Anglo-Saxon for ‘loaf-mas’
  
Lycopodium – from Greek lukos,’ wolf’ and podion, diminutive of pous, ‘foot’
+
Lampoon – from French for ‘let us drink’
  
Macho virile, domineering (Spanish)
+
Landtag German for ‘state meeting’
  
Machu Picchu – means ‘Old Peak’ in Quechua
+
Language –from Latin lingua, ‘tongue’
  
Macrame Arabic word for ‘fringe’
+
Lanthanum from Greek word for ‘hidden’
  
Macron from the Greek meaning ‘long’, is a diacritic (ē) placed above a vowel
+
La Paz Spanish for ‘our lady of peace’
  
Madrileno male from Madrid
+
Lapin French for ‘rabbit’
  
Maestro master, teacher (Italian)
+
Lapis Latin for ‘stone’
  
Magenta from the dye magenta, commonly called fuchsine, discovered shortly after the 1859 Battle of Magenta (from the colour of the land all covered by the blood)
+
Lebensraum ‘living space’ (German). The space that Hitler decided the German people needed to become a great race, hence the invasions
  
Maghreb means ‘western’ in Arabic
+
Lefebvre French equivalent of Smith
  
Magi Latin plural of magus. Followers of Zoroastrianism
+
Lent from the old English word for ‘the spring’
  
Magna Carta means ‘great charter’
+
Lepidoptera ‘scale-winged’
  
Magna cum laude Latin for ‘with great honour’
+
L’esprit de l’escalier a French term used in English that describes the predicament of thinking of the perfect retort too late. Means ‘staircase wit’
  
Magnum opus ‘great work’ (Latin)
+
Leviathan in Modern Hebrew, means ‘whale’
  
Mahabharata means ‘great hall’ in Sanskrit
+
Lex talionis the law of retaliation equivalent to an offense; the principle of retributive justice based on the Mosaic law of ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth’ in Exodus. Also called ''talion''
  
Maharishi means ‘great Sage’
+
Libretto Italian for ‘little book’
  
Mahatma Sanskrit word meaning ‘Great Soul’
+
Liebchen German for ‘sweetheart’ or ‘darling’
  
Majlis an Arabic term meaning ‘a place of sitting’ used to describe various types of special gatherings among common interest groups
+
Limey – term for British sailor who drank lime juice to prevent scurvy
  
Majorca means ‘the larger one’. Spanish name is Mallorca
+
Limousine derived from the name of the French region Limousin, because this covered compartment physically resembled the cloak hood worn by the shepherds there
  
Mammal from the Latin word mamma meaning ‘breast’
+
Lingua franca (originally Italian for ‘Frankish language’) is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language
  
Mammon from Aramaic for ‘riches’
+
Linguine means ‘little tongues’
  
Manana tomorrow (Spanish)
+
Links from Old English for ‘rising ground’
  
Mandarin ‘official’ (Malay)
+
Lithium from Greek for ‘stone’
  
Manga Japanese for ‘whimsical pictures’
+
Llan prefix in place names meaning ‘church’
  
Mantra ‘instrument of thought’ (Sanskrit)
+
Loch Gaelic for ‘lake’ or ‘sea inlet’
  
Maori means ‘normal’
+
Locum short for Locum Tenens. Means ‘to hold the place of’
  
Mare from old English for ‘horse’
+
Lo mein Chinese for ‘tossed noodles’
  
Mare Nostrum Roman name for Mediterranean Sea
+
Longbow Welsh word
  
Marianne French equivalent of John Bull
+
Loot ‘plunder’ (Anglo-Indian, from the Hindi lut)
  
Mariposa Spanish for ‘butterfly’
+
Louche decadent, shady (French)
  
Marmalade – from marmelo, which is Portuguese for ‘quince’
+
Luge – from French for ‘sledge’
  
Marmoreal ‘marble-like’
+
Lula Brazilian for ‘squid’
  
Masochism from the writings of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
+
Lumpen Proletariat term coined by Karl Marx. Means ‘beneath the working classes’
  
Mata Hari means ‘eye of the day’ in Malay
+
Lundy Old Norse for ‘puffin island’
  
Mausoleum – from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (near modern-day Bodrum in Turkey), the grave of King Mausolus, the Persian satrap of Caria
+
Lycopodium – from Greek lukos,’ wolf’ and podion, diminutive of pous, ‘foot’
  
Maven a trusted expert in a particular field. From Yiddish word for ‘one who understands’
+
Macho virile, domineering (Spanish)
  
Mazel tov ‘good fortune’ (Yiddish)
+
Machu Picchu means ‘Old Peak’ in Quechua
  
Mea culpa ‘by my own fault’
+
Macrame Arabic word for ‘fringe’
  
Meander derives from a river located in present-day Turkey and known to the Greeks as Maeander, characterized by a very convoluted path along the lower reach
+
Macron – from the Greek meaning ‘long’, is a diacritic (ē) placed above a vowel
  
Medulla – from Latin for ‘pith’ or ‘marrow’
+
Madrileno male from Madrid
  
Meerschaum a fine, compact, usually white claylike mineral of hydrous magnesium silicate, used in making pipe bowls. Means ‘sea foam’ in German
+
Maestro master, teacher (Italian)
  
Mein Kampf means ‘my struggle’
+
Magenta from the dye magenta, commonly called fuchsine, discovered shortly after the 1859 Battle of Magenta (from the colour of the land all covered by the blood)
  
Mela – means ‘meeting’ in Sanskrit
+
Maghreb – means ‘western’ in Arabic
  
Mellitus – Latin for ‘sweet as honey’
+
Magi – Latin plural of magus. Followers of Zoroastrianism
  
Memento mori a Latin phrase that may be freely translated as ‘Remember that you are mortal’, ‘Remember you will die’, or ‘Remember your death’. It names a genre of artistic creations that vary widely from one another, but which all share the same purpose, which is to remind people of their own mortality
+
Magna Carta means ‘great charter’
  
Menage a trois means ‘household of three’
+
Magna cum laude Latin for ‘with great honour’
  
Mensa – Latin for ‘table’
+
Magnum opus ‘great work’ (Latin)
  
Menshevik – means ‘minority’
+
Mahabharata – means ‘great hall’ in Sanskrit
  
Mens rea Latin for ‘guilty mind’
+
Maharishi means ‘great Sage’
  
Mens sana in corpere sano ‘A healthy mind in a healthy body’
+
Mahatma Sanskrit word meaning ‘Great Soul’
  
Mentoring Mentor was the advisor, friend and teacher of Odysseus
+
Majlis an Arabic term meaning ‘a place of sitting’ used to describe various types of special gatherings among common interest groups
  
Meuniere French for ‘miller’s wife’
+
Majorca means ‘the larger one’. Spanish name is Mallorca
  
Meso prefix meaning ‘in the middle’
+
Mammal from the Latin word mamma meaning ‘breast’
  
Mesophyll Greek for ‘middle leaf’
+
Mammon from Aramaic for ‘riches’
  
Messiah means ‘anointed’
+
Manana tomorrow (Spanish)
  
Metropolis from Greek for ‘mother’ and ‘city’
+
Mandarin ‘official’ (Malay)
  
Mezzogiorno Italian for ‘midday’
+
Manga Japanese for ‘whimsical pictures’
  
Mi casa es su casu ‘my house is your house’ (Spanish)
+
Mantra ‘instrument of thought’ (Sanskrit)
  
Miguel Spanish equivalent of Michael
+
Maori means ‘normal’
  
Mikado – from Japanese for ‘honourable gate’ or ‘exalted gate’
+
Mare – from old English for ‘horse’
  
Minaret from Arabic word meaning ‘lighthouse’
+
Mare Nostrum Roman name for Mediterranean Sea
  
Minion from Middle French mignon (‘lover, royal favourite, darling’)
+
Marianne – French equivalent of John Bull
  
Minnehoma means ‘laughing water’, in poem by Longfellow
+
Mariposa Spanish for ‘butterfly’
  
Minuet social dance, from French for ‘small’
+
Marmalade from marmelo, which is Portuguese for ‘quince’
  
Mir Russian for ‘peace’
+
Marmoreal ‘marble-like’
  
Miranda means ‘to be wondered at’
+
Masochism from the writings of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
  
Mise en scene staging, direction (French). Everything that can be seen in the picture or onstage
+
Mata Hari means ‘eye of the day’ in Malay
  
Misr local name for Egypt
+
Mausoleum from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (near modern-day Bodrum in Turkey), the grave of King Mausolus, the Persian satrap of Caria
  
Mnemonic Greek for ‘mindful’
+
Maven a trusted expert in a particular field. From Yiddish word for ‘one who understands’
  
Modus operandi means ‘way of working’
+
Mazel tov ‘good fortune’ (Yiddish)
  
Modus vivendi means ‘way of living’
+
Mea culpa ‘by my own fault’
  
Molar – from Latin for ‘millstone’
+
Meander derives from a river located in present-day Turkey and known to the Greeks as Maeander, characterized by a very convoluted path along the lower reach
  
Mole – from ‘earth thrower’ in old English
+
Medulla – from Latin for ‘pith’ or ‘marrow’
  
Mollusc means ‘soft’
+
Meerschaum a fine, compact, usually white claylike mineral of hydrous magnesium silicate, used in making pipe bowls. Means ‘sea foam’ in German
  
Monotreme Greek for ‘single opening’
+
Mein Kampf means ‘my struggle’
  
Monsoon Arabic for ‘season’
+
Mela means ‘meeting’ in Sanskrit
  
Montevideo from ‘I see a hill’
+
Mellitus Latin for ‘sweet as honey’
  
Moonshine originally meant ‘nothing’
+
Memento mori a Latin phrase that may be freely translated as ‘Remember that you are mortal’, ‘Remember you will die’, or ‘Remember your death’. It names a genre of artistic creations that vary widely from one another, but which all share the same purpose, which is to remind people of their own mortality
  
Moratorium ‘delay’ (Latin). An authorized period of delay in complying with a legal demand
+
Menage a trois means ‘household of three’
  
Moroni means ‘in the heart of the fire’
+
Mensa Latin for ‘table’
  
Morphine named after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams
+
Menshevik means ‘minority’
  
Mortgage from French words for ‘dead’ and ‘pledge’
+
Mens rea Latin for ‘guilty mind’
  
Morus Latin for ‘mulberry’
+
Mens sana in corpere sano ‘A healthy mind in a healthy body’
  
Mossad means ‘institute’
+
Mentoring Mentor was the advisor, friend and teacher of Odysseus
  
Mosquito Spanish for ‘little fly’
+
Meuniere French for ‘miller’s wife’
  
Moulin Rouge means ‘red mill’
+
Meso prefix meaning ‘in the middle’
  
Muckle Flugga means ‘great precipice’
+
Mesophyll Greek for ‘middle leaf’
  
Mujahideen Muslims who struggle in the path of God. From Arabic word ‘jihad’
+
Messiah means ‘anointed’
  
Mullah – from Arabic word meaning ‘vicar’, ‘master’ and ‘guardian’
+
Metropolis – from Greek for ‘mother’ and ‘city’
  
Musket from French for ‘sparrowhawk’
+
Mezzogiorno Italian for ‘midday’
  
Multum in parvo means ‘much in little’, and is the motto of Rutland
+
Mi casa es su casu ‘my house is your house’ (Spanish)
  
Munich means ‘home of the monks’
+
Miguel Spanish equivalent of Michael
  
Il Municipile Italian for ‘town hall’
+
Mikado from Japanese for ‘honourable gate’ or ‘exalted gate’
  
Muscovy a traditional Western name for the Russian state that existed from the 14th century to the late 17th century
+
Minaret – from Arabic word meaning ‘lighthouse’
  
Mushroom – from a French word
+
Minion – from Middle French mignon (‘lover, royal favourite, darling’)
  
Mumbo jumbo probably originated from the Mandingo name Maamajomboo, a masked dancer that took part in religious ceremonies
+
Minnehoma means ‘laughing water’, in poem by Longfellow
  
Muppet ‘marionette puppet’
+
Minuet social dance, from French for ‘small’
  
Mur French for ‘wall’
+
Mir Russian for ‘peace’
  
Mutatis mutandis Latin for ‘the necessary changes having been made’
+
Miranda means ‘to be wondered at’
  
Myelo Greek for ‘bone marrow’
+
Mise en scene staging, direction (French). Everything that can be seen in the picture or onstage
  
Myriad Greek for 10,000
+
Misr local name for Egypt
  
Nabob wealthy man / dignitary (Hindi). A corruption of the Urdu ''nawab''
+
Mnemonic Greek for ‘mindful’
  
Nacelle French for ‘a small boat’
+
Modus operandi means ‘way of working’
  
Nai Greek for ‘yes’
+
Modus vivendi means ‘way of living’
  
Nanjing means ‘Southern Capital’
+
Molar from Latin for ‘millstone’
  
Nark – from Romany for ‘nose’
+
Mole – from ‘earth thrower’ in old English
  
Nasi Goreng – means ‘fried rice’ in Indonesian and Malay
+
Mollusc – means ‘soft’
  
Nave central area of a church. Latin for ‘ship’
+
Monotreme Greek for ‘single opening’
  
Naypyidaw means ‘royal capital’ or ‘abode of kings’
+
Monsoon Arabic for ‘season’
  
NB nota bene, literally ‘note well’
+
Montevideo from ‘I see a hill’
  
Necropolis Greek word meaning ‘city of the dead’, describes large and important burial areas that were in use for long periods
+
Moonshine originally meant ‘nothing’
  
Negev Hebrew for ‘dry’
+
Moratorium ‘delay’ (Latin). An authorized period of delay in complying with a legal demand
  
Nepotism from Latin word for ‘nephew’
+
Moroni means ‘in the heart of the fire’
  
Ness in a place name means ‘headland’
+
Morphine named after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams
  
Neuroptera ‘nerve-shaped’, lacewings
+
Mortgage from French words for ‘dead’ and ‘pledge’
  
Nil desperandum ‘nothing to be despaired at’ (Latin). Horace wrote it in ''Odes I''
+
Morus – Latin for ‘mulberry’
  
Nile from the Greek word ‘Neilos’, meaning river valley
+
Mossad means ‘institute’
  
Nirvana Sanskrit for ‘extinction’
+
Mosquito Spanish for ‘little fly’
  
Noblesse oblige ‘nobility obligates’ (French). Those with wealth and status should do something to help those less fortunate than themselves
+
Moulin Rouge means ‘red mill’
  
Noctilucent luminous at night
+
Muckle Flugga means ‘great precipice’
  
Noisette French for ‘hazelnut’
+
Mujahideen Muslims who struggle in the path of God. From Arabic word ‘jihad’
  
Non sequitur means ‘it does not follow’. A statement that seems meaningless in the context of whatever preceded it
+
Mullah from Arabic word meaning ‘vicar’, ‘master’ and ‘guardian’
  
Nosh snack food (Yiddish)
+
Musket from French for ‘sparrowhawk’
  
Nostalgia comes from Greek nostos ‘homeward journey, return home’ and algos ‘pain’
+
Multum in parvo means ‘much in little’, and is the motto of Rutland
  
Nous mind, intellect (Greek)
+
Munich means ‘home of the monks’
  
Nougat from French word for ‘nut’
+
Il Municipile Italian for ‘town hall’
  
Novum Testamentum Latin phrase for the New Testament
+
Muscovy a traditional Western name for the Russian state that existed from the 14th century to the late 17th century
  
Nubile meant ‘ready for marriage’
+
Mushroom from a French word
  
Nullarbor derived from the Latin nullus for 'nothing' or 'no one' and arbor for 'tree'. The Aboriginal name for the area is Oondiri meaning 'the waterless'
+
Mumbo jumbo probably originated from the Mandingo name Maamajomboo, a masked dancer that took part in religious ceremonies
  
Nullius in verba Latin for ‘take nobody's word for it’. Motto of Royal Society
+
Muppet ‘marionette puppet’
  
Nunc dimittis Latin for ‘now you dismiss’
+
Mur French for ‘wall’
  
Obelisk Greek for ‘little pointed pillar’
+
Mutatis mutandis Latin for ‘the necessary changes having been made’
  
Obit sini prole died without children
+
Myelo Greek for ‘bone marrow’
  
Oboe from French for ‘high wood’
+
Myriad Greek for 10,000
  
Ocelot from Aztec for ‘field tiger’
+
Nabob wealthy man / dignitary (Hindi). A corruption of the Urdu ''nawab''
  
Oculus Latin word for eye, used commonly as the name of the round opening in the top of the dome of the Pantheon in Rome. The Oculus in the Pantheon is and has always been open to the weather
+
Nacelle French for ‘a small boat’
  
Oedipus – Greek for ‘swollen foot’
+
Nai – Greek for ‘yes’
  
Oeil-de-boeuf French for ‘bull’s eye’, is a term applied to a relatively small oval window, typically for an upper storey
+
Nanjing means ‘Southern Capital’
  
Oeuvre ‘work’ (French). The complete body of work by an artist
+
Nark from Romany for ‘nose’
  
Oflag is the abbreviation for Offizierslager, ‘officer’s camp’
+
Nasi Goreng – means ‘fried rice’ in Indonesian and Malay
  
Of that Ilk – a Scottish term which often appears in titles. It means ‘of the same’
+
Nave central area of a church. Latin for ‘ship’
  
Ogonek Polish for’little tail’, is a diacritic hook placed under the lower right corner of a vowel in the Latin alphabet
+
Naypyidaw means ‘royal capital’ or ‘abode of kings’
  
Oklahoma from Indian for ‘red people’
+
NB nota bene, literally ‘note well’
  
Oligo prefix meaning ‘few’
+
Necropolis Greek word meaning ‘city of the dead’, describes large and important burial areas that were in use for long periods
  
Olmec means ‘rubber people’ in Nahuatl
+
Negev Hebrew for ‘dry’
  
Ombudsman –‘ commission man’ (Swedish)
+
Nepotism – from Latin word for ‘nephew’
  
Omicron ‘little O’
+
Ness in a place name means ‘headland’
  
Omnibus ‘for everyone’
+
Neuroptera ‘nerve-shaped’, lacewings
  
Omphalos belly-button, and a religious stone artifact in the ancient world. In Greek, the word means ‘navel’
+
Nil desperandum ‘nothing to be despaired at’ (Latin). Horace wrote it in ''Odes I''
  
Oolong Chinese for ‘black dragon’
+
Nile from the Greek word ‘Neilos’, meaning river valley
  
Op cit short for opus citatum, is the term used to provide an endnote or footnote citation to refer the reader to an earlier citation
+
Nirvana Sanskrit for ‘extinction’
  
Oppidum a Latin word meaning the main settlement in any administrative area of ancient Rome
+
Noblesse oblige ‘nobility obligates’ (French). Those with wealth and status should do something to help those less fortunate than themselves
  
Opus Dei from a Latin phrase meaning ‘the work of God’. It is a very conservative Roman Catholic lay organization organized in 1928, whose members have a strong dedication to the Vatican
+
Noctilucent luminous at night
  
Orbis non sufficit means ‘the world is not enough’. Motto of the Bond family
+
Noisette French for ‘hazelnut’
  
Orchestra Greek for ‘a dancing place’
+
Non sequitur means ‘it does not follow’. A statement that seems meaningless in the context of whatever preceded it
  
Oregano from the Greek for ‘joy of the mountain’
+
Nosh snack food (Yiddish)
  
Orme Old Norse word for ‘sea serpent’
+
Nostalgia comes from Greek nostos ‘homeward journey, return home’ and algos ‘pain’
  
Ornithos – Greek for ‘bird’
+
Nous mind, intellect (Greek)
  
Orthodox – from Greek for ‘right’ and ‘opinion’
+
Nougat – from French word for ‘nut’
  
Orphopraxy – the belief that right action is as important as religious faith, from Greek: orthos ‘correct’ and praxis ‘deed’
+
Novum Testamentum Latin phrase for the New Testament
  
Osama means ‘young lion’ in Arabic
+
Nubile meant ‘ready for marriage’
  
Osculum – Latin for ‘kiss’
+
Nullarbor derived from the Latin nullus for 'nothing' or 'no one' and arbor for 'tree'. The Aboriginal name for the area is Oondiri meaning 'the waterless'
  
Ossicles malleus, incus and stapes. Means ‘tiny bones’
+
Nullius in verba Latin for ‘take nobody's word for it’. Motto of Royal Society
  
Ostracism from Greek ostrakon, pieces of broken pottery on which voters would write the names of anyone they felt the state could do without for a year
+
Nunc dimittis Latin for ‘now you dismiss’
  
Otaku a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime, manga, and video games
+
Obelisk Greek for ‘little pointed pillar’
  
Otemoto Japanese for ‘chopsticks’
+
Obit sini prole died without children
  
Oubliette – from the French meaning ‘forgotten place’, was a form of dungeon which was accessible only from a hatch in a high ceiling
+
Oboe – from French for ‘high wood’
  
Outre exaggerated, eccentric (French). Used in reference to extravagant fashions
+
Ocelot from Aztec for ‘field tiger’
  
Oxygen means ‘acid producer’
+
Oculus Latin word for eye, used commonly as the name of the round opening in the top of the dome of the Pantheon in Rome. The Oculus in the Pantheon is and has always been open to the weather
  
Oxi – Greek for ‘no’
+
Oedipus – Greek for ‘swollen foot’
  
Oxymoron from the Greek for ‘sharp’ and ‘foolish’
+
Oeil-de-boeuf French for ‘bull’s eye’, is a term applied to a relatively small oval window, typically for an upper storey
  
Paella the word for ‘frying pan’ in Valencian
+
Oeuvre ‘work’ (French). The complete body of work by an artist
  
Pagan – from Latin for ‘country dweller’
+
Oflag is the abbreviation for Offizierslager, ‘officer’s camp’
  
Pakistan means ‘Land of the Pure’. It was coined in 1934 as Pakstan by Choudhary Rahmat Ali, who published it in the pamphlet ''Now or Never''
+
Of that Ilk – a Scottish term which often appears in titles. It means ‘of the same’
  
Pale from the Latin word palus, meaning ‘stake’. From this came the figurative meaning of ‘boundary, and ‘beyond the pale’
+
Ogonek Polish for’little tail’, is a diacritic hook placed under the lower right corner of a vowel in the Latin alphabet
  
Palin prefix meaning ‘again’
+
Oklahoma from Indian for ‘red people’
  
Paloma Spanish for ‘dove’
+
Oligo prefix meaning ‘few’
  
Panache – means ‘plume’, such as is worn on a hat or a helmet, but the reference is to King Henry IV of France
+
Olmec – means ‘rubber people’ in Nahuatl
  
Pansy – from French pensee, ‘thought’
+
Ombudsman –‘ commission man’ (Swedish)
  
Pandemonium means ‘all the demons’ in Greek. Described by Milton in ''Paradise Lost''
+
Omicron ‘little O’
  
Pandora means ‘all gifted’
+
Omnibus ‘for everyone’
  
Panzer – means ‘armour’
+
Omphalos belly-button, and a religious stone artifact in the ancient world. In Greek, the word means ‘navel’
  
Pannacotta an Italian phrase which literally means ‘cooked cream’
+
Oolong Chinese for ‘black dragon’
  
Panorama Greek for ‘all’ and ‘sight’. The word was originally coined by the Irish painter Robert Barker to describe his panoramic paintings of Edinburgh
+
Op cit short for opus citatum, is the term used to provide an endnote or footnote citation to refer the reader to an earlier citation
  
Pantisocracy – meaning ‘equal government for all’ was a utopian scheme devised in 1794 by the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey for an egalitarian community
+
Oppidum a Latin word meaning the main settlement in any administrative area of ancient Rome
  
Pantomine Greek for ‘all mimic’
+
Opus Dei from a Latin phrase meaning ‘the work of God’. It is a very conservative Roman Catholic lay organization organized in 1928, whose members have a strong dedication to the Vatican
  
Paparazzi ‘mosquitoes’ (Italian). From a character in ''La Dolce Vita'', by Fellini
+
Orbis non sufficit means ‘the world is not enough’. Motto of the Bond family
  
Papier mache French for ‘chewed-up paper’
+
Orchestra Greek for ‘a dancing place’
  
Parachute comes from ‘para’, meaning ‘against’ or ‘counter’ in Ancient Greek, and ‘chute’, the French word for ‘fall’
+
Oregano – from the Greek for ‘joy of the mountain’
  
Paranoia from Greek word for ‘madness’
+
Orme Old Norse word for ‘sea serpent’
  
Paraphernalia from Greek for ‘property apart from a dowry’
+
Ornithos – Greek for ‘bird’
  
Parasol – from Italian word
+
Orthodox – from Greek for ‘right’ and ‘opinion’
  
Par excellence ‘pre-eminent’ (French)
+
Orphopraxy the belief that right action is as important as religious faith, from Greek: orthos ‘correct’ and praxis ‘deed’
  
Pariah untouchable, social outcast (Anglo-Indian). Originally a Tamil tribe of drummers named after the Pari drum
+
Osama means ‘young lion’ in Arabic
  
Parlour from French parler, ‘to speak’
+
Osculum Latin for ‘kiss’
  
Parole French for ‘voice’ or ‘spoken word’
+
Ossicles malleus, incus and stapes. Means ‘tiny bones’
  
Parterre means ‘on the ground’. In landscape gardening, a formal area of planting, usually square or rectangular
+
Ostracism from Greek ostrakon, pieces of broken pottery on which voters would write the names of anyone they felt the state could do without for a year
  
Parthenon from Greek for ‘maiden’s chamber’
+
Otaku a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime, manga, and video games
  
Pas de deux French, ‘step/dance for two’, is a duet in which ballet dancers perform the dance together
+
Otemoto Japanese for ‘chopsticks’
  
El Paso means ‘the pass’
+
Oubliette from the French meaning ‘forgotten place’, was a form of dungeon which was accessible only from a hatch in a high ceiling
  
Pasodoble (literal meaning in Spanish: double-step) is a typical Spanish march-like musical style as well as the corresponding dance style danced by a couple
+
Outre – exaggerated, eccentric (French). Used in reference to extravagant fashions
  
Passe ‘past’ (French)
+
Oxygen means ‘acid producer’
  
Passer as in Passeriformes, means ‘sparrow’
+
Oxi Greek for ‘no’
  
Passim throughout, everywhere (Latin). Used in footnotes to show that an idea is referred to repeatedly at various points in the work being cited
+
Oxymoron from the Greek for ‘sharp’ and ‘foolish’
  
Passion Latin for ‘suffering’
+
Paella the word for ‘frying pan’ in Valencian
  
Pasta Italian for ‘dough’
+
Pagan from Latin for ‘country dweller’
  
Pasta puttanesca – tart’s spaghetti, In Italian, a puttanesca is a 'lady of the night'
+
Pakistan means ‘Land of the Pure’. It was coined in 1934 as Pakstan by Choudhary Rahmat Ali, who published it in the pamphlet ''Now or Never''
  
Pastrami derived from a Yiddish word
+
Pale – from the Latin word palus, meaning ‘stake’. From this came the figurative meaning of ‘boundary, and ‘beyond the pale’
  
Pater Noster the Lord's Prayer; so called from the first two words in the Latin version. Every tenth bead of a rosary is so called, because at that bead the Lord's Prayer is repeated
+
Palin prefix meaning ‘again’
  
Pathemata mathemata Greek for ‘one learns by suffering’
+
Paloma Spanish for ‘dove’
  
Patriarch originally a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family
+
Panache means ‘plume’, such as is worn on a hat or a helmet, but the reference is to King Henry IV of France
  
Patriarchy means ‘the rule of the father’
+
Pansy from French pensee, ‘thought’
  
Pavilion from Latin for ‘butterfly’
+
Pandemonium means ‘all the demons’ in Greek. Described by Milton in ''Paradise Lost''
  
Peccadillo small sin (Spanish)
+
Pandora means ‘all gifted’
  
Pecora Italian for ‘sheep’
+
Panzer means ‘armour’
  
Pedigree French for ‘crane’s foot’, from the resemblance of a crane's foot to the claw-like branched lines of succession on a genealogical chart
+
Pannacotta an Italian phrase which literally means ‘cooked cream’
  
Pelota Spanish for ‘ball’
+
Panorama Greek for ‘all’ and ‘sight’. The word was originally coined by the Irish painter Robert Barker to describe his panoramic paintings of Edinburgh
  
Pelvis –Latin word for ‘basin’
+
Pantisocracy – meaning ‘equal government for all’ was a utopian scheme devised in 1794 by the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey for an egalitarian community
  
Penguin derives from the Welsh words for ‘white’ and ‘head’
+
Pantomine Greek for ‘all mimic’
  
Peninsula Latin for ‘almost’ and ‘island’
+
Paparazzi ‘mosquitoes’ (Italian). From a character in ''La Dolce Vita'', by Fellini
  
Penne Latin for ‘feather’ or ‘quill pen’
+
Papier mache French for ‘chewed-up paper’
  
Pentecost – from Greek for ‘fiftieth day’
+
Parachute comes from ‘para’, meaning ‘against’ or ‘counter’ in Ancient Greek, and ‘chute’, the French word for ‘fall’
  
Pepperoni – from Italian for ‘chili’
+
Paranoia – from Greek word for ‘madness’
  
Perennial (Latin per, ‘through’, annus, ‘year’)
+
Paraphernalia from Greek for ‘property apart from a dowry’
  
Perfidious one who does not keep his faith or word. From the Latin word perfidia
+
Parasol from Italian word
  
Per se by, of itself
+
Par excellence ‘pre-eminent’ (French)
  
Pesto means ‘to crush’. From the same Latin root as pestle
+
Pariah untouchable, social outcast (Anglo-Indian). Originally a Tamil tribe of drummers named after the Pari drum
  
Petanque – from pieds tanques, or ‘stuck feet’
+
Parlour – from French parler, ‘to speak’
  
Petit four – French for ‘little oven’
+
Parole – French for ‘voice’ or ‘spoken word’
  
Pharaoh – means ‘great house’
+
Parterre – means ‘on the ground’. In landscape gardening, a formal area of planting, usually square or rectangular
  
Phatic expression one whose only function is to perform a social task, as opposed to conveying information, e.g. ‘you’re welcome’
+
Parthenon from Greek for ‘maiden’s chamber’
  
Philadelphia Greek for ‘brotherly love’
+
Pas de deux French, ‘step/dance for two’, is a duet in which ballet dancers perform the dance together
  
Philately from French for ‘exemption from charges’
+
El Paso means ‘the pass’
  
Philosopher – ‘lover of wisdom’
+
Pasodoble (literal meaning in Spanish: double-step) is a typical Spanish march-like musical style as well as the corresponding dance style danced by a couple
  
Phloem Greek for ‘bark’
+
Passe ‘past’ (French)
  
Phoebe – means ‘bright and shining’
+
Passer as in Passeriformes, means ‘sparrow’
  
Phosphorus means ‘light bearing’ in Greek
+
Passim throughout, everywhere (Latin). Used in footnotes to show that an idea is referred to repeatedly at various points in the work being cited
  
Phrenology from Greek for ‘mind’ and ‘knowledge’
+
Passion Latin for ‘suffering’
  
Phylum from Greek for ‘tribe’ or ‘race’
+
Pasta Italian for ‘dough’
  
Phyte suffix meaning ‘plant’
+
Pasta puttanesca tart’s spaghetti, In Italian, a puttanesca is a 'lady of the night'
  
Pianoforte Italian for ‘soft and loud’
+
Pastrami derived from a Yiddish word
  
Piccolo Italian from ‘small’
+
Pater Noster the Lord's Prayer; so called from the first two words in the Latin version. Every tenth bead of a rosary is so called, because at that bead the Lord's Prayer is repeated
  
Picro prefix meaning ‘bitter’
+
Pathemata mathemata Greek for ‘one learns by suffering’
  
Pidgin – a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common
+
Patriarch originally a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family
  
Pied-a-terre ‘foot on the ground’ (French)
+
Patriarchy means ‘the rule of the father’
  
Pied-Noir means ‘black foot’, a term referring to French citizens of various origins who lived in French Algeria before independence
+
Pavilion from Latin for ‘butterfly’
  
Piezoelectricity derived from the Greek piezein, which means ‘to squeeze or press’
+
Peccadillo small sin (Spanish)
  
Pina colada means ‘strained pineapple’ in Spanish
+
Pecora Italian for ‘sheep’
  
Pinot noir from French for ‘black pine’
+
Pedigree – French for ‘crane’s foot’, from the resemblance of a crane's foot to the claw-like branched lines of succession on a genealogical chart
  
Pinxit Latin for ‘painted’. Formerly put after the artist's name on a painting
+
Pelota Spanish for ‘ball’
  
Pistol – may be derived from a Czech word
+
Pelvis –Latin word for ‘basin’
  
Pistyll – Welsh for ‘waterfall’
+
Penguin derives from the Welsh words for ‘white’ and ‘head’
  
Pita bread means ‘cake’ or ‘pie’
+
Peninsula Latin for ‘almost’ and ‘island’
  
Pius means ‘dutiful’
+
Penne Latin for ‘feather’ or ‘quill pen’
  
Plage French for ‘beach’
+
Pentecost from Greek for ‘fiftieth day’
  
Plantagenet named after a sprig of ''Planta genista'' (broom) that Geoffrey of Anjou adopted as a badge
+
Pepperoni from Italian for ‘chili’
  
Placebo ‘I shall please’ (Latin). In the 17th century a placebo was a treatment given by a doctor purely to please a patient
+
Perennial – (Latin per, ‘through’, annus, ‘year’)  
  
Plastic derived from the Greek plastikos meaning ‘capable of being shaped or moulded’
+
Perfidious one who does not keep his faith or word. From the Latin word perfidia
  
Poll tax poll means ‘head’
+
Per se by, of itself
  
Poltergeist ‘noisy ghost’ (German)
+
Pesto means ‘to crush’. From the same Latin root as pestle
  
Pomegranate Latin for ‘apple’ and ‘full of seeds’
+
Petanque from pieds tanques, or ‘stuck feet’
  
Pommel Latin for ‘little apple’
+
Petit four French for ‘little oven’
  
Pontus Greek: ‘sea’, is a historical Greek designation for a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in modern-day northeastern Turkey
+
Pharaoh means ‘great house’
  
Poodle from German word meaning ‘to paddle’ or ‘splash’
+
Phatic expression one whose only function is to perform a social task, as opposed to conveying information, e.g. ‘you’re welcome’
  
Poppycock from Dutch for ‘soft dung’
+
Philadelphia Greek for ‘brotherly love’
  
Porcelain – from Italian for ‘cowrie shell’, a slang term meaning ‘little piglet’
+
Philately – from French for ‘exemption from charges’
  
Porcupine comes from Middle French porc d'épine ‘thorny pork’, hence the nickname ‘quill pig’ for the animal
+
Philosopher ‘lover of wisdom’
  
Porphyria from the Greek for ‘purple pigment’
+
Phloem – Greek for ‘bark’
  
Porpoise from Latin for ‘pig and ‘fish’
+
Phoebe means ‘bright and shining’
  
Potlatch a festival ceremony practiced by indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. The word comes from the Chinook Jargon, meaning ‘to give away’ or ‘a gift’
+
Phosphorus means ‘light bearing’ in Greek
  
Prado means ‘meadow’
+
Phrenology from Greek for ‘mind’ and ‘knowledge’
  
Prairie – from Latin for ‘meadow’
+
Phylum – from Greek for ‘tribe’ or ‘race’
  
Preston means ‘priest town’
+
Phyte suffix meaning ‘plant’
  
Pret-a-porter ‘ready to wear’ (French)
+
Pianoforte Italian for ‘soft and loud’
  
Prima donna ‘first lady’ (Italian)
+
Piccolo – Italian from ‘small’
  
Prima facie ‘at first sight’
+
Picro prefix meaning ‘bitter’
  
Prego – means ‘not at all’, ‘don’t mention it’
+
Pidgin a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common
  
Premier cru means ‘first growth’
+
Pied-a-terre ‘foot on the ground’ (French)
  
Pro bono ‘for good’ (Latin). Work that lawyers do without payment
+
Pied-Noir means ‘black foot’, a term referring to French citizens of various origins who lived in French Algeria before independence
  
Prometheus – means ‘forethought’
+
Piezoelectricity derived from the Greek piezein, which means ‘to squeeze or press’
  
Propaganda from the activity of ‘propagating’ the Catholic faith in non-Catholic countries
+
Pina colada means ‘strained pineapple’ in Spanish
  
Pro rata ‘in proportion’
+
Pinot noir from French for ‘black pine’
  
Prostitute derived from two Latin words meaning ‘to expose’ or ‘to place up front’
+
Pinxit – Latin for ‘painted’. Formerly put after the artist's name on a painting
  
Protege protected person, apprentice (French)
+
Pistol may be derived from a Czech word
  
Protocol comes from the Greek word protocollon, meaning ‘first glue’. It referred to a leaf glued to a manuscript which described its contents
+
Pistyll Welsh for ‘waterfall’
  
Provdrish Russian word meaning ‘comrade’
+
Pita bread means ‘cake’ or ‘pie’
  
PS post scriptum, ‘after writing’
+
Pius means ‘dutiful’
  
Psephology from Greek psephos, 'pebble', which the Greeks used as ballots
+
Plage French for ‘beach’
  
Pterodactyl from the Greek for 'wing' and finger'
+
Plantagenet named after a sprig of ''Planta genista'' (broom) that Geoffrey of Anjou adopted as a badge
  
Pteron Greek for ‘wing’
+
Placebo ‘I shall please’ (Latin). In the 17th century a placebo was a treatment given by a doctor purely to please a patient
  
Puce – from French word for ‘flea’ (pulce)
+
Plastic derived from the Greek plastikos meaning ‘capable of being shaped or moulded’
  
Puerta Spanish for ‘gate’
+
Poll tax poll means ‘head’
  
Puerto Rico means ‘rich port’ in Spanish
+
Poltergeist ‘noisy ghost’ (German)
  
Puissance French for ‘power’
+
Pomegranate Latin for ‘apple’ and ‘full of seeds’
  
Pukka cooked, ripe (Hindi, from ‘pakka’)
+
Pommel Latin for ‘little apple’
  
Pundit or pandit, from Sanskrit for ‘learned man’
+
Pontus Greek: ‘sea’, is a historical Greek designation for a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in modern-day northeastern Turkey
  
Punj means ‘five’ and aab means ‘water’, so Punjab means ‘five waters’
+
Poodle – from German word meaning ‘to paddle’ or ‘splash’
  
Purdah curtain, veil (Hindi). Requires women to cover themselves with a veil and to be separated from male non-family members by a curtain
+
Poppycock – from Dutch for ‘soft dung’
  
Putevki state-sponsored mass holidays in Soviet Union
+
Porcelain from Italian for ‘cowrie shell’, a slang term meaning ‘little piglet’
  
Pyjamas ‘trousers’ (Persian)
+
Porcupine comes from Middle French porc d'épine ‘thorny pork’, hence the nickname ‘quill pig’ for the animal
  
Pyrite – from Greek for ‘fire’
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Porphyria – from the Greek for ‘purple pigment’
  
QED quod erat demonstrandum, ‘that which was to be demonstrated’
+
Porpoise from Latin for ‘pig and ‘fish’
  
Quaero Latin for ‘I search’. EU rival to Google
+
Potlatch a festival ceremony practiced by indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. The word comes from the Chinook Jargon, meaning ‘to give away’ or ‘a gift’
  
Quasi ‘as if’ (Latin)
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Prado means ‘meadow’
  
Quebec – from term in Algonquian meaning ‘straits’
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Prairie – from Latin for ‘meadow’
  
Quid pro quo ‘something for something’
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Preston means ‘priest town’
  
Rabbi Hebrew for ‘my master’ or ‘my teacher‘
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Pret-a-porter ‘ready to wear’ (French)
  
Rabenmutters German for ‘raven mothers’, mothers who work
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Prima donna ‘first lady’ (Italian)
  
Raccoon Powhatan for ‘he scratches with his hands’
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Prima facie ‘at first sight’
  
Raconteur skilled storyteller (French)
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Prego means ‘not at all’, ‘don’t mention it’
  
Rafflesia – means ‘corpse flower’
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Premier cru – means ‘first growth’
  
Raison d’etre ‘reason for being’ (French)
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Pro bono ‘for good’ (Latin). Work that lawyers do without payment
  
Raj – means ‘kingdom’ or ‘government’
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Prometheus – means ‘forethought’
  
Raja Arabic for ‘hopefulness’
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Propaganda from the activity of ‘propagating’ the Catholic faith in non-Catholic countries
  
Rajput from Sanskrit raja-putra, ‘son of a king’
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Pro rata ‘in proportion’
  
Rappelling abseiling (German: abseilen, ‘to rope down’)
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Prostitute derived from two Latin words meaning ‘to expose’ or ‘to place up front’
  
Rapport harmonious relationship (French)
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Protege protected person, apprentice (French)
  
Rara avis ‘rare bird’. From Juvenal’s ''Satires'': “a bird as rare upon the earth as a black swan”
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Protocol comes from the Greek word protocollon, meaning ‘first glue’. It referred to a leaf glued to a manuscript which described its contents
  
Real Spanish for ‘royal’
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Provdrish Russian word meaning ‘comrade’
  
Recherche rare, exotic, or obscure
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PS post scriptum, ‘after writing’
  
Rechercher French for ‘to look for’
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Psephology from Greek psephos, 'pebble', which the Greeks used as ballots
  
Reductio ad absurdum ‘reduction to the absurd’ (Latin). Proving a theorem to be correct by starting out with the opposite claim and showing that it leads to a ridiculous outcome
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Pterodactyl from the Greek for 'wing' and finger'
  
Reiki ‘universal life energy’
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Pteron Greek for ‘wing’
  
Renaissance – French for ‘rebirth’
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Puce from French word for ‘flea’ (pulce)
  
Repechage (French: repêchage, lit. re-fishing), meaning ‘to rescue’ or ‘to save’
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Puerta Spanish for ‘gate’
  
Res ipsa loquitor ‘the thing speaks for itself’, meaning ‘It’s obvious, surely?’
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Puerto Rico means ‘rich port’ in Spanish
  
Res gestae Latin for ‘things done’
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Puissance French for ‘power’
  
Retrousse – (used of noses) turned up at the end
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Pukka cooked, ripe (Hindi, from ‘pakka’)
  
Rhinoceros means ‘nose horned’
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Pundit or pandit, from Sanskrit for ‘learned man’
  
Rhododendron – means ‘rose tree’ in Greek
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Punj means ‘five’ and aab means ‘water’, so Punjab means ‘five waters’
  
Rickshaw Japanese for ‘human-powered vehicle’
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Purdah curtain, veil (Hindi). Requires women to cover themselves with a veil and to be separated from male non-family members by a curtain
  
Ricotta means ‘cooked again’
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Putevki state-sponsored mass holidays in Soviet Union
  
Riding from an Old Norse word meaning ‘one-third’ (Yorkshire)
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Pyjamas ‘trousers’ (Persian)
  
Rigor mortis ‘stiffness of death’ (Latin)
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Pyrite from Greek for ‘fire’
  
Robot Czech word meaning ‘forced labour’. The word robot was introduced by Czech writer Karel Capek in his play ''R.U.R.'' (Rossum's Universal Robots), published in 1920. The play begins in a factory that makes artificial people called robots
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QED quod erat demonstrandum, ‘that which was to be demonstrated’
  
Rococo a combination of the French rocaille, meaning ‘stone’, and coquilles, meaning ‘shell’, due to reliance on these objects as motifs of decoration
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Quaero Latin for ‘I search’. EU rival to Google
  
Rogation Day from Latin for ‘to ask’
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Quasi ‘as if’ (Latin)
  
Roman a clef French for ‘novel with a key’, is a novel about real life, overlaid with a facade of fiction
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Quebec from term in Algonquian meaning ‘straits’
  
Rosemary derives from the Latin for dew (ros) and sea (marinus), or ‘dew of the sea’
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Quid pro quo ‘something for something’
  
Rosh Hashanah Jewish ‘head of the year’
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Rabbi Hebrew for ‘my master’ or ‘my teacher‘
  
Rota Latin word meaning ‘wheel’
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Rabenmutters German for ‘raven mothers’, mothers who work
  
Rottweiler named after a town in Germany (Rottweil)
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Raccoon Powhatan for ‘he scratches with his hands’
  
Roue debauched or lecherous man (French). From ‘rouer’, which means to break on a wheel or beat harshly
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Raconteur skilled storyteller (French)
  
Rubaiyat Persian for ‘quatrains’
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Rafflesia means ‘corpse flower’
  
Rucksack back bag (German)
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Raison d’etre ‘reason for being’ (French)
  
Ruth is derived from a Hebrew word meaning ‘compassion’
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Raj – means ‘kingdom’ or ‘government’
  
SA Societe Anonyme, a corporation
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Raja Arabic for ‘hopefulness’
  
Sabotage – from French word for ‘clog’
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Rajput – from Sanskrit raja-putra, ‘son of a king’
  
Sacred cow means ‘above criticism’
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Rappelling abseiling (German: abseilen, ‘to rope down’)
  
Sacrilege desecration, from ‘to purloin sacred objects’
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Rapport harmonious relationship (French)
  
Safari Swahili word meaning ‘long journey’
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Rara avis ‘rare bird’. From Juvenal’s ''Satires'': “a bird as rare upon the earth as a black swan”
  
Salaam Muslim word for ‘peace’
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Real Spanish for ‘royal’
  
Salami Italian for ‘to salt’
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Recherche rare, exotic, or obscure
  
Salsa from Spanish for ‘sauce’
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Rechercher French for ‘to look for’
  
Samsung Korean for ‘three stars’
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Reductio ad absurdum ‘reduction to the absurd’ (Latin). Proving a theorem to be correct by starting out with the opposite claim and showing that it leads to a ridiculous outcome
  
Samurai Japanese for ‘servant’ or ‘warrior’
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Reiki ‘universal life energy’
  
Sangfroid ‘cold blood’ (French)
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Renaissance – French for ‘rebirth’
  
Sanhedrin a high court of justice in Roman Palestine, comes from a Greek word literally meaning 'sitting together' or 'assembly'
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Repechage (French: repêchage, lit. re-fishing), meaning ‘to rescue’ or ‘to save’
  
Sanpan means ‘three planks’
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Res ipsa loquitor ‘the thing speaks for itself’, meaning ‘It’s obvious, surely?’
  
Sans culottes French for ‘without knee-breeches’, was a term created 1790–92 by the French to describe the poorer members of the Third Estate
+
Res gestae Latin for ‘things done’
  
Sans Souci French for ‘without worries’
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Retrousse (used of noses) turned up at the end
  
Santo Subito chanted by crowds after the death of the pope. Means ‘sainthood now’
+
Rhinoceros means ‘nose horned’
  
Sapienza Italian for ‘wisdom’ or ‘knowledge’
+
Rhododendron means ‘rose tree’ in Greek
  
Sarcophagus from Greek for ‘flesh eating’
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Rickshaw Japanese for ‘human-powered vehicle’
  
Sardar a word of Indo-Iranian origin, was originally used to denote princes, noblemen, and other aristocrats
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Ricotta means ‘cooked again’
  
Sarong ‘covering’ (Malay). Malay national garment
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Riding from an Old Norse word meaning ‘one-third’ (Yorkshire)
  
Sartorial – of or relating to a tailor, tailoring, or tailored clothing: sartorial elegance, (from Late Latin sartor, ‘tailor’)
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Rigor mortis ‘stiffness of death’ (Latin)
  
Sasha Russian equivalent name for Alexander
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Robot Czech word meaning ‘forced labour’. The word robot was introduced by Czech writer Karel Capek in his play ''R.U.R.'' (Rossum's Universal Robots), published in 1920. The play begins in a factory that makes artificial people called robots
  
Sashimi means ‘pierced flesh’
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Rococo a combination of the French rocaille, meaning ‘stone’, and coquilles, meaning ‘shell’, due to reliance on these objects as motifs of decoration
  
Sativum, Sativus, and Sativa – Latin botanical adjectives meaning ‘cultivated’, used to designate certain seed-grown domestic crops
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Rogation Day from Latin for ‘to ask’
  
Saudade – a Portuguese word which describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves
+
Roman a clef French for ‘novel with a key’, is a novel about real life, overlaid with a facade of fiction
  
Saute French for ‘jumped’
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Rosemary derives from the Latin for dew (ros) and sea (marinus), or ‘dew of the sea’
  
Savoir faire ‘know how to do’ (French). First recorded by Walter Scott in his 1815 novel ''Guy Mannering''. Shortened adjective is ‘savvy’
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Rosh Hashanah Jewish ‘head of the year’
  
Scale (musical) from Italian scala meaning ‘staircase’
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Rota Latin word meaning ‘wheel’
  
Scapegoat i.e. ‘escape-goat’, derives from the common English translation of the Hebrew term azazel
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Rottweiler named after a town in Germany (Rottweil)
  
Sceptic from Latin for ‘inquiring’
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Roue debauched or lecherous man (French). From ‘rouer’, which means to break on a wheel or beat harshly
  
Schadenfreude pleasure taken from another’s suffering (German)
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Rubaiyat Persian for ‘quatrains’
  
Schizophrenia from Greek for ‘split mind’
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Rucksack back bag (German)
  
Schlep – Yiddish word meaning ‘drag, to carry with difficulty’
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Ruth is derived from a Hebrew word meaning ‘compassion’
  
Schloss German name for ‘castle’
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SA Societe Anonyme, a corporation
  
Schmaltz ‘rendered fat’ (Yiddish)
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Sabotage from French word for ‘clog’
  
Schmooze ‘converse casually’ (Yiddish)
+
Sacred cow means ‘above criticism’
  
Schmuck ‘penis’ (Yiddish)
+
Sacrilege desecration, from ‘to purloin sacred objects’
  
School means ‘leisure’
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Safari Swahili word meaning ‘long journey’
  
Science from the Latin scientia, meaning ‘knowledge’
+
Salaam Muslim word for ‘peace’
  
Scirocco from Arabic for ‘eastern’
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Salami Italian for ‘to salt’
  
Sclerosis means ‘hardening’
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Salsa from Spanish for ‘sauce’
  
Scree from the Norse for ‘landslide’
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Samsung Korean for ‘three stars’
  
Sculpture from Latin for ‘to carve’
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Samurai Japanese for ‘servant’ or ‘warrior’
  
Scutum Latin word for ‘shield’, although it has in modern times come to be associated with the rectangular, semi-cylindrical body shield carried by ancient Roman Legionnaires
+
Sangfroid ‘cold blood’ (French)
  
Seance – from French for ‘to sit’
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Sanhedrin a high court of justice in Roman Palestine, comes from a Greek word literally meaning 'sitting together' or 'assembly'
  
Seersucker a thin, all-cotton fabric, commonly striped or checkered, used to make clothing for spring and summer wear. The word came into English from Hindustani (Urdu and Hindi), which originates from the Persian words for ‘milk and sugar’
+
Sanpan means ‘three planks’
  
Seig Heil German for ‘hail victory’
+
Sans culottes French for ‘without knee-breeches’, was a term created 1790–92 by the French to describe the poorer members of the Third Estate
  
Seine from Celtic for ‘sacred river’
+
Sans Souci French for ‘without worries’
  
Semper fidelis means ‘always faithful’
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Santo Subito chanted by crowds after the death of the pope. Means ‘sainthood now’
  
Seoul means ‘capital city’
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Sapienza Italian for ‘wisdom’ or ‘knowledge’
  
Sepia – Greek for ‘cuttlefish’
+
Sarcophagus from Greek for ‘flesh eating’
  
Seppuku formal name for Japanese ritual suicide
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Sardar a word of Indo-Iranian origin, was originally used to denote princes, noblemen, and other aristocrats
  
Septicemia blood poisoning. Means ‘rotton blood’
+
Sarong ‘covering’ (Malay). Malay national garment
  
Serpent – from Latin for ‘to creep’
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Sartorial of or relating to a tailor, tailoring, or tailored clothing: sartorial elegance, (from Late Latin sartor, ‘tailor’)
  
Shamen priest (Russian / Evenki)
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Sasha – Russian equivalent name for Alexander
  
Shampoo from Hindi word meaning ‘to squeeze or massage’
+
Sashimi means ‘pierced flesh’
  
Sharia means ‘the road to the watering hole’
+
Sativum, Sativus, and Sativa Latin botanical adjectives meaning ‘cultivated’, used to designate certain seed-grown domestic crops
  
Sharif Arabic for ‘noble’ or ‘highborn’
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Saudade a Portuguese word which describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves
  
Sheikh Arabic for ‘old man’
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Saute French for ‘jumped’
  
Shia ‘followers of Ali’
+
Savoir faire ‘know how to do’ (French). First recorded by Walter Scott in his 1815 novel ''Guy Mannering''. Shortened adjective is ‘savvy’
  
Shiatsu – from the Japanese for ‘finger pressure’
+
Scale (musical) from Italian scala meaning ‘staircase’
  
Shibboleth any distinguishing practice that is indicative of one's social or regional origin. From the Hebrew word which literally means the part of a plant containing grains
+
Scapegoat i.e. ‘escape-goat’, derives from the common English translation of the Hebrew term azazel
  
Shimbun Japanese for ‘newspaper’
+
Sceptic from Latin for ‘inquiring’
  
Shinto means ‘the way of the Gods’
+
Schadenfreude pleasure taken from another’s suffering (German)
  
Shih Tzu – from the Chinese word for ‘lion dog’
+
Schizophrenia – from Greek for ‘split mind’
  
Shish means ‘skewer’
+
Schlep Yiddish word meaning ‘drag, to carry with difficulty’
  
Shisha Arabic term for the water pipe, or hookah
+
Schloss German name for ‘castle’
  
Shoah Hebrew word for ‘holocaust’
+
Schmaltz ‘rendered fat’ (Yiddish)
  
Shogun Japanese for a ‘general’
+
Schmooze ‘converse casually’ (Yiddish)
  
Shrine Latin for ‘case or chest for books or papers’
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Schmuck ‘penis’ (Yiddish)
  
Siberia – means ‘sleeping land’ in Turkic
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School – means ‘leisure’
  
Sibyl – from the Greek for ‘prophetess’
+
Science – from the Latin scientia, meaning ‘knowledge’
  
Sic thus, in such a way (Latin). Used in publishing to indicate a misspelling or unconventional use of a word
+
Scirocco from Arabic for ‘eastern’
  
Sichuan – means ‘four circuits of rivers’
+
Sclerosis – means ‘hardening’
  
Sic transit gloria mundi Latin phrase that means ‘Thus passes the glory of the world’
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Scree from the Norse for ‘landslide’
  
Sideros Greek for ‘iron’
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Sculpture from Latin for ‘to carve’
  
Sierra Leone means ‘Lion Mountain’
+
Scutum Latin word for ‘shield’, although it has in modern times come to be associated with the rectangular, semi-cylindrical body shield carried by ancient Roman Legionnaires
  
Silhouette derives from the name of Étienne de Silhouette, a French finance minister who became synonymous with anything made cheaply and so with these outline portraits
+
Seance – from French for ‘to sit’
  
Simba Swahili for ‘lion’
+
Seersucker a thin, all-cotton fabric, commonly striped or checkered, used to make clothing for spring and summer wear. The word came into English from Hindustani (Urdu and Hindi), which originates from the Persian words for ‘milk and sugar’
  
Sinecure (from Latin sine ‘without’ and cura ‘care’) means an office that requires or involves little or no responsibility, labour, or active service
+
Seig Heil German for ‘hail victory’
  
Sinead equivalent of Janet
+
Seine from Celtic for ‘sacred river’
  
Sine die Latin for ‘without day’. To adjourn an assembly sine die is to adjourn it for an indefinite period
+
Semper fidelis means ‘always faithful’
  
Sine qua non ‘without which nothing’. An essential requirement. First used by Aristotle to describe a legal condition that could not be done without
+
Seoul means ‘capital city’
  
Sinn Fein ‘ourselves alone’
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Sepia Greek for ‘cuttlefish’
  
Sirius from Greek for ‘scorching’
+
Seppuku formal name for Japanese ritual suicide
  
Skol ‘cheers’. Danish skaal ‘bowl’, from Old Norse skal
+
Septicemia blood poisoning. Means ‘rotton blood’
  
Slalom means ‘sloping track’
+
Serpent from Latin for ‘to creep’
  
Slapstick –from the Italian word batacchio or bataccio called the "slap stick" in English – a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in commedia dell'arte
+
Shamen priest (Russian / Evenki)
  
Smorgasbord Swedish word: from smörgås ‘open sandwich’ and bord ‘table’
+
Shampoo from Hindi word meaning ‘to squeeze or massage’
  
Snob old word for ‘cobbler’
+
Sharia means ‘the road to the watering hole’
  
Soccer derived from the word ‘association’
+
Sharif Arabic for ‘noble’ or ‘highborn’
  
Solstice means ‘sun stands still’
+
Sheikh Arabic for ‘old man’
  
Sombrero from Spanish for ‘shade’
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Shia ‘followers of Ali’
  
Somme – from Celtic word for ‘tranquility’
+
Shiatsu – from the Japanese for ‘finger pressure’
  
Sophist from Greek for ‘wise’ or ‘wisdom’
+
Shibboleth any distinguishing practice that is indicative of one's social or regional origin. From the Hebrew word which literally means the part of a plant containing grains
  
Sophomore US student in second year. Greek for ‘wise’ and ‘foolish’
+
Shimbun Japanese for ‘newspaper’
  
Souffle French for ‘blow up’ or ‘puff up’
+
Shinto means ‘the way of the Gods’
  
Spaghetti ‘thin strings’
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Shih Tzu from the Chinese word for ‘lion dog’
  
Spago Italian word for ‘string’
+
Shish means ‘skewer’
  
Specchio Italian for ‘mirror’
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Shisha Arabic term for the water pipe, or hookah
  
Spiel a play or game (German)
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Shoah Hebrew word for ‘holocaust’
  
Sphinx Arabic name Abu al-Hol, means ‘father of terror’
+
Shogun Japanese for a ‘general’
  
Spiegel German for ‘mirror’
+
Shrine Latin for ‘case or chest for books or papers’
  
Sputnik – means ‘fellow traveler’
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Siberia – means ‘sleeping land’ in Turkic
  
Sotto voce means ‘speaking quietly’
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Sibyl from the Greek for ‘prophetess’
  
Soubriquet from ‘tap under the chin’
+
Sic thus, in such a way (Latin). Used in publishing to indicate a misspelling or unconventional use of a word
  
Sour grapes from the fable ''The Fox and the Grapes'' by Aesop
+
Sichuan means ‘four circuits of rivers’
  
Spiritus mundi – soul, spirit of the world (Latin). Coined by astrologer Agrippa von Nettseheim, who used it as a label for the spirit element that he believed permeated the whole world
+
Sic transit gloria mundi – Latin phrase that means ‘Thus passes the glory of the world’
  
Spruce from Old French Pruce, the name of Prussia
+
Sideros Greek for ‘iron’
  
Squirrel from Greek for ‘shade tail’
+
Sierra Leone means ‘Lion Mountain’
  
Sri Lanka means ‘resplendent Island’
+
Silhouette derives from the name of Étienne de Silhouette, a French finance minister who became synonymous with anything made cheaply and so with these outline portraits
  
SsangYong means ‘double dragons’
+
Simba Swahili for ‘lion’
  
Stabat mater – means ‘the mother was standing’
+
Sinecure (from Latin sine ‘without’ and cura ‘care’) means an office that requires or involves little or no responsibility, labour, or active service
  
Stadium from the Greek ‘stade’, a unit of length equal to about 607 feet
+
Sinead equivalent of Janet
  
Stalag Luft Stammlager Luft, or Permanent Camp for Airmen
+
Sine die Latin for ‘without day’. To adjourn an assembly sine die is to adjourn it for an indefinite period
  
Stanza Italian for ‘stopping point’
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Sine qua non ‘without which nothing’. An essential requirement. First used by Aristotle to describe a legal condition that could not be done without
  
Status Quo means ‘the current state of affairs’. Shortened from ‘status quo ante bellum’, meaning ‘the state in which things were before the war’
+
Sinn Fein ‘ourselves alone’
  
Stegosaurus means ‘roof lizard’
+
Sirius from Greek for ‘scorching’
  
Stephen – from Greek for ‘crown’
+
Skol ‘cheers’. Danish skaal ‘bowl’, from Old Norse skal
  
Stet ‘let it stand’
+
Slalom means ‘sloping track’
  
Stiletto named after a dagger
+
Slapstick –from the Italian word batacchio or bataccio – called the "slap stick" in English – a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in commedia dell'arte
  
Stoichiometry – from Greek for ‘element’ and ‘measure’
+
Smorgasbord Swedish word: from smörgås ‘open sandwich’ and bord ‘table’
  
Strandkorb German, ‘beach basket’) is a special chair designed to provide comfort and protection from sun, wind, rain, and sand on beaches
+
Snob old word for ‘cobbler’
  
Strategy – from Greek word meaning ‘generalship’
+
Soccer derived from the word ‘association’
  
Strath – means valley, e.g. Strathclyde
+
Solstice – means ‘sun stands still’
  
Stratosphere – from the Latin stratus, meaning 'a spreading out' and sphaira meaning 'ball'
+
Sombrero – from Spanish for ‘shade’
  
Strudel German word for ‘whirlpool’
+
Somme from Celtic word for ‘tranquility’
  
Sub judice Latin for ‘under judgment’
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Sophist from Greek for ‘wise’ or ‘wisdom’
  
Subpoena means ‘under penalty’. A witness summons
+
Sophomore US student in second year. Greek for ‘wise’ and ‘foolish’
  
Sub rosa literally ‘under the rose’, meaning ‘in secret’, from the Roman habit of hanging a rose over a council table to indicate that all present were sworn to secrecy
+
Souffle French for ‘blow up’ or ‘puff up’
  
Sudoku means ‘single number’
+
Spaghetti ‘thin strings’
  
Suede leather from Scandinavian name for Sweden
+
Spago Italian word for ‘string’
  
Sultan from Arabic for ‘strength’ and ‘authority’
+
Specchio Italian for ‘mirror’
  
Summa cum laude Latin for ‘with highest honour’
+
Spiel a play or game (German)
  
Suo jure – means ‘in her own right’
+
Sphinx Arabic name Abu al-Hol, means ‘father of terror’
  
Supercilious from Latin for ‘eyebrow’
+
Spiegel German for ‘mirror’
  
Sushi Japanese for ‘it is sour’
+
Sputnik means ‘fellow traveler’
  
Sussex from Old English for ‘South Saxons’
+
Sotto voce means ‘speaking quietly’
  
Sybarite synonymous with pleasure and luxury. From the Greek town Sybaris in Italy
+
Soubriquet from ‘tap under the chin’
  
Sycophant – from Ancient Greek for ‘fig shower’. The gesture of ‘showing the fig’ was a vulgar one
+
Sour grapes – from the fable ''The Fox and the Grapes'' by Aesop
  
Synagogue means ‘meeting and bring together’ or ‘assembly’
+
Spiritus mundi soul, spirit of the world (Latin). Coined by astrologer Agrippa von Nettseheim, who used it as a label for the spirit element that he believed permeated the whole world
  
Syrinx Greek for ‘pan pipes’
+
Spruce from Old French Pruce, the name of Prussia
  
Tabby comes from French tabis, and in Medieval Latin attabi. The initial origin of the word seems to be from the Attabiyah section of Baghdad where a type of striped silk was made that was later used to describe cats
+
Squirrel – from Greek for ‘shade tail’
  
Table d’hote French for ‘the host’s table‘
+
Sri Lanka means ‘resplendent Island’
  
Taboo from the Tongan for ‘unclean’
+
SsangYong means ‘double dragons’
  
Tabula Rasa Latin for ‘blank slate’
+
Stabat mater means ‘the mother was standing’
  
Tabularium Latin name for a public records office or registry
+
Stadium from the Greek ‘stade’, a unit of length equal to about 607 feet
  
Tacitus means ‘silent’
+
Stalag Luft Stammlager Luft, or Permanent Camp for Airmen
  
Taco from Mexican for ‘plug’
+
Stanza Italian for ‘stopping point’
  
Tactics – from Greek for ‘fit for arranging’
+
Status Quo means ‘the current state of affairs’. Shortened from ‘status quo ante bellum’, meaning ‘the state in which things were before the war’
  
Taekwondo ‘the way of the foot and fist’ or ‘the way of kicking and punching’
+
Stegosaurus means ‘roof lizard’
  
Taffeta Persian for ‘twisted woven’
+
Stephen from Greek for ‘crown’
  
Taikonaut astronaut from China. Named after taikong, the Chinese word for ‘space’
+
Stet ‘let it stand’
  
Taliban means ‘student’
+
Stiletto named after a dagger
  
Tambour French for ‘drum’
+
Stoichiometry from Greek for ‘element’ and ‘measure’
  
Tansy Greek for ‘immortality’. Type of herb
+
Strandkorb German, ‘beach basket’) is a special chair designed to provide comfort and protection from sun, wind, rain, and sand on beaches
  
Tapas derived from the Spanish verb tapar, ‘to cover’
+
Strategy – from Greek word meaning ‘generalship’
  
Tarantula named after a town in Italy (Taranto)
+
Strath means valley, e.g. Strathclyde
  
Tashkent means ‘stone city’
+
Stratosphere from the Latin stratus, meaning 'a spreading out' and sphaira meaning 'ball'
  
Tattoo Polynesian word
+
Strudel German word for ‘whirlpool’
  
Taupe a dark grayish brown or brownish gray. It takes its name from the French word for ‘mole’
+
Sub judice Latin for ‘under judgment’
  
Tawdry from an annual fare held in the name of St. Awdrey, in Ely
+
Subpoena means ‘under penalty’. A witness summons
  
Tele prefix meaning ‘distant’
+
Sub rosa literally ‘under the rose’, meaning ‘in secret’, from the Roman habit of hanging a rose over a council table to indicate that all present were sworn to secrecy
  
Telematics a portmanteau of the words ‘telecommunications’ and ‘informatics’. Used in vehicle tracking
+
Sudoku means ‘single number’
  
Telephone Greek for ‘far voice’ or ‘distant sound’
+
Suede leather from Scandinavian name for Sweden
  
Television ‘far seeing’
+
Sultan from Arabic for ‘strength’ and ‘authority’
  
Temet nosce ‘know thyself’ (Latin). You must first understand yourself before you can understand others. Inscribed at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Used by the character of the Oracle in ''The Matrix''
+
Summa cum laude – Latin for ‘with highest honour’
  
Tempo Italian for ‘time’
+
Suo jure means ‘in her own right’
  
Tempus maximus frequentio means ‘rush hour’
+
Supercilious from Latin for ‘eyebrow’
  
Tenor from Latin tenere, ‘to hold’. Tenor was the ‘holding’ voice
+
Sushi Japanese for ‘it is sour’
  
Terra Latin for ‘the Earth’
+
Sussex from Old English for ‘South Saxons’
  
Terra firma ‘solid ground’. Part of Italy governed by Venice
+
Sybarite synonymous with pleasure and luxury. From the Greek town Sybaris in Italy
  
Tetragrammaton – from Greek meaning ‘[a word] having four letters’ refers to the name of the God of Israel YHWH used in the Hebrew Bible
+
Sycophant – from Ancient Greek for ‘fig shower’. The gesture of ‘showing the fig’ was a vulgar one
  
Theosophy a ‘body of truth’ that forms the basis of all religions
+
Synagogue means ‘meeting and bring together’ or ‘assembly’
  
Thesaurus means ‘store house’
+
Syrinx – Greek for ‘pan pipes’
  
Thug thief (Hindi)
+
Tabby comes from French tabis, and in Medieval Latin attabi. The initial origin of the word seems to be from the Attabiyah section of Baghdad where a type of striped silk was made that was later used to describe cats
  
Thyroid from Greek for ‘shield’
+
Table d’hote French for ‘the host’s table‘
  
Tia Spanish for ‘aunt’
+
Taboo from the Tongan for ‘unclean’
  
Tian Shan Chinese for ‘celestial mountains’
+
Tabula Rasa Latin for ‘blank slate’
  
Teide on Tenerife, means ‘white mountain’
+
Tabularium Latin name for a public records office or registry
  
Tika or tilak or tilaka, religious symbol worn on forehead by Hindu men and women, means ‘third eye’
+
Tacitus – means ‘silent’
  
Tiramisu Italian for ‘pick me up’
+
Taco from Mexican for ‘plug’
  
Toccata – from Italian toccare, ‘to touch’
+
Tactics – from Greek for ‘fit for arranging’
  
Tofu Japanese for ‘rotten beans’
+
Taekwondo ‘the way of the foot and fist’ or ‘the way of kicking and punching’
  
Tokamak transliteration of a Russian word. Acronym of toroidal chamber with magnetic coils
+
Taffeta Persian for ‘twisted woven’
  
Tokyo means ‘eastern capital’
+
Taikonaut astronaut from China. Named after taikong, the Chinese word for ‘space’
  
Tom Foolery named after Tom the Fool from Muncaster Castle
+
Taliban means ‘student’
  
Tomography derived from the Greek tomos (slice) and graphein (to write)
+
Tambour French for ‘drum’
  
Topolino Micky Mouse, in Italy
+
Tansy Greek for ‘immortality’. Type of herb
  
Tora bora means ‘black cellar’
+
Tapas derived from the Spanish verb tapar, ‘to cover’
  
Torc also spelled torq or torque, is a rigid circular neck ring or necklace that is open-ended at the front. The word comes from Latin torques, from torqueo, ‘to twist’, because of the twisted shape of the collar
+
Tarantula named after a town in Italy (Taranto)
  
Torpedo comes from a genus of electric rays in the order Torpediniformes, which in turn comes from the Latin torpere (to be ‘stiff’ or ‘numb’)
+
Tashkent means ‘stone city’
  
Tort French for ‘wrong’, a civil wrong
+
Tattoo Polynesian word
  
Tortellini Italian for ‘little cake’
+
Taupe a dark grayish brown or brownish gray. It takes its name from the French word for ‘mole’
  
Tortilla – from Spanish for ‘little cake’
+
Tawdry – from an annual fare held in the name of St. Awdrey, in Ely
  
Tour de force ‘feat of strength’ (French)
+
Tele prefix meaning ‘distant’
  
Tout de suite ‘at once’ (French)
+
Telematics a portmanteau of the words ‘telecommunications’ and ‘informatics’. Used in vehicle tracking
  
Trampoline from the Spanish trampolín, meaning ‘a diving board’
+
Telephone Greek for ‘far voice’ or ‘distant sound’
  
Trattoria from French traiter, meaning ‘to treat’
+
Television ‘far seeing’
  
Trek ‘long journey’ (Arrikaans)
+
Temet nosce ‘know thyself’ (Latin). You must first understand yourself before you can understand others. Inscribed at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Used by the character of the Oracle in ''The Matrix''
  
Trivia from the Latin for ‘crossroads’
+
Tempo Italian for ‘time’
  
Trombone French for ‘paper clip’
+
Tempus maximus frequentio means ‘rush hour’
  
Troposphere – from the Greek: tropos for ‘turning’ or ‘mixing’
+
Tenor – from Latin tenere, ‘to hold’. Tenor was the ‘holding’ voice
  
Tsar ‘emperor’ (Russian)
+
Terra Latin for ‘the Earth’
  
Tsunami means ‘harbour wave’
+
Terra firma ‘solid ground’. Part of Italy governed by Venice
  
Tulip – from Turkish for ‘turban’
+
Tetragrammaton – from Greek meaning ‘[a word] having four letters’ refers to the name of the God of Israel YHWH used in the Hebrew Bible
  
Tundra from Russian for ‘treeless mountains’
+
Theosophy a ‘body of truth’ that forms the basis of all religions
  
Tungsten – Swedish for ‘heavy stone’
+
Thesaurus means ‘store house’
  
Tutankhamun means ‘Living Image of Amun’
+
Thug thief (Hindi)
  
Tutankhaten means ‘Living Image of Aten’
+
Thyroid from Greek for ‘shield’
  
Tutu from French for ‘buttocks’
+
Tia Spanish for ‘aunt’
  
Tycoon derived from the Japanese word taikun, ''taikun'', which means ‘great lord’, and was used as a title for the shogun. Brought to the west by Matthew Perry in 1854
+
Tian Shan Chinese for ‘celestial mountains’
  
Tyrannosaurus Rex – means ‘tyrant lizard king’
+
Teide on Tenerife, means ‘white mountain’
  
U and non-U – U means ‘upper’
+
Tika – or tilak or tilaka, religious symbol worn on forehead by Hindu men and women, means ‘third eye’
  
Ubermensch ‘superman’ (German). First used by Nietzsche in ''Thus Spake Zarathrustra''
+
Tiramisu Italian for ‘pick me up’
  
Uhuru Swahili for ‘freedom’
+
Toccata from Italian toccare, ‘to touch’
  
Ukulele from Hawaiian for ‘jumping flea’
+
Tofu Japanese for ‘rotten beans’
  
Ulan Bator means ‘red hero’
+
Tokamak transliteration of a Russian word. Acronym of toroidal chamber with magnetic coils
  
Uluru – means ‘great pebble’
+
Tokyo – means ‘eastern capital’
  
Urbi et Orbi ‘to the City [of Rome] and to the World’
+
Tom Foolery named after Tom the Fool from Muncaster Castle
  
Ushanka Russian for ‘ear hat’
+
Tomography derived from the Greek tomos (slice) and graphein (to write)
  
Utopia Greek for ‘no place’
+
Topolino Micky Mouse, in Italy
  
V1 / V2 bombs V stood for Vengeance
+
Tora bora means ‘black cellar’
  
Vade mecum ‘go with me’ (Latin). A manual carried by physicians, astrologers or parsons filled with references and calculation aids
+
Torc also spelled torq or torque, is a rigid circular neck ring or necklace that is open-ended at the front. The word comes from Latin torques, from torqueo, ‘to twist’, because of the twisted shape of the collar
  
Vampire ‘a nocturnal reanimated corpse’
+
Torpedo comes from a genus of electric rays in the order Torpediniformes, which in turn comes from the Latin torpere (to be ‘stiff’ or ‘numb’)
  
Vanilla Spanish for ‘little pod’
+
Tort French for ‘wrong’, a civil wrong
  
Varsovian of or pertaining to Warsaw or its inhabitants
+
Tortellini Italian for ‘little cake’
  
Velcro a portmanteau of the two French words velours (‘velvet’), and crochet (‘hook’)
+
Tortilla from Spanish for ‘little cake’
  
Veld from the Afrikaans word for 'field'
+
Tour de force ‘feat of strength’ (French)
  
Velociraptor means ‘speedy thief’
+
Tout de suite ‘at once’ (French)
  
Vendetta blood feud. – Italian for ‘revenge’
+
Trampoline from the Spanish trampolín, meaning ‘a diving board’
  
Venezuela means ‘little Venice’. Named by Christopher Columbus
+
Trattoria from French traiter, meaning ‘to treat’
  
Veni, vidi, vici ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’ is a Latin sentence written by Julius Caesar in 47 BC as a comment on the war with Pharnaces II of Pontus in the city of Zela
+
Trek ‘long journey’ (Arrikaans)
  
Ventriloquism – from Latin for ‘belly’ and ‘speaking’
+
Trivia – from the Latin for ‘crossroads’
  
Verbatim ‘word for word’ (Latin). The full phrase ‘verbatim et literatim’ means ‘word for word and letter for letter’
+
Trombone French for ‘paper clip’
  
Verboten ‘forbidden’ (German)
+
Troposphere from the Greek: tropos for ‘turning’ or ‘mixing’
  
Verbum satis sapienti –‘ a word is enough for the wise’ (Latin). Means ‘enough said’
+
Tsar – ‘emperor’ (Russian)
  
Vertere – means ‘to turn’, as in vertigo, advertisement (turn towards)
+
Tsunami – means ‘harbour wave’
  
Veto – from Latin for ‘I forbid’
+
Tulip – from Turkish for ‘turban’
  
Vetus Testamentum Latin phrase for the Old Testament
+
Tundra from Russian for ‘treeless mountains’
  
Vice versa ‘the other way round’
+
Tungsten Swedish for ‘heavy stone’
  
Videlicet (Viz) ‘namely’. Term used in a text to advise the reader that what follows provides more detail about the preceding statement
+
Tutankhamun means ‘Living Image of Amun’
  
Vignette from the same root as vine, originally referred to a decorative border in a book
+
Tutankhaten means ‘Living Image of Aten’
  
Viking means ‘pirate’ or ‘expedition’
+
Tutu from French for ‘buttocks’
  
Vinculum Latin for ‘bond’, ‘fetter’, ‘chain’, or ‘tie’
+
Tycoon derived from the Japanese word taikun, ''taikun'', which means ‘great lord’, and was used as a title for the shogun. Brought to the west by Matthew Perry in 1854
  
Vindaloo from Portuguese for ‘wine’ and ‘garlic’
+
Tyrannosaurus Rex means ‘tyrant lizard king’
  
Vinegar French for ‘sour wine’
+
U and non-U U means ‘upper’
  
Vinland has been interpreted in two ways: traditionally as Vínland (‘wine-land’) and more recently as Vinland (‘meadow- or pasture-land’)
+
Ubermensch ‘superman’ (German). First used by Nietzsche in ''Thus Spake Zarathrustra''
  
Virus from Latin for ‘poison’
+
Uhuru Swahili for ‘freedom’
  
Vis-a-vis ‘face to face’ (French). Means ‘regarding’
+
Ukulele from Hawaiian for ‘jumping flea’
  
Viva voce oral exam in university. Latin for ‘live voice’
+
Ulan Bator means ‘red hero’
  
Vladivostok means ‘ruler of the east’
+
Uluru – means ‘great pebble’
  
Vodka means ‘little water’
+
Urbi et Orbi – ‘to the City [of Rome] and to the World’
  
Voila ‘see there’ (French)
+
Ushanka Russian for ‘ear hat’
  
Voile French for ‘veil’
+
Utopia Greek for ‘no place’
  
Vol au Vent French for ‘flight in the wind’
+
V1 / V2 bombs V stood for Vengeance
  
Volvo – Latin for ‘I roll’
+
Vade mecum ‘go with me’ (Latin). A manual carried by physicians, astrologers or parsons filled with references and calculation aids
  
Von German prefix meaning ‘nobleman’
+
Vampire ‘a nocturnal reanimated corpse’
  
Vox populi ‘voice of the people’ (Latin). Reduced version of ‘vox poluli, vox dei’, meaning ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God’
+
Vanilla Spanish for ‘little pod’
  
Wagga Wagga means ‘place of many crows’
+
Varsovian – of or pertaining to Warsaw or its inhabitants
  
Walnut means ‘foreign nut’
+
Velcro a portmanteau of the two French words velours (‘velvet’), and crochet (‘hook’)
  
Waltz German word for ‘revolve’
+
Veld from the Afrikaans word for 'field'
  
Weald Old English for ‘forest’
+
Velociraptor means ‘speedy thief’
  
Weimaraner named after a town in Germany (Weimar)
+
Vendetta blood feud. – Italian for ‘revenge’
  
Wich and wych are names used to denote brine springs or wells
+
Venezuela – means ‘little Venice’. Named by Christopher Columbus
  
Worsted name derives from the village of Worstead in the county of Norfolk
+
Veni, vidi, vici ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’ is a Latin sentence written by Julius Caesar in 47 BC as a comment on the war with Pharnaces II of Pontus in the city of Zela
  
Wrasse via Cornish from the Welsh word gwrach meaning an ‘old woman’ or ‘hag’
+
Ventriloquism – from Latin for ‘belly’ and ‘speaking’
  
Wunderkind ‘wonder child’ (German)
+
Verbatim ‘word for word’ (Latin). The full phrase ‘verbatim et literatim’ means ‘word for word and letter for letter’
  
Wyvern from Latin for ‘viper’
+
Verboten ‘forbidden’ (German)
  
Xenophobia – Greek for ‘stranger fear’
+
Verbum satis sapienti –‘ a word is enough for the wise’ (Latin). Means ‘enough said’
  
Xyl- and Xylo- objects derived from wood
+
Vertere means ‘to turn’, as in vertigo, advertisement (turn towards)
  
Yacht – from Dutch for ‘hunt’ or ‘chase’
+
Veto – from Latin for ‘I forbid’
  
Yardang Turkish origin, meaning ‘steep bank’
+
Vetus Testamentum Latin phrase for the Old Testament
  
Yin and Yang balance of opposites (Chinese). Yin denotes negative, dark, calm and feminine qualities. Yang denotes positive, bright, fiery and masculine qualities
+
Vice versa ‘the other way round’
  
Yogurt Turkish word
+
Videlicet (Viz) ‘namely’. Term used in a text to advise the reader that what follows provides more detail about the preceding statement
  
Yokozuna means ‘horizontal rope’
+
Vignette from the same root as vine, originally referred to a decorative border in a book
  
Yoyo – means ‘return’ in Filipino
+
Viking – means ‘pirate’ or ‘expedition’
  
Yukon means ‘great river’
+
Vinculum Latin for ‘bond’, ‘fetter’, ‘chain’, or ‘tie’
  
Yugo (as in Yugoslavia) means ‘south’
+
Vindaloo from Portuguese for ‘wine’ and ‘garlic’
  
Zany from Italian zanni'','' a traditional masked clown
+
Vinegar French for ‘sour wine’
  
Zapata Spanish for ‘shoe’
+
Vinland has been interpreted in two ways: traditionally as Vínland (‘wine-land’) and more recently as Vinland (‘meadow- or pasture-land’)
  
Zeitgeist ‘spirit of the age’
+
Virus from Latin for ‘poison’
  
Zodiac means ‘circle of animals’
+
Vis-a-vis – ‘face to face’ (French). Means ‘regarding’
  
Zoe means ‘life’ in Greek
+
Viva voce oral exam in university. Latin for ‘live voice’
  
Zoo – from Greek zoion meaning ‘animal’
+
Vladivostok means ‘ruler of the east’
  
Zorro – means ‘fox’ in Spanish
+
Vodka means ‘little water’
  
 +
Voila – ‘see there’ (French)
  
Grammar
+
Voile – French for ‘veil’
  
Conjunction a word or group of words that joins together words, groups, or clauses; e.g. and, because, but
+
Vol au Vent French for ‘flight in the wind’
  
Types of verb indicative, interrogative, subjunctive and imperative
+
Volvo Latin for ‘I roll’
  
A transitive verb a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects
+
Von German prefix meaning ‘nobleman’
  
Intransitive verb a verb that has a subject but not an object, e.g. die, complain
+
Vox populi ‘voice of the people’ (Latin). Reduced version of ‘vox poluli, vox dei’, meaning ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God’
  
Types of noun – collective, proper and common
+
Wagga Wagga means ‘place of many crows’
  
Proper noun a noun that in its primary application refers to a unique entity, such as London, as distinguished from a common noun, which usually refers to a class of entities (cities)
+
Walnut means ‘foreign nut’
  
Abstract nouns concepts, e.g. peace, truth and joy
+
Waltz German word for ‘revolve’
  
Conditional clauses introduced by ‘if’ or ‘unless’
+
Weald Old English for ‘forest’
  
Adjective – a describing word
+
Weimaraner named after a town in Germany (Weimar)
  
Adverb – a describing word for anything other than a noun
+
Wich and wych are names used to denote brine springs or wells
  
Pronoun a word that stands in place of a noun
+
Worsted name derives from the village of Worstead in the county of Norfolk
  
Preposition a word placed in front of a noun or pronoun to show its relationship to another part of the sentence, e.g. at, in, on. For example, in the sentence ‘The cat sleeps on the sofa’, the word ‘on’ is a preposition
+
Wrasse via Cornish from the Welsh word gwrach meaning an ‘old woman’ or ‘hag’
  
Interjection a word that expresses emotion, e.g. alas!
+
Wunderkind ‘wonder child’ (German)
  
Himself reflexive form of ‘him’
+
Wyvern from Latin for ‘viper’
  
Infinitives to ‘go’, to ‘do’
+
Xenophobia Greek for ‘stranger fear’
  
The definite article
+
Xyl- and Xylo- objects derived from wood
  
A, an indefinite articles
+
Yacht from Dutch for ‘hunt’ or ‘chase’
  
Phrase a group of words that does not contain a verb
+
Yardang Turkish origin, meaning ‘steep bank’
  
Myself reflexive personal pronoun of ‘me’
+
Yin and Yang balance of opposites (Chinese). Yin denotes negative, dark, calm and feminine qualities. Yang denotes positive, bright, fiery and masculine qualities
  
Comma most used punctuation mark
+
Yogurt Turkish word
  
The plural is sometimes formed by simply changing the vowel sound of the singular, in a process called umlaut (these are sometimes called mutated plurals) e.g. geese, men, women, feet
+
Yokozuna means ‘horizontal rope’
  
Irregular plural has an unusual ending added, e.g. wives, potatoes, cacti
+
Yoyo means ‘return’ in Filipino
  
Reduplicated words the stem of a word, or only part of it, are repeated e.g. chit-chat, hanky-panky, mumbo-jumbo
+
Yukon means ‘great river’
  
Pluperfect tense also called past perfect in English, is used to refer to an event that has completed before another past action
+
Yugo (as in Yugoslavia) means ‘south’
  
Metanalysis the act of breaking down a word or phrase into segments or meanings not original to it
+
Zany from Italian zanni'','' a traditional masked clown
  
Eye rhyme a rhyme consisting of words, such as champagne and lasagne, with same ending but different sounds
+
Zapata Spanish for ‘shoe’
  
Cognate anagrams a rearrangement of letters, where the original word or phrase is related in meaning to the anagram, e.g. ‘unto a star’ and ‘astronaut’
+
Zeitgeist ‘spirit of the age’
  
A dependent clause (sometimes called a subordinate clause) is a clause that augments an independent clause with additional information, but which cannot stand alone as a sentence
+
Zodiac means ‘circle of animals’
  
Cognates are words that have a common etymological origin
+
Zoe – means ‘life’ in Greek
  
Auxiliary verb a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it appears
+
Zoo from Greek zoion meaning ‘animal’
  
Participle a form of a verb that is used in a sentence to modify a noun, noun phrase, verb or verb phrase
+
Zorro means ‘fox’ in Spanish
 
 
Subject–verb–object (SVO) is a sentence structure where the subject comes first, the verb second, and the object third. Languages may be classified according to the dominant sequence of these elements
 
 
 
Fricatives – a type of consonant
 
 
 
Voiceless dental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some oral languages. It is familiar to English speakers as the 'th' in thing
 

Latest revision as of 17:56, 23 November 2022

World languages

A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical (or ‘genetic’) relationship with other living languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common to any other language, e.g. Basque, Korean

Mapuche is a language isolate spoken in south-central Chile by the Mapuche people

An agglutinative language is a language that uses agglutination extensively: most words are formed by joining morphemes together

Interlingua is an international auxiliary language (IAL), developed between 1937 and 1951. It ranks among the top three most widely used IALs (after Esperanto and Ido)

Esperanto was invented in 1887 by Polish ophthalmologist Dr. Zamenhof

Toki Pona is a constructed language, first published online in 2001. It was designed by translator and linguist Sonja Elen Kisa

Linguistic diversity index (LDI) is an index to measure how diverse a country’s languages are. It is on a scale of 1 to 0 with 1 indicating total diversity (that is, no two people have the same mother tongue. Papua New Guinea has the highest LDI (0.99)

ISO 639 – codes for the representation of the names of languages

Basic English is an English-based controlled language created by linguist and philosopher Charles Kay Ogden as an international auxiliary language, and as an aid for teaching English as a second language

Globish – subset of the English language created by Jean-Paul Nerrierre, consisting of c. 1500 words

A sprachbund is a geographic area having several languages that feature common linguistic structures

Languages with more than 100 million native speakers – Mandarin Chinese, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi/Urdu, Arabic, Bengali, Russian, Japanese

Major language families, in terms of numbers of native speakers as a proportion of world population –

1.    Indo-European languages 45%

2.    Sino-Tibetan languages 22%

3.    Niger–Congo languages 6.4%

4.    Afroasiatic languages 6.0%

5.    Austronesian languages 5.9%

6.    Dravidian languages 3.7%

7.    Altaic languages 2.3%

8.    Japonic languages 2.1%

9.    Austroasiatic languages 1.7%

10. Tai–Kadai languages 1.3%

East Germanic languages – group of extinct Indo-European languages in the Germanic family. The only East Germanic language of which texts are known is Gothic; other languages that are assumed to be East Germanic include Vandalic, Burgundian, and Crimean Gothic

West Germanic languages – the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of languages and include languages such as English, Dutch and Afrikaans, German, the Frisian languages, and Yiddish

North Germanic languages – also known as Scandinavian or Nordic languages

Norn – North Germanic language previously spoken in Orkney and Shetland

Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India. The most widely spoken Dravidian languages are Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu

Telugu is a Dravidian language primarily spoken in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where it is the official language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamils in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore and smaller communities of speakers in many other countries. It is the official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu

Kannada is one of the major Dravidian languages of India, spoken predominantly in the state of Karnatak

Celtic family is divided into Goidelic (including Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx) and Brythonic, including Welsh, Breton, and Cornish)

Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the linguistic reconstruction of a common ancestor of the Indo-European languages spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The Proto-Indo-Europeans likely lived during the late Neolithic

Semitic – a language group in the Afroasiatic language family that includes Hebrew and Arabic

Amharic is a Semitic language spoken in North Central Ethiopia by the Amhara. It is the second most-spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic

The earliest attested Semitic language, Akkadain used the cuneiform writing system, which was originally used to write ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate

Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people

Tagalog is an Austronesian language and is the largest of the Philippine languages in terms of the number of speakers. Filipino is the standardized version of Tagalog

Tetum is an Austronesian language, a national language and one of the two official languages of East Timor. In East Timor Portuguese is also a main language spoken

Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are 90 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi is the 4th most spoken language in India

Vasconic languages are a hypothetical language family that was once widespread on the European continent before it was mostly replaced by Indo-European languages. Relicts of the Vasconic languages include the Basque language

Altaic is a proposed, but widely discredited, language family of central Eurasia. Various versions include the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Koreanic, and Japonic languages

Tatar – a Turkik language

Tai-Kadai languages include Thai and Lao, the national languages of Thailand and Laos

The most widely spoken Niger–Congo languages by number of native speakers are Yoruba, Igbo, Fula, Shona and Zulu. The most widely spoken by total number of speakers is Swahili

Uralic languages are a family of 38 languages. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian

Tanzania has the most Swahili speakers

Igbo is a native language of the Igbo people, an ethnic group primarily located in southeastern Nigeria

English is official language of Nigeria

Shona – a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia

Latvian – also known as Lettish

Sami – Norwegian language

Bokmal and Nynorsk – written languages of Norway

Swedish is an official language of Finland

Romansh is one of the four national languages of Switzerland, along with German, Italian and French. It is a Romance language spoken primarily in Graubunden

Languedoc – Romance language

Occitan is a Romance language spoken in southern France, and parts of Italy and Spain

Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group

Euskara – spoken by Basques

Catalan is official language of Andorra

Attic Greek – the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens

Hittite is the earliest attested Indo-European language. It is the most copiously known of the subfamily of Anatolian languages

Sorbian languages are two closely related languages spoken by the Sorbs, a Slavic minority in the Lusatia region of eastern Germany. They are classified under the West Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages

Pahlavi denotes a particular and exclusively written form of various Middle Iranian languages

Dzongkha is the national language of the Kingdom of Bhutan

Sindhi is the language of the Sindh region of South Asia, which is now a province of Pakistan

Evenki is spoken by Evenks in Russia, Mongolia, and People's Republic of China

Yiddish – based on German

Tok Pisin is spoken in Papua New Guinea

Peru has most Quechua speakers

Nahuatl was the language of the Aztecs

Silbo Gomero is a whistled language spoken by inhabitants of La Gomera in the Canary Islands to communicate across the deep valleys that radiate through the island

800 languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea

Shem – language group including Arabic, Hebrew and Maltese

Ainu language is spoken by the Ainu ethnic group on the Japanese island of Hokkaido. It was once also spoken in the Kurile Islands and the southern half of Sakhalin

Guarani – Paraguay’s indigenous language

Bengali – language of Bangladesh

South Africa has 11 official languages

Afrikaans language – ‘Cape Dutch’

English is the official language of Sierra Leone

English is the national language of Namibia

Official languages of Singapore – English, Tamil, Malay and Mandarin Chinese

The standard language of Mongolia is based on the Khalkha dialect

Pashtu and Dari – Afghan official languages

Australian upspeak – statements have a rising intonation pattern in the final syllable or syllables of the utterance

Bactrian language – an extinct Eastern Iranian language which was spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria (present-day Afghanistan)

Lahnda or Western Punjabi Languages are Indo-Aryan languages that are spoken in South Asia

Creole language – a stable, full-fledged language that originated from a pidgin or combination of other languages

Bislama is a creole language, one of the official languages of Vanuatu

Ebonics (a blend of the words ebony and phonics) is a term that was originally intended to refer to the language of all people descended from enslaved Black Africans

Dayak – native people of Borneo. Dayak languages are categorised as part of the Austronesian languages in Asia

Tuareg are a Berber people. They are the principal inhabitants of the Saharan interior of North Africa. The Tuareg languages have an estimated 1.2 million speakers

Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population

Gurmukhi is the most common script used for writing the Punjabi language in India

Pinyin is the official phonetic system for transcribing the sound of Chinese characters into Latin script in China, Taiwan, and Singapore. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications

Portuguese is the sole official language of Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tome and Príncipe

Thembu are one of the handful of nations and population groups which speak Xhosa in South Africa. The most famous Thembu person was Nelson Mandela

Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent and Eastern Arabia

Nama (in older sources also called Namaqua) are an African ethnic group of South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. They traditionally speak the Nama language

Malay is the national language of Brunei, Malaysia, and Indonesia and it is one of four official languages of Singapore (with English, Mandarin, and Tamil)

Clicks – speech sounds that occur as consonants in many languages of southern Africa

Alphabets

Greek alphabet

Greek alphabet.png


Hebrew alphabet


Runic alphabets – a set of related alphabets using letters (known as runes) formerly used to write Germanic languages before and shortly after the Christianization of Scandinavia and the British Isles. The Scandinavian variants are also known as Futhark

Welsh alphabet has eight digraphs, and seven vowels

In the German alphabet, ß is a letter that originated as a ligature of ss or sz. Its German name is Eszett or scharfes

Hangul is the native alphabet of the Korean language

Old English Latin alphabet generally consisted of 24 letters, and was in use for writing Old English from the 9th to the 12th centuries. Of these, 20 were directly adopted letters of the Latin alphabet, two were modifications  of Latin letters, and two were developments from the runic alphabet

Since the 19th century, Devanagari has been the most commonly used script for writing Sanskrit. Devanagari is used to write Hindi

The Solomon Islands alphabet is the smallest alphabet, with only 11 letters. The Khmer alphabet in Cambodia is the largest, with 74 letters

Ogham – an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the Old Irish language, and occasionally the Brythonic language

Grammar

Conjunction – a word or group of words that joins together words, groups, or clauses; e.g. and, because, but

Types of verb – indicative, interrogative, subjunctive and imperative

A transitive verb – a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects

Intransitive verb – a verb that has a subject but not an object, e.g. die, complain

Types of noun – collective, proper and common

Proper noun – a noun that in its primary application refers to a unique entity, such as London, as distinguished from a common noun, which usually refers to a class of entities (cities)

Abstract nouns – concepts, e.g. peace, truth and joy

Conditional clauses – introduced by ‘if’ or ‘unless’

Adjective – a describing word

Adverb – a describing word for anything other than a noun

Pronoun – a word that stands in place of a noun

Preposition – a word placed in front of a noun or pronoun to show its relationship to another part of the sentence, e.g. at, in, on. For example, in the sentence ‘The cat sleeps on the sofa’, the word ‘on’ is a preposition

Interjection – a word that expresses emotion, e.g. alas!

Himself – reflexive form of ‘him’

Infinitives – to ‘go’, to ‘do’

The – definite article

A, an – indefinite articles

Phrase – a group of words that does not contain a verb

Myself – reflexive personal pronoun of ‘me’

Comma – most used punctuation mark

The plural is sometimes formed by simply changing the vowel sound of the singular, in a process called umlaut (these are sometimes called mutated plurals) – e.g. geese, men, women, feet

Irregular plural – has an unusual ending added, e.g. wives, potatoes, cacti

Reduplicated words – the stem of a word, or only part of it, are repeated e.g. chit-chat, hanky-panky, mumbo-jumbo

Pluperfect tense – also called past perfect in English, is used to refer to an event that has completed before another past action

Metanalysis – the act of breaking down a word or phrase into segments or meanings not original to it

Eye rhyme – a rhyme consisting of words, such as champagne and lasagne, with same ending but different sounds

Cognate anagrams – a rearrangement of letters, where the original word or phrase is related in meaning to the anagram, e.g. ‘unto a star’ and ‘astronaut’

A dependent clause (sometimes called a subordinate clause) is a clause that augments an independent clause with additional information, but which cannot stand alone as a sentence

Cognates are words that have a common etymological origin

Auxiliary verb – a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it appears

Participle – a form of a verb that is used in a sentence to modify a noun, noun phrase, verb or verb phrase

Subject–verb–object (SVO) is a sentence structure where the subject comes first, the verb second, and the object third. Languages may be classified according to the dominant sequence of these elements

Fricatives – a type of consonant

Voiceless dental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some oral languages. It is familiar to English speakers as the 'th' in thing

Words derived from foreign languages

Aardvark – Dutch for ‘earth pig’

Abacus – Latin word came from Greek abax, ‘board strewn with sand or dust used for drawing geometric figures or calculating’

Aber – means ‘mouth of a river’

Abigail – traditional term for a waiting-woman

Aborigine – means ‘from the beginning’

Absinthe – known as ‘the green fairy’

Ab urbe condita – ‘from the founding of the city’

Acephalous – means ‘headless’, whether literally or metaphorically

Acid – from Latin for ‘sour’

Acoustics – from Greek for ‘to hear’

Ad hoc – means ‘for this purpose’. A solution designed for a specific problem

Ad hominem – Latin for ‘to the man’, short for argumentum ad hominem, means responding to arguments by attacking a person's character, rather than to the content of their arguments

Ad lib – short for ad libitum, literally ‘according to pleasure’

Ad nauseum – Latin phrase meaning ‘to a sickening degree’

Adieu – means ‘to God’

Adrenal – means ‘on the kidney’

Advent – anglicized from the Latin word adventus meaning ‘coming’

Aeroflot – means ‘volunteer force’ or ‘air fleet’

Aficianado – ardent fan (Spanish). Used to describe fans of bullfighting

Afon – means ‘river’

Afrikaner – South African of European descent with Afrikaans as the native language. Descendants of the Boers

AG – Aktiengesellschaft, a German company traded on the stock market

Agenda – Latin for ‘things to be done’

Agent provocateur – inciting agent (French)

Aglet – metal or plastic sheath over the end of a shoelace. French for 'small needle'

Aileron – French for ‘little wing’

A la carte – French for ‘according to the menu’

A la mode – French for ‘fashionable’

Alba – Gaelic name for Scotland

Albuquerque – means ‘white oak’

Alcatraz – means ‘penguin’

Alcohol – from Arabic al-kuḥl, the kohl, a powder used as an eyeliner

Al dente – Italian for ‘to the tooth’. Used to describe the way pasta should be served – cooked through but still firm

Alea iacta est – ‘the die is cast’

Al forno – Italian for ‘dish cooked in the oven’

Al fresco – in the fresh (Italian). Slang term for ‘in prison’ in Italy

Algarve – from an Arabic word meaning ‘the west’

Algebra – comes from the Arabic language (al-jabr, literally, ‘restoration’)

Algia – means pain, e.g. neuralgia

Algorithm – a corruption of the name of Arabic mathematician Al-Khwarizmi

Alibi – Latin for ‘elsewhere’ or ‘in another place’

Aliphatic – from the Greek aleiphar meaning ‘fat’ or ‘oil’

Al Jazeera – means ‘the island’ or ‘the peninsula’

Allah Akbar – Arabic for ‘God is great’

Allegory – from Greek for ‘speaking otherwise’

Alligator – from Spanish for ‘lizard’

Alma mater – Latin for ‘nourishing mother’. Your university

Allosaurus – means ‘different lizard’

Amaretto – from the Italian amaro, meaning ‘bitter’

Amarillo – Spanish for ‘yellow’

Amen – Hebrew for ‘truth’

Amnesty – means ‘official pardon’

Amok – furious attack (Malay). To run amok

Amphibian – Greek for ‘double life’

Amuse-bouche – mouth amuser (French). Complementary taster chosen by the chef

Amy – means ‘beloved’

Andalucia – from Arabic for ‘the west’

Andante – means ‘going’, in Italian

Andro – prefix meaning ‘man’

Android – from the Greek ‘man’ and the suffix -oid ‘having the form or likeness of’

Anesthesia – from Greek for ‘without feeling’

Angel – from Greek word meaning ‘messenger’

Angkor Wat – derived from Sanskrit word for ‘city’ and Khmer word for ‘temple’

Angle – from the Latin word angulus, meaning ‘a corner’

Angst – fear (German)

Ankh – means ‘life’

Anno domini – Medieval Latin for ‘in the year of the Lord’

Anorak – heavy hooded jacket (Greenland Inuit)

Anschluss – German for ‘connection’ or ‘union’

Antarctica – named by Greeks as anti-arctos, i.e. anti-bear

Antipasto – (plural antipasti) means ‘before the meal’

Antipodes – from Greek: ‘opposed’ and foot’ refers to any point on the Earth's surface which is diametrically opposite to it

Apartheid – means ‘separateness’

Aperture – from Latin for ‘to open’

Aphorism – from the Greek aphorismos meaning ‘to define’

Apocalypse – meaning 'un-covering', translated literally from Greek, is a disclosure of knowledge

Apostle – ‘one sent forth’

A posteriori – ‘from the late’. Experience is important (see a priori)

Appellation controlee – officially certified origin (French)

A priori – ‘from the earlier’. Experience is not important. Latin for ‘from what precedes’ (see a posteriori)

Apropos – on the subject of (French). Means ‘apt’ or ‘by the way’

Arable – from Latin ‘to plough’

Archbishop – Greek for ‘chief bishop’

Archipelago – from Greek for ‘chief’ and ‘sea’

Architect – from Greek for ‘chief builder’

Arctic – from Greek word for ‘bear’

Argon – from the Greek for ‘lazy’ or ‘inactive’

Arpeggio – Italian for ‘to play on a harp’

Arriviste – a person who has arrived (French)

Ars gratia artis – MGM slogan, means ‘art for art’s sake’

Ars longa, vita brevis – the art is long, life is short (Latin). Coined by Hippocrates

Arthropod – means ‘jointed foot’

Asafa – means ‘rising to the occasion’

Asbestos – from the Greek for ‘unquenchable’ or ‘inextinguishable’

Ashkabat – Persian meaning ‘City of Love’

Assassin – may have derived from Arabic for ‘hashish eater’

Assiette – French word for ‘plate’

Assize – refers to the sittings or sessions (Old French ‘assises’) of the judges, known as ‘justices of assize’

Asterisk – Greek for ‘little star’

Aswad – Arabic for ‘black’

Altamira – Spanish for 'high view'

Alter ego – other self (Latin)

Atom – from Greek ‘atomas’, meaning indivisible

Atelier – a French word literally translated as ‘workshop.’ In English, it is used to refer to an artist's working studio, typically a fashion studio for Haute couture

Atlantic Ocean – from ‘sea of Atlas’

Au fait – informed (French)

Auld Lang Syne – means ‘Old Long Since’

Au Revoir – ‘until we meet again’

Autarchism – from Greek ‘belief in self rule’ is a political philosophy that upholds the principle of individual liberty, rejects compulsory government, and supports the elimination of government in favor of ruling oneself and no other

Aurum – means ‘shiny dawn’

Auto-da-fe – act of faith (Portuguese). Comes from the Spanish Inquisition. In English the term is used to describe an image of a heretic being burned at the stake

Avalanche – snow slide (Romansh)

Avant-garde – means ‘advance guard’ or ‘vanguard’

Avocado – Nahuatl word

Avoirdupois – from Old French, literally ‘goods of weight’

Ayatollah – means ‘sign of God (Allah)’

Azure – from the Persian ‘Lazheward’, which is the name of a place in Afghanistan that in ancient times was the main source for lapis lazuli

Ba'al – a northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning ‘master’ or ‘lord’ that is used for various gods who were patrons of cities in the Levant

Babylon – Rastafarian word for the western world

Baccala – Italian for ‘salt cod’

Bacteria – from Greek for ‘staff’ or ‘cane’, because the first ones to be discovered were rod-shaped

Bad – German for ‘bath’

Bagel – from a High German word

Baghdad – means ‘Garden of God’

Bahamas – Spanish for ‘shallow water’

Bahrain – means ‘two seas’

Bain-marie – means ‘Mary’s bath’. French cooking utensil

Baksheesh – ‘gift’ (Persian)

Bald – means ‘white-headed’

Bambi – known as ‘prince of the forest’

Banal – French for ‘feudal service’

Banana – means ‘fruit of wise men’

Bandana – ‘to tie’ (Hindi, via Sanskrit)

Bank – derives from the Italian word banco ‘desk/bench’, used during the Renaissance by Florentines bankers, who used to make their transactions above a desk covered by a green tablecloth

Banshee – Irish for ‘female of the elves / fairies’

Baptism – from Greek for ‘to bathe or dip’

Barack – Swahili for ‘blessing’

Barbados – from the Portuguese for ‘bearded’

Barbarian – someone whose first language was not Greek

Baroque – from Portuguese for ‘misshapen pearl’

Bascule – French for ‘seesaw’

Basilica – from Greek for ‘royal’

Basset hound – from the French word ‘bas’ meaning ‘low’

Baton Rouge – French for ‘red stick’

Baumwolle – German name for ‘cotton’

Bayonet – from French town of Bayonne where it was made

Bazaar – ‘marketplace’ (Persian)

Beagle – from French begueule meaning ‘open throat’

Beaumaris – French for ‘fair marsh’

Beelzebub – means ‘Lord of the Flies’

Belgrade – means ‘white city’

Belgium – named after an ancient Celtic tribe, the Belges

Belvedere – means ‘fair view’ in Italian, refers to any architectural structure sited to take advantage of such a view

Ben Nevis – Gaelic for ‘terrible mountain’

Berserk – bear shirt (Old Norse)

Bete noire – black beast (French)

Bethlehem – means ‘house of bread’

Betws-y-Coed – means ‘Prayer house in the wood’

Bharata – Sanskrit name for Indian subcontinent

Bichon Frise – French, literally meaning ‘curly lap dog’

Bidet – French for ‘pony’

Bijou – jewel (French)

Bimbo – derived from Italian for ‘child’ (bambino)

Biology – Greek for ‘life study’

Bis in die – Latin for ‘twice a day’. Seen on prescriptions

Bismillah – means ‘in the name of God’ in Arabic

Bizarre – from the Basque word for ‘beard’

Blasé – from French blaser, ‘to cloy’

Bloemfontein – means ‘fountain of flowers’

Blunderbuss – Dutch for ‘thunder gun’

Boche – contemptuous term used to refer to a German, especially a German soldier

Boer – Dutch word for ‘farmer’

Boko Haram – means ‘Western education is forbidden’

Bolshevik – means ‘majority’

Bolshoi – means ‘grand’

Bonanza – Spanish for ‘good weather’

Bona Fide – ‘in good faith’

Bonhomie – simple good-heartedness (French)

Bon mot – ‘right word’ (French). A quip or witty remark

Boondocks – from Tagalog word for ‘mountain’

Bordello – brothel (Italian)

Bosquet – French, from Italian bosco, "grove, wood". A plantation of trees in a French formal garden

Botany – derived from Greek word for ‘herb’

Boudicca – means ‘victory’ in Old Welsh

Bouffant – French for ‘puff out’

La Bourse – means ‘the purse’

Bowery – from Old Dutch word for ‘farm’

Brandy – from Dutch for ‘burnt wine’

Breve – a diacritical mark ˘, shaped like the bottom half of a circle

Bric-a-brac – French expression meaning ‘at random’

Brio – vigour, vivacity (Spanish / Italian)

Brochet – French for ‘pike’

A la brochette – means ‘on a skewer’

Broccoli – from Italian for ‘little shoot’ or ‘cabbage sprout’

Brogue – Irish for ‘leg covering’

Bromance – a portmanteau of the words bro or brother and romance

Brontosaurus – means ‘thunder lizard’

Buccaneer – from ‘barbequer’

Budgerigar – from ‘good cockatoo’ in Aboriginal

Budget – from French for ‘little bag’ or ‘purse’

Bugle – from Latin for ‘bullock’

Bulb – from the Greek for ‘onion’

Bulimia – Greek for ‘ox’ and ‘hunger’

Burrito – Spanish for ‘small donkey’

Buttero – a shepherd or cowboy in Tuscany

Cab – short for cabriolet (as in taxi cab)

Cadmium – from Greek word for ‘calamine’

Cagoule – French for ‘hood’

Cairngorms – Gaelic name for ‘Blue Rocky Hill’

Calculus – comes from the Latin word for ‘pebble’

Cafeteria – Spanish for ‘coffee shop’

Caldo – Italian for ‘hot’

Caliph – Arabic for ‘successor’

Calli – means ‘beautiful’, as in calligraphy

Callipygian – Greek for ‘beautiful buttocks’

Calzone – means ‘trouser leg’

Camouflage – from French word meaning ‘to disguise’

Campanella – Italian for ‘little bell’

Campus – means ‘field’ in Latin

Canada – from a First Nations word kanata for ‘settlement’, ‘village’, or ‘land’

Cancan – French for ‘scandal’

Candidate – from the Latin candidatus (‘white-robed’), because candidates for office in Rome were clothed in a white toga

Cannelloni – means ‘big tubes’

Canto – a principal form of division in a long poem, especially the epic. The word comes from the Latin cantus, meaning ‘song’

Canyon – from Spanish for ‘tube’

Capercaillie – largest member of the grouse family. Name derived from the Gaelic capull coille, meaning ‘horse of the woods’

Capiche – Italian for ‘do you understand’

Capo tasto, or simply capo, is a device used for shortening the strings, and hence raising the pitch, of a stringed instrument

Carfax – derives from the French carrefour ‘crossroads’, or quatre-face ‘four-face’

Carnival – from Italian for ‘removal of meat’

Carpe diem – a phrase from a Latin poem by Horace. It is popularly translated as ‘seize the day’

Carte blanche – white or blank card (French). Military term meaning surrender from 1700s when a blank piece of paper was given to a victorious commander on which they could write their terms

Carthage – 'new town' in Phoenician

Cartoon – from Italian cartone, meaning ‘heavy paper’

Casablanca – means ‘white house’ in Spanish

Casbah – means citadel (fortress) in Arabic

Casino – from Italian for ‘little house’

Cassette – French for ‘little box’

Cassock – from Italian for ‘long coat’

Cataclysm – the Greek expression for the Biblical Great Flood of Noah, from the Greek kataklysmos, to ‘waste down’

Catamaran – Tamil for ‘tied wood’

Catastrophe – Greek for ‘down turning’

Catena – Latin for ‘chain’

Caucus – Algonquin for ‘meeting of tribal leaders’

Cause celebre – ‘famous case’ (French). Became common after the false conviction of Alfred Dreyfuss in 1894

Cava – from the Spanish word for ‘cellar’

Cavalier – derives from the same Latin root as the French word chevalier (as well as the Spanish word caballero), the word caballarius, meaning ‘horseman’

Cavatappi – pasta, from Italian for ‘corkscrew’

Cenotaph – means ‘empty tomb’

Cephalophore – (from the Greek for ‘head-carrier’) is a saint who is generally depicted carrying his or her own head; in art, this was usually meant to signify that the subject in question had been martyred by beheading

Cephalopod – means ‘head foot’

Ceramic – from Greek for ‘pottery’

Cerebellum – Latin for ‘little brain’

Cerise – a purplish red colour. From the French word meaning ‘cherry’

Chagrin – distress (French)

Chaise – type of carriage. From French for ‘chair’

Chambre – French for ‘bedroom’

Champs Elysses – French for Elysian Fields

Chanterelle – means ‘drinking cup’

Chapacubra – from chupar ‘to suck’ and cabra ‘goat’, literally ‘goat sucker’, is a legendary creature rumoured to inhabit parts of the Americas

Charmarghz – Afghan word for walnut .Means ‘four brains’

Chauvinism – named after Nicolas Chauvin, a follower of Napoleon

Checkmate – Persian for ‘the king is dead’

Cheetah – from Sanskrit for ‘speckled’

Chenille – French word for ‘caterpillar’

Cherchez la femme – look for the woman (French). Taken from the 1854 book Les Mohicans de Paris by Alexandre Dumas pere

-chester, -caster or -cester on an English place name indicates that it is of Roman origin, referring to a camp or fort

Chic – elegant (French)

Chicago – a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, meaning ‘wild onion’ or ‘wild garlic’

Chili con carne – ‘chili with meat’

Chindit – a corruption of the Burmese word for ‘winged stone lion’

Chipolata – comes from the Italian for ‘a dish of onions’

Chipping – in a place name means ‘market’

Chi Rho – the first two letters (chi = ch and rho = r) in the Greek spelling of the word ‘Christ’

Chiromancy – from Greek ‘hand divination’

Chiroptera – Greek for ‘hand wing’

Chloe – from the Greek meaning ‘young green shoot’

Chocolate – Nahuatl for ‘bitter water’

Chop chop – hurry (Chinese, as Pidgin English)

Chop suey – mixed pieces (Chinese)

Chorea – ancient Greek for ‘dance’

Chow mein – Chinese for ‘fried noodles’

Christ – ancient Greek Christos, meaning ‘anointed’

Chromosome – from Greek for ‘coloured body’

Chrys – prefix referring to gold, from Greek chrysos

Chrysanthemum – means ‘golden flower’ in Greek. National flower of Japan

Chthonic – Greek for ‘subterranean’, pertains to deities or spirits of the underworld

Chukka – from Sanskrit for ‘circle’ or ‘wheel’

Chutney – ‘to taste’ (Hindi)

Chutzpah – Yiddish word meaning ‘nerve or self-confidence’

Ciabatta – Italian for ‘slipper’

Cilium – Latin for ‘eyelash’

Cinema – from Greek for ‘motion’

Cirrhosis – from Greek word meaning ‘tawny’

Cirrus – means ‘filament of hair’

Clair de lune – French for ‘moonlight’

Claptrap – originally a theatrical trick to win applause

Clavis – latin for ‘key’

Cliche – from the name of a printing plate in France cast from movable type. This is also called a stereotype

Climate – from Greek for ‘slope’

Cloaca Maxima – means ‘greatest sewer’. Constructed in Rome c. 600 BC

Cloche – French for ‘bell’

Clone – derived from the Greek word for ‘trunk, branch’, referring to the process whereby a new plant can be created from a twig

Cobra – Portuguese for ‘snake’

Codeine – Greek for ‘poppy head’

Coelacanth – means 'hollow spine' in Greek

Coffee – the term was introduced to Europe by the Ottoman Turkish ‘kahve’, which is, in turn, derived from the Arabic ‘qahweh’

Cognoscenti – those who know (Italian)

Coleoptera – ‘sheath-winged’, beetles

Coleslaw – from Dutch for ‘cabbage salad’

Collage – French for ‘to glue’

Comet – from Greek for ‘long haired’

Commissar – means ‘one trusted’. An official of the Communist Party who was assigned to teach party principles to a military unit

Commode – French for ‘chest of drawers’

Compere – someone who introduces acts. French word for ‘godfather’

Compos mentis – a sound mind (Latin)

Compostela – comes from Latin campus stellae, i.e. ‘field of stars’, making Santiago de Compostela ‘St. James of the Field of Stars’. This name would come from the belief that the bones of St. James were taken from the Middle East to Spain

Compos mentis – ‘of sound mind’

Conchiglie – from the Italian for ‘seashell’

Conchobar – Irish male name meaning ‘lover of hounds’. It is the source of the Irish names Conor, Connor, etc. It is a name borne by several figures from Irish history and legend

Conclave – Latin for ‘lockable room’

Concrete –from the Latin word concretus, meaning ‘compact’ or ‘condensed’

Confetti – sweets (Italian). The term is used in Italy for sugared almonds, which are eaten at weddings

Connoisseur – expert (French)

Conspiracy – means ‘breathing together’

Contract – from Latin for ‘to draw together’

Contrapposto – an Italian term that means ‘counterpose’. It is used in the visual arts to describe a human figure standing with most of its weight on one foot

Contretemps – ‘against the time’ (French). Originally a mistimed thrust in a fencing bout

Copa del Rey – Spanish for ‘king’s cup’

Cordillera – Spanish for ‘little rope’

Cordon Bleu – means ‘blue ribbon’

Coriander – from the Greek for ‘resembling a bedbug’

Corgi – Welsh for ‘dwarf dog’

Cornet – from Latin for ‘horn’

Cornichon – French for ‘gherkin’

Coronary – comes from the Latin ‘corona’ and Greek ‘koron’ meaning crown

Corpus delicti – legal term meaning ‘the essence of the crime’

Corpus luteum – Latin for ‘yellow body’

Corrida – Spanish word for ‘bullfighting’

Corrida de toros – Spanish for ‘running of bulls’

Cosi Fan Tutte – Italian for ‘thus do they all’

Cossack – from Turkish for ‘adventurer’ or ‘freeman’

Costard – a now-extinct medieval variety of large, ribbed apple

Cotyledon – Greek for ‘seed leaf’

Count – from the French ‘comte’

Coulis – from French for ‘strained liquid’

Coup d’etat – French for ‘strike/blow of state’

Coup de grace – ‘blow of mercy’ (French). A final death blow that ends the suffering of someone who is wounded

Cowboy – from the Spanish ‘vaquero’

Cowling – from Latin for ‘hood’

Crayon – from French for ‘chalk’

Creche – French for ‘crib’ or ‘manger’

Creed – means ‘I believe’

Creme brulee – means ‘burnt cream’

Croon – from Dutch words

Csarda – Hungarian for ‘country inn’

La Cuccaracha – ‘the cockroach’

Cui bono – literally ‘for who’s good?’

Cuisse de grenouilles – frogs’ legs

Curate – form Latin for ‘care’

Curriculum vitae – ‘course of life’ (Latin)

Curry – derived from the Tamil word for ‘sauce’

Cushy – ‘easy’ (Urdu)

Cyclamen – Greek for ‘circle’

Cymbal – derived from Greek word for ‘cup’

Cynosure – French for ‘dog’s tail’. Something that is the centre of attention

Cyst – from Greek for ‘bladder’

Dachshund – German for ‘badger dog’

Dada – French for ‘hobby horse’

Daktari – Swahili for ‘doctor’

Dale – comes from a Nordic/Germanic word for ‘valley’

Damask – named after the city of Damascus

Damson – derived from the Latin Prunum damascunum, ‘plum of Damascus’

Dandelion – means ‘lions tooth’

Darjeeling – Hindi for ‘land of the thunderbolt’

Debacle – ‘collapse’ (French)

Decimation – a form of military discipline used by officers in the Roman Army to punish mutinous or cowardly soldiers. The word decimation is derived from Latin meaning ‘removal of a tenth’

Decoy – from Dutch word for ‘duck cage’

Decree nisi – unless (French). Means ‘not final’, as in a conditional divorce

Decus et tutamen – means ‘an ornament and a safeguard’

Dei gratia – ‘by the grace of god’

Deja vu – means ‘already seen’. The term was coined by a French psychic researcher, Emile Boirac

Delphinium – named because it resembles a dolphin’s head

Demi-monde –‘ half-world’ (French). Means mistresses, or those on the edges of respectable society

Democracy – Greek for ‘people rule’

De mortuis nil nisi bonum – means ‘don’t speak ill of the dead’

Denim – came from the name of a French material, serge de Nimes: serge (a kind of material) from Nimes (a town in France)

Denouement – an untying (French). Tying up the loose ends after the climax of a story

Deo valento – ‘God willing’

Deportivo – means 'sporting'

De profundis – ‘from the depths’

Derelict – from Latin for ‘to abandon’

De rigueur – necessary (French)

Deshabille – undressed (French)

Des Moines – means ‘of the monks’

Detente – French for ‘relaxation’

De trop – in excess (French)

Deus ex machine – ‘god from the machine’ (Latin). A plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new character, ability, or object

Diablo – Spanish for ‘devil’

Dialysis – Greek for ‘split’ or ‘separate’

Diaspora – community living away from their homeland (Greek for ‘disperse’ or ‘scatter’). Originated with the exodus of Jews in 5th century BC

Diego – Spanish equivalent of James

Dies Irae – day of wrath. Name of a 13th century Latin hymn

Diet – from Medieval Latin dieta, meaning both ‘parliamentary assembly’ and ‘daily food allowance’

Diglossia – a situation in which two dialects or usually closely related languages are used by a single language community

Diktat – something dictated (German). A punitive decree issued to a defeated nation

Dilettante – ‘one who delights’ (Italian)

Dim sum – Chinese for ‘touch the heart’

Dinosaur – means ‘terrible lizard’. Term coined by Richard Owen

Diocese – the district or churches under the jurisdiction of a bishop; a bishopric. Means ‘to administer’

Diptera – ‘two pairs of wings’, flies

Diptheria – Greek for ‘pair of leather scrolls’

Dipthong – a complex speech sound or glide that begins with one vowel and gradually changes to another vowel within the same syllable

Dis – prefix means ‘abnormal’

Disaster – ‘bad star’ in Greek

Diva – goddess (Italian)

Divan – Persian word for ‘bed’ or ‘long seat’

Dodo – from Portuguese for ‘stupid’

Dolcelatte – Italian cheese, means ‘sweet milk’

Dolce vita – ‘sweet life’ (Italian)

Dolmades – from Turkish for ‘something filled’

Doner kebab – Turkish for ‘rotating roast’

Doolally – camp fever (Urdu). The British Army camp of Deolali is the source of the British slang noun doolally tap, loosely meaning ‘camp fever’, and referring to the apparent madness of men waiting for ships back to Britain after finishing their tour of duty

Domine dirige nos – ‘Lord, direct (guide) us’, is the Latin motto of the City of London

Donegal – means ‘fort of the foreigners’

Doosra – means ‘the second one’ or ‘the other one’

Dopiaza – means ‘double onion’

Doppelganger –‘ double walker’ (German)

Dose – from French for ‘appropriate measure’

Dottir – Icelandic for ‘daughter’

Double entendre –‘ double understanding’ (French)

Doyen – senior member of a group (French)

Draconian – Draco was the first legislator of ancient Athens in the 7th century BC. The stringency of his legal code gave rise to the modern English word draconian

Dressage – French for ‘training’

Dromedary – from Greek for ‘running’

Druid – means ‘knowing the oak tree’

Duce – an Italian word meaning ‘leader’

Dushanbe – means ‘Monday’ in Tajik

Duke – from Latin for ‘leader’

Dungarees – Hindi word for coarse cotton cloth

Dushanbe – means ‘Monday’ in Tajik

Dynamo – from the Greek word dynamis, meaning ‘power’

E pluribus unum – Latin for ‘Out of many, one’, is a motto on the Seal of the United States

Easter – from pagan goddess Eostre

Ebeniste – French word for a cabinetmaker

Eclair – means ‘lightning’

Eclat – splinter, brilliance, burst (French)

Economy – from Greek words ‘oikos’ (house) and ‘nemein’ (to manage)

Edda – Icelandic for ‘great-grandmother’

Eelam – native Tamil name for Sri Lanka

e.g. – exempli gratia

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik – means ‘a small serenade’

Eistedffod – means ‘to be sitting together’

Elan – leap, fervour, burst (French). More sophisticated than eclat

El Cid – means ‘lord’

Electron – from the Greek word for ‘amber’ (also electric)

Elegy – from the Greek word for ‘lament’

Ellan Vannin – Manx for ‘Isle of Man’

El largato – alligator, means ‘the lizard’ in Spanish

El Paso – Spanish for ‘the pass’

El Salvador – means ‘the saviour’

Embonpoint – in good condition, fleshy (French). Like the women in Rubens’ paintings

Eminence Grise – ‘grey cardinal’, someone who exercises power in the background, named after Cardinal Richelieu’s advisor

Enchilada – means ‘seasoned with chili’

Endo – prefix meaning ‘inside’

Endogenous – from Greek ‘proceeding from within’

England – from Angle-Land

Ennui – ‘boredom’ (French)

Entre nous – ‘between ourselves’ (French)

Ergo – means ‘therefore’

Ersatz – a German word literally meaning ‘substitute’ or ‘replacement’, usually an inferior one

Erse – a 16th century to19th century Scots name for Scottish Gaelic

Esau – Hebrew word meaning ‘hairy’

Eskimo – means ‘eater of raw flesh’

Esprit de corps – ‘group spirit’ (French)

Estrus – derived via Latin oestrus (frenzy, gadfly), from Greek (gadfly, breeze, sting, mad impulse). Specifically, this refers to the gadfly that Hera sent to torment Io, who had been won in her heifer form by Zeus

ETA – Euskadi Ta Askatusuna, ‘Basque Homeland and Freedom’

Et al – Et alia, ‘and other people’

Et cetera – ‘and the rest’ (Latin)

Ethiopia – from Greek for ‘burnt face’

Etienne (French) – Steven (English)

Eucharist – from Greek for ‘thanksgiving’

Eugenics – means ‘good birth’

Eunomia – Greek for ‘good order’. Governance according to good laws

Eureka – means ‘I have it’

Ex cathedra – with the authority derived from one's office or position, literally meaning ‘from the chair’

Exchequer – named after the chequer-patterned table used in the medieval period for financial calculations

Exeunt omnis – ‘all leave the stage’

Ex gratia – given as a favour or gratuitously where no legal obligation exists, literally meaning ‘out of kindness’

Ex libris – ‘from the books of’ (Latin). Denotes the ownership of a book

Expletive – from Latin ‘to fill out’

Exo – prefix meaning ‘outside’

Ex officio – ‘by virtue of his/her office’

Exogenous – from Greek ‘proceeding from outside’

Excalibur – means ‘cut steel’

Factotum – ‘do everything’ (Latin). A jack of all trades

Fajita – Spanish for ‘little belt’

Falun Gong – literally means ‘Dharma Wheel Practice’

Farce – from Old French for ‘to stuff’

Farrier – from Middle French: ferrier (blacksmith), from the Latin word ferrum (iron)

Fartlek – means ‘speed play’ in Swedish, is a form of interval training which puts stress on the whole aerobic energy system

Fascism – is derived from the Italian word fascio, which means ‘bundle’ or ‘group’

Fatah – means ‘conquest’

Fauji – Punjabi term for army foot soldiers

Faux pas – ‘wrong step’ (French)

Feldgrau – German for ‘field grey’, the traditional colour of uniforms

Fell – old Norse origin

Femme fatale – ‘deadly woman’ (French)

Feng Shui – means ‘wind and water’

Fennel – from Latin word for ‘hay’

Feral – Latin for ‘wild beast’

Feta – Greek for ‘slice’

Fianna Fail – ‘Soldiers of destiny’

Fianna Gael – ‘Gaelic nation’

Fiasco – failure, or bottle with rope wound around the bottom (Italian)

Filibuster – from Spanish word for ‘pirate’

Fin de siecle – French for ‘end of the century’

Firth – old Norse for ‘fjord’

Fission – named from Otto Frisch

Fitz – a prefix to patronymic surnames of Anglo-Norman origin. This usage derives from the Norman fiz / filz, meaning ‘son of’

Flagellum – Latin for ‘whip’

Flanders – means ‘flooded land’

Flotilla – Spanish for ‘little fleet’

Fluxus – from a Latin word meaning ‘to flow’

Foccacia – derived from the Latin focus meaning ‘centre’ and also ‘fireplace’

Foetus – has recognisable features. Means ‘little one’

Foie Gras – French for ‘fat liver’

Folies Bergeres – from French for ‘leaves’ and ‘shepherdesses’

Forensics – comes from the Latin adjective ‘forensis’ meaning ‘of or before the forum’

Formosa – means ‘beautiful’ in Portuguese

Fortes Fortuna Adiuvat (or juvat) – Fortune favours the brave

Forum – Latin for ‘marketplace’, as in Blandford Forum

Fosse – Latin for ‘ditch’

Friar – from Latin for ‘brother’. A member of one of the mendicant orders

Fram – means ‘forward’

Framboise – French for ‘raspberry’

Franchise – from French ‘to set free’

Fresa – Spanish for ‘strawberry’

Fritillary – from Latin for ‘dice-box’

Frisson –‘ shiver’ (French)

Frottage – ‘rubbing’ (French)

Fulcrum – from Latin ‘fulcire’, to prop

Functus officio – no longer having power of jurisdiction

Furore – excitement / controversy (Italian)

Fuselage – French for ‘spindle-shaped’

Gabreselassie (Haile) – means ‘servant of the trinity’

Galact – prefix meaning ‘milk’

Galapagos – means ‘islands of tortoises’

Galaxy – from Greek for ‘milky’

Gaman – Japanese term of Zen Buddhist origin which means ‘enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity’

Gamelan – ‘struck with a hammer’

Gamine – impish girl or urchin (French)

Gangnam – means ‘south of the river’

Gasket – French for ‘thin rope’

Gastropod – means ‘stomach foot’ in Greek

Gaza – Italian for ‘magpie’

Gazelle – from Arabic for ‘wild goat’

Geisha – Japanese for ‘artisan’

Gen or genic – suffix meaning ‘producing’

Genesis means ‘origin’ in Greek

Genocide –  coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish legal scholar, in 1944, firstly from the Latin ‘gens, gentis,’ meaning ‘birth, race, stock, kind’ or the Greek root genos (same meaning); secondly from Latin -cidium (cutting, killing) via French -cide

Geography – from Greek ‘ge’ (earth) and ‘graphein’ (to write)

Geology – from Greek for 'earth and 'word'

Geometry – means ‘earth measure’

Ger – Mongolian tent, means ‘home’

Gesamtkunstwerk – German for ‘total work of art’, is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so

Gestapo – abbreviation of Geheime Staatspolizei, Secret State Police

Gesundheit – means ‘good health’ (German / Yiddish)

Ghoul – from Arabic ‘to seize’

Giacomo – Italian equivalent of James

Gibbous – from Latin for ‘humpbacked’

Gift – German for ‘poison’

Giovanni – Italian equivalent of John

Giraffe – from Arabic word for ‘fast walker’

Glenfiddich – means ‘Valley of the Deer' in Scottish Gaelic

Glitch – ‘slip up’ (Yiddish and German)

Glockenspiel – German, ‘set of bells’ or ‘play-[of-] bells’, also known as orchestra bells

Glossolalia – the practice of making unintelligible utterances, often as part of religious practice. Means ‘speaking in tongues’

Glottal stop – a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English the feature is represented for example by the hyphen in uh-oh!

GmbH Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung – (English: company with limited liability)

Gobi – means ‘flat, bare and partly vegetated’ or ‘waterless place’

Golgotha – means ‘place of the skull’

Goulash – means ‘herdsman’s meat’

Gran Chaco – means ‘great hunting ground’

Graphite – from Greek for ‘to write’

Gravitas – ‘seriousness’ (Latin)

Greenland – means ‘land of the Kalaallit’

Grotesque – word derived from Italian for ‘cave painting’

Guerrilla – means ‘little war’

Guevedoce – Spanish for ‘eggs at twelve’. Genetic abnormality seen in Dominican Republic where boys don’t develop testicles (‘eggs’) until their early teens

Guiseppe – Italian equivalent of Joseph

Gummy bear – from German for ‘rubber bear’. Invented by Hans Riegel, the founder of Haribo (Hans Riegel, Bonn)

Gung Ho – Mandarin Chinese for ‘work together’

Guru – teacher (Sanskrit). From the Sanskrit root ‘gru’ which means ‘heavy’

Guyana – means ‘land of many waters’

Gymkhana – from Hindi for ‘racket court’

Gymnasium – means ‘to train naked’

Gymnosperm – means ‘naked seed’, as the seeds are not encased in a carpel

Gypsy – from ‘Egyptian’

Habeas corpus – ‘you have the body’ (Latin). A writ that commands a prison to bring an inmate to court so that a judge can ascertain whether they have been imprisoned lawfully or whether they should be released

Hacek – Czech for ‘little hook’. A diacritic ˇ placed over a letter, an inverted circumflex. Also known as a caron

Hacienda – Spanish word for an estate

Halo – from Greek for ‘disc’

Halogen – originates from 18th century scientific French nomenclature based on adaptations of Greek roots: hals (sea) or halas (salt), and gen- (to generate) — referring to elements which produce a salt in union with a metal

Hamas – from Arabic for ‘enthusiasm’

Hank – a shortened form of Henry

Hannukah – from the Hebrew word for ‘dedication’

Hanoi – means ‘eastern capital’

Hapax legomenon – a word that occurs only once within a context. From Greek for ‘once said’

Hara-kiri – ritual suicide. Means ‘belly cut’. Formal term is seppuku

Haram – an Arabic term meaning ‘forbidden’. In Islam it is used to refer to anything that is prohibited by the faith. Its antonym is halal

Haram – means ‘sanctuary’ or ‘holy site’ in Arabic

Hasta – means ‘until’ in Spanish

Hasta la vista – ‘see you later’ (Spanish)

Haute couture – French for ‘high sewing’

Haute cuisine – ‘high cooking’ (French)

Haversack – from German word habersack

Hazard – from Arabic for ‘the dice’

Heckling – originates from the textile trade, where to heckle was to tease or comb out flax or hemp fibres

Helicopter – from Greek ‘helikos’ (spiral) and ‘pteron’ (wing)

Henchman – referred originally to one who attended a horse for his employer, i.e. a horse groom

Hermaphrodite – a combination of the names of the gods Hermes (male) and Aphrodite (female)

Herzegovina – means ‘duke’s land’

Heuristic – from the Greek for ‘find’

Hex – Pennsylvania Dutch, from German ‘hexen’

Hezbollah – means ‘party of God’

Hibiscus – from Greek for ‘marshmallow’

Hic jacet sepultus – ‘here lies buried’

Himalayas – Sanskrit for ‘abode of the snow’

Hindu Kush – means ‘Hindu Killer’

Hinomaru – Japanese flag. Means ‘circle of the sun’

Hinterland – ‘backcountry’ (German). Also refers to the area from which products are delivered to a port for shipping elsewhere

Hoi polloi – ‘the many’ (Greek)

Holm – from the Old Norse holmr, meaning ‘a small and rounded islet’

Holocaust – comes from the Greek word holokauston, an animal sacrifice offered to a god in which the whole (holos) animal is completely burnt (kaustos). Its Latin form (holocaustum) was first used with specific reference to a massacre of Jews by the chroniclers Roger of Howden and Richard of Devizes in the 1190s

Hoi Oligi – Greek for ‘the few’ (oligarchy). Opposite of Hoi Polloi

Hoi Polloi – Greek for ‘the many’

Homard – French for ‘lobster’

Honcho – Japanese for ‘squad leader’

Honolulu – means ‘sheltered harbour’

Hooch – short for 'hoochinoo, a distilled liquor made by the Hoochinoo Indians from Alaska

Hoplite – from Greek for ‘weapon’

Horoscope – from Greek ‘ora’ (time) and ‘skopein’ (to observe)

Hors de combat – literally meaning ‘outside the fight’, is a French term used to refer to soldiers who are incapable of performing their military function

L’Hotel de Ville – French town hall

Hovis – Hominis Vis, ‘strength of man’

Howe – in a place name means ‘hill’ or ‘mound’

Howitzer – Czech word

Hoy – means ‘high island’

Hue and Cry – former means of apprehending a criminal, by raising the alarm. Means ‘public outcry’

Humerus – Latin for ‘shoulder’

Hustings – from old Norse word

Hydrangea – from Greek for ‘water’ and ‘vessel’

Hymenoptera – ‘membrane-winged’, wasps, bees and ants

Hymn – from Greek for ‘ode’ or ‘song in praise of a god or hero’

Hypo – means ‘under normal levels’

Hyundai – from Korean for ‘modernity’

Ibidem – ‘in the same place’

Ich dien – ‘I serve’

Ichthyosaur – Greek for ‘fish lizard’

Idiopathic – means ‘arising spontaneously or from an obscure or unknown cause’

Igloo – Inuit for ‘house’

Imbroglio – Latin for ‘entangle’

Impi – Zulu word for any armed body of men. However, in English it is often used to refer to a Zulu regiment, which is called an ibutho in Zulu

Impresario – from Italian meaning ‘an enterprise or undertaking’

In camera – literally ‘in the room’. Legal term that means in private with a judge rather than in an open court

Incognito – ‘in disguise’ (Latin)

Incommunicado – ‘cut off from communication’ (Spanish)

In dei nomini – ‘in the name of God’

In dulci jubilo – ‘in sweet rejoicing’

In flagrante delicto – ‘in the blazing offence’ (Latin). Legal term that means that someone has been caught in the act of committing a crime

Infra dig – ‘beneath one's dignity’

In loco parentis – ‘in place of a parent’ (Latin), e.g. foster carer

In medias res – a literary and artistic technique where the narrative starts in the middle of the story instead of from its beginning

Innis – means ‘island’, e.g. Isle of Innisfree

Innuendo – ‘by nodding’ in Latin

In Shalah – means ‘God willing’

Intifada – an Arabic word which literally means ‘shaking off’, though it is usually translated into English as ‘uprising’, ‘resistance’ or ‘rebellion’

Inter alia – ‘amongst other things’

Intercostal – ‘between the ribs’

Investiture – from the Latin preposition in and verb vestire, 'dress' from vestis 'robe'

In vino veritas – ‘in wine, truth’

In vitro –‘ in glass’ (Latin)

In vivo – ‘within the living’

Iodine – from Greek for ‘violet’

Ipso facto – ‘by the fact itself ‘ (Latin). An effect is the result of the action being discussed

Isotope – from Greek for ‘equal place’

Itis – suffix meaning ‘inflammation’

Ivan – Russian equivalent of John

Iwo Jima – means ‘sulphur island’

Jaguar – means ‘any large carnivore’

Jamaica – means ‘well watered’

Jamahiriya – Arabic term meaning ‘state of the masses’

Jeep – derived from ‘General Purpose’ (GP)

Jezebel – wicked, blasphemous woman (Hebrew)

Jihad – Arabic for ‘struggle’

Joie de vie – ‘joy of life’ (French)

Joie de vivre – ‘joy of living’ (French)

Jubilee – Hebrew word

Judo – means ‘the way of gentleness’

Jugendstil – German for ‘youth style’. Art Nouveau

Juggernaut – Lord of the Universe (Sanskrit). A form of Krishna. Large statue pushed around on a chariot

Junta – ‘committee’ (Spanish)

Jurassic – from Jura mountains in Switzerland

Kaftan – cotton or silk tunic (Persian). First worn by 14th century Sultans of the Ottoman Empire

Kahuna – priest, expert or wizard (Hawaiian)

Kangchenjunga – means ‘The Five Treasures of Snows’. The treasures represent the five repositories of God, which are gold, silver, gems, grain, and holy books

Kaput – ‘broken’ (German)

Karma – act, action, performance (Sanskrit). The idea that one’s actions influence one’s future in a cycle of cause and effect

Karoshi – can be translated literally from Japanese as ‘death from overwork’

Kaur – means ‘prince’ or ‘princess’

Kayak – ‘hunter’s boat’ (Inuit)

Kebab – cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer (Arabic / Turkish)

Keirin – Japanese for ‘fight’ or ‘battle’

Kendo – means ‘way of the sword’

Ketchup – fish brine (Malay)

Kettle – originates from Latin ‘catillus’

Khartoum – means ‘elephant trunk’

Khaki – used in Urdu language (meaning ‘dusty’) and is from Persian language meaning ‘earth colour’

Kimono – means ‘thing to wear’ or ‘clothing’

Kiosk – Turkish word meaning ‘pavilion’

Kismet – Turkish for ‘fate’ or ‘fortune’

Kitsch – German word for ‘trash’ or ‘tat’

Klutz –‘ blockhead’ (Yiddish)

Koala – means ‘no drink’

Kohen – Hebrew for ‘priest’

Koh-I-Noor – means ‘mountain of light’

Kohl – ‘black powder’ (Arabic)

Kohl – German for ‘cabbage’

Kosher – suitable and pure (Yidddish)

Kowtow – ‘knock the head’ (Chinese)

Kraftwerk – means ‘power plant’ in German

Kuaizi – Chinese for ‘chopsticks’

Kudos – glory, renown (Greek)

Kuklos – Greek for ‘circle’

Kulak – Russian for ‘fist’

Kurgan – the Russian word for a tumulus, a type of burial mound or barrow, heaped over a burial chamber, often of wood

Kuznetsov – Russian equivalent of Smith

Kvetch – Yiddish word meaning ‘to complain or nag’

Kylie – Aboriginal for ‘boomerang’

Kyrie, eleison – Greek for ‘Lord, have mercy’

Laconic – using few words; terse or concise. Named after the inhabitants of Laconia, in Greece

Lacrosse – ‘game of hooked sticks’ (French Canadian)

Lager – from the German lagern, meaning ‘to store’

Laika – Russian for ‘barker’

Laissez-faire – ‘leave alone’ (French)

Lambada – Portuguese for ‘a beating’

Lame – from Latin for ‘thin plate’

Lammas – Anglo-Saxon for ‘loaf-mas’

Lampoon – from French for ‘let us drink’

Landtag – German for ‘state meeting’

Language –from Latin lingua, ‘tongue’

Lanthanum – from Greek word for ‘hidden’

La Paz – Spanish for ‘our lady of peace’

Lapin – French for ‘rabbit’

Lapis – Latin for ‘stone’

Lebensraum – ‘living space’ (German). The space that Hitler decided the German people needed to become a great race, hence the invasions

Lefebvre – French equivalent of Smith

Lent – from the old English word for ‘the spring’

Lepidoptera – ‘scale-winged’

L’esprit de l’escalier – a French term used in English that describes the predicament of thinking of the perfect retort too late. Means ‘staircase wit’

Leviathan – in Modern Hebrew, means ‘whale’

Lex talionis – the law of retaliation equivalent to an offense; the principle of retributive justice based on the Mosaic law of ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth’ in Exodus. Also called talion

Libretto – Italian for ‘little book’

Liebchen – German for ‘sweetheart’ or ‘darling’

Limey – term for British sailor who drank lime juice to prevent scurvy

Limousine – derived from the name of the French region Limousin, because this covered compartment physically resembled the cloak hood worn by the shepherds there

Lingua franca – (originally Italian for ‘Frankish language’) is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language

Linguine – means ‘little tongues’

Links – from Old English for ‘rising ground’

Lithium – from Greek for ‘stone’

Llan – prefix in place names meaning ‘church’

Loch – Gaelic for ‘lake’ or ‘sea inlet’

Locum – short for Locum Tenens. Means ‘to hold the place of’

Lo mein – Chinese for ‘tossed noodles’

Longbow – Welsh word

Loot – ‘plunder’ (Anglo-Indian, from the Hindi lut)

Louche – decadent, shady (French)

Luge – from French for ‘sledge’

Lula – Brazilian for ‘squid’

Lumpen Proletariat – term coined by Karl Marx. Means ‘beneath the working classes’

Lundy – Old Norse for ‘puffin island’

Lycopodium – from Greek lukos,’ wolf’ and podion, diminutive of pous, ‘foot’

Macho – virile, domineering (Spanish)

Machu Picchu – means ‘Old Peak’ in Quechua

Macrame – Arabic word for ‘fringe’

Macron – from the Greek meaning ‘long’, is a diacritic (ē) placed above a vowel

Madrileno – male from Madrid

Maestro – master, teacher (Italian)

Magenta – from the dye magenta, commonly called fuchsine, discovered shortly after the 1859 Battle of Magenta (from the colour of the land all covered by the blood)

Maghreb – means ‘western’ in Arabic

Magi – Latin plural of magus. Followers of Zoroastrianism

Magna Carta – means ‘great charter’

Magna cum laude – Latin for ‘with great honour’

Magnum opus – ‘great work’ (Latin)

Mahabharata – means ‘great hall’ in Sanskrit

Maharishi – means ‘great Sage’

Mahatma – Sanskrit word meaning ‘Great Soul’

Majlis – an Arabic term meaning ‘a place of sitting’ used to describe various types of special gatherings among common interest groups

Majorca – means ‘the larger one’. Spanish name is Mallorca

Mammal – from the Latin word mamma meaning ‘breast’

Mammon – from Aramaic for ‘riches’

Manana – tomorrow (Spanish)

Mandarin – ‘official’ (Malay)

Manga – Japanese for ‘whimsical pictures’

Mantra – ‘instrument of thought’ (Sanskrit)

Maori – means ‘normal’

Mare – from old English for ‘horse’

Mare Nostrum – Roman name for Mediterranean Sea

Marianne – French equivalent of John Bull

Mariposa – Spanish for ‘butterfly’

Marmalade – from marmelo, which is Portuguese for ‘quince’

Marmoreal – ‘marble-like’

Masochism – from the writings of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

Mata Hari – means ‘eye of the day’ in Malay

Mausoleum – from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (near modern-day Bodrum in Turkey), the grave of King Mausolus, the Persian satrap of Caria

Maven – a trusted expert in a particular field. From Yiddish word for ‘one who understands’

Mazel tov – ‘good fortune’ (Yiddish)

Mea culpa – ‘by my own fault’

Meander – derives from a river located in present-day Turkey and known to the Greeks as Maeander, characterized by a very convoluted path along the lower reach

Medulla – from Latin for ‘pith’ or ‘marrow’

Meerschaum – a fine, compact, usually white claylike mineral of hydrous magnesium silicate, used in making pipe bowls. Means ‘sea foam’ in German

Mein Kampf – means ‘my struggle’

Mela – means ‘meeting’ in Sanskrit

Mellitus – Latin for ‘sweet as honey’

Memento mori – a Latin phrase that may be freely translated as ‘Remember that you are mortal’, ‘Remember you will die’, or ‘Remember your death’. It names a genre of artistic creations that vary widely from one another, but which all share the same purpose, which is to remind people of their own mortality

Menage a trois – means ‘household of three’

Mensa – Latin for ‘table’

Menshevik – means ‘minority’

Mens rea – Latin for ‘guilty mind’

Mens sana in corpere sano – ‘A healthy mind in a healthy body’

Mentoring – Mentor was the advisor, friend and teacher of Odysseus

Meuniere – French for ‘miller’s wife’

Meso – prefix meaning ‘in the middle’

Mesophyll – Greek for ‘middle leaf’

Messiah – means ‘anointed’

Metropolis – from Greek for ‘mother’ and ‘city’

Mezzogiorno – Italian for ‘midday’

Mi casa es su casu – ‘my house is your house’ (Spanish)

Miguel – Spanish equivalent of Michael

Mikado – from Japanese for ‘honourable gate’ or ‘exalted gate’

Minaret – from Arabic word meaning ‘lighthouse’

Minion – from Middle French mignon (‘lover, royal favourite, darling’)

Minnehoma – means ‘laughing water’, in poem by Longfellow

Minuet – social dance, from French for ‘small’

Mir – Russian for ‘peace’

Miranda – means ‘to be wondered at’

Mise en scene – staging, direction (French). Everything that can be seen in the picture or onstage

Misr – local name for Egypt

Mnemonic – Greek for ‘mindful’

Modus operandi – means ‘way of working’

Modus vivendi – means ‘way of living’

Molar – from Latin for ‘millstone’

Mole – from ‘earth thrower’ in old English

Mollusc – means ‘soft’

Monotreme – Greek for ‘single opening’

Monsoon – Arabic for ‘season’

Montevideo – from ‘I see a hill’

Moonshine – originally meant ‘nothing’

Moratorium – ‘delay’ (Latin). An authorized period of delay in complying with a legal demand

Moroni – means ‘in the heart of the fire’

Morphine – named after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams

Mortgage – from French words for ‘dead’ and ‘pledge’

Morus – Latin for ‘mulberry’

Mossad – means ‘institute’

Mosquito – Spanish for ‘little fly’

Moulin Rouge – means ‘red mill’

Muckle Flugga – means ‘great precipice’

Mujahideen – Muslims who struggle in the path of God. From Arabic word ‘jihad’

Mullah – from Arabic word meaning ‘vicar’, ‘master’ and ‘guardian’

Musket – from French for ‘sparrowhawk’

Multum in parvo – means ‘much in little’, and is the motto of Rutland

Munich – means ‘home of the monks’

Il Municipile – Italian for ‘town hall’

Muscovy – a traditional Western name for the Russian state that existed from the 14th century to the late 17th century

Mushroom – from a French word

Mumbo jumbo – probably originated from the Mandingo name Maamajomboo, a masked dancer that took part in religious ceremonies

Muppet – ‘marionette puppet’

Mur – French for ‘wall’

Mutatis mutandis – Latin for ‘the necessary changes having been made’

Myelo – Greek for ‘bone marrow’

Myriad – Greek for 10,000

Nabob – wealthy man / dignitary (Hindi). A corruption of the Urdu nawab

Nacelle – French for ‘a small boat’

Nai – Greek for ‘yes’

Nanjing – means ‘Southern Capital’

Nark – from Romany for ‘nose’

Nasi Goreng – means ‘fried rice’ in Indonesian and Malay

Nave – central area of a church. Latin for ‘ship’

Naypyidaw – means ‘royal capital’ or ‘abode of kings’

NB – nota bene, literally ‘note well’

Necropolis – Greek word meaning ‘city of the dead’, describes large and important burial areas that were in use for long periods

Negev – Hebrew for ‘dry’

Nepotism – from Latin word for ‘nephew’

Ness – in a place name means ‘headland’

Neuroptera – ‘nerve-shaped’, lacewings

Nil desperandum – ‘nothing to be despaired at’ (Latin). Horace wrote it in Odes I

Nile – from the Greek word ‘Neilos’, meaning river valley

Nirvana – Sanskrit for ‘extinction’

Noblesse oblige – ‘nobility obligates’ (French). Those with wealth and status should do something to help those less fortunate than themselves

Noctilucent – luminous at night

Noisette – French for ‘hazelnut’

Non sequitur – means ‘it does not follow’. A statement that seems meaningless in the context of whatever preceded it

Nosh – snack food (Yiddish)

Nostalgia – comes from Greek nostos ‘homeward journey, return home’ and algos ‘pain’

Nous – mind, intellect (Greek)

Nougat – from French word for ‘nut’

Novum Testamentum – Latin phrase for the New Testament

Nubile – meant ‘ready for marriage’

Nullarbor – derived from the Latin nullus for 'nothing' or 'no one' and arbor for 'tree'. The Aboriginal name for the area is Oondiri meaning 'the waterless'

Nullius in verba – Latin for ‘take nobody's word for it’. Motto of Royal Society

Nunc dimittis – Latin for ‘now you dismiss’

Obelisk – Greek for ‘little pointed pillar’

Obit sini prole – died without children

Oboe – from French for ‘high wood’

Ocelot – from Aztec for ‘field tiger’

Oculus – Latin word for eye, used commonly as the name of the round opening in the top of the dome of the Pantheon in Rome. The Oculus in the Pantheon is and has always been open to the weather

Oedipus – Greek for ‘swollen foot’

Oeil-de-boeuf – French for ‘bull’s eye’, is a term applied to a relatively small oval window, typically for an upper storey

Oeuvre – ‘work’ (French). The complete body of work by an artist

Oflag is the abbreviation for Offizierslager, ‘officer’s camp’

Of that Ilk – a Scottish term which often appears in titles. It means ‘of the same’

Ogonek – Polish for’little tail’, is a diacritic hook placed under the lower right corner of a vowel in the Latin alphabet

Oklahoma – from Indian for ‘red people’

Oligo – prefix meaning ‘few’

Olmec – means ‘rubber people’ in Nahuatl

Ombudsman –‘ commission man’ (Swedish)

Omicron – ‘little O’

Omnibus – ‘for everyone’

Omphalos – belly-button, and a religious stone artifact in the ancient world. In Greek, the word means ‘navel’

Oolong – Chinese for ‘black dragon’

Op cit – short for opus citatum, is the term used to provide an endnote or footnote citation to refer the reader to an earlier citation

Oppidum – a Latin word meaning the main settlement in any administrative area of ancient Rome

Opus Dei – from a Latin phrase meaning ‘the work of God’. It is a very conservative Roman Catholic lay organization organized in 1928, whose members have a strong dedication to the Vatican

Orbis non sufficit – means ‘the world is not enough’. Motto of the Bond family

Orchestra – Greek for ‘a dancing place’

Oregano – from the Greek for ‘joy of the mountain’

Orme – Old Norse word for ‘sea serpent’

Ornithos – Greek for ‘bird’

Orthodox – from Greek for ‘right’ and ‘opinion’

Orphopraxy – the belief that right action is as important as religious faith, from Greek: orthos ‘correct’ and praxis ‘deed’

Osama – means ‘young lion’ in Arabic

Osculum – Latin for ‘kiss’

Ossicles – malleus, incus and stapes. Means ‘tiny bones’

Ostracism – from Greek ostrakon, pieces of broken pottery on which voters would write the names of anyone they felt the state could do without for a year

Otaku – a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime, manga, and video games

Otemoto – Japanese for ‘chopsticks’

Oubliette – from the French meaning ‘forgotten place’, was a form of dungeon which was accessible only from a hatch in a high ceiling

Outre – exaggerated, eccentric (French). Used in reference to extravagant fashions

Oxygen – means ‘acid producer’

Oxi – Greek for ‘no’

Oxymoron – from the Greek for ‘sharp’ and ‘foolish’

Paella – the word for ‘frying pan’ in Valencian

Pagan – from Latin for ‘country dweller’

Pakistan means ‘Land of the Pure’. It was coined in 1934 as Pakstan by Choudhary Rahmat Ali, who published it in the pamphlet Now or Never

Pale – from the Latin word palus, meaning ‘stake’. From this came the figurative meaning of ‘boundary, and ‘beyond the pale’

Palin – prefix meaning ‘again’

Paloma – Spanish for ‘dove’

Panache – means ‘plume’, such as is worn on a hat or a helmet, but the reference is to King Henry IV of France

Pansy – from French pensee, ‘thought’

Pandemonium – means ‘all the demons’ in Greek. Described by Milton in Paradise Lost

Pandora – means ‘all gifted’

Panzer – means ‘armour’

Pannacotta – an Italian phrase which literally means ‘cooked cream’

Panorama – Greek for ‘all’ and ‘sight’. The word was originally coined by the Irish painter Robert Barker to describe his panoramic paintings of Edinburgh

Pantisocracy – meaning ‘equal government for all’ was a utopian scheme devised in 1794 by the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey for an egalitarian community

Pantomine – Greek for ‘all mimic’

Paparazzi – ‘mosquitoes’ (Italian). From a character in La Dolce Vita, by Fellini

Papier mache – French for ‘chewed-up paper’

Parachute – comes from ‘para’, meaning ‘against’ or ‘counter’ in Ancient Greek, and ‘chute’, the French word for ‘fall’

Paranoia – from Greek word for ‘madness’

Paraphernalia – from Greek for ‘property apart from a dowry’

Parasol – from Italian word

Par excellence – ‘pre-eminent’ (French)

Pariah – untouchable, social outcast (Anglo-Indian). Originally a Tamil tribe of drummers named after the Pari drum

Parlour – from French parler, ‘to speak’

Parole – French for ‘voice’ or ‘spoken word’

Parterre – means ‘on the ground’. In landscape gardening, a formal area of planting, usually square or rectangular

Parthenon – from Greek for ‘maiden’s chamber’

Pas de deux – French, ‘step/dance for two’, is a duet in which ballet dancers perform the dance together

El Paso – means ‘the pass’

Pasodoble (literal meaning in Spanish: double-step) is a typical Spanish march-like musical style as well as the corresponding dance style danced by a couple

Passe – ‘past’ (French)

Passer – as in Passeriformes, means ‘sparrow’

Passim – throughout, everywhere (Latin). Used in footnotes to show that an idea is referred to repeatedly at various points in the work being cited

Passion – Latin for ‘suffering’

Pasta – Italian for ‘dough’

Pasta puttanesca – tart’s spaghetti, In Italian, a puttanesca is a 'lady of the night'

Pastrami – derived from a Yiddish word

Pater Noster – the Lord's Prayer; so called from the first two words in the Latin version. Every tenth bead of a rosary is so called, because at that bead the Lord's Prayer is repeated

Pathemata mathemata – Greek for ‘one learns by suffering’

Patriarch – originally a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family

Patriarchy – means ‘the rule of the father’

Pavilion – from Latin for ‘butterfly’

Peccadillo – small sin (Spanish)

Pecora – Italian for ‘sheep’

Pedigree – French for ‘crane’s foot’, from the resemblance of a crane's foot to the claw-like branched lines of succession on a genealogical chart

Pelota – Spanish for ‘ball’

Pelvis –Latin word for ‘basin’

Penguin – derives from the Welsh words for ‘white’ and ‘head’

Peninsula – Latin for ‘almost’ and ‘island’

Penne – Latin for ‘feather’ or ‘quill pen’

Pentecost – from Greek for ‘fiftieth day’

Pepperoni – from Italian for ‘chili’

Perennial – (Latin per, ‘through’, annus, ‘year’)

Perfidious – one who does not keep his faith or word. From the Latin word perfidia

Per se – by, of itself

Pesto – means ‘to crush’. From the same Latin root as pestle

Petanque – from pieds tanques, or ‘stuck feet’

Petit four – French for ‘little oven’

Pharaoh – means ‘great house’

Phatic expression – one whose only function is to perform a social task, as opposed to conveying information, e.g. ‘you’re welcome’

Philadelphia – Greek for ‘brotherly love’

Philately – from French for ‘exemption from charges’

Philosopher – ‘lover of wisdom’

Phloem – Greek for ‘bark’

Phoebe – means ‘bright and shining’

Phosphorus – means ‘light bearing’ in Greek

Phrenology – from Greek for ‘mind’ and ‘knowledge’

Phylum – from Greek for ‘tribe’ or ‘race’

Phyte – suffix meaning ‘plant’

Pianoforte – Italian for ‘soft and loud’

Piccolo – Italian from ‘small’

Picro – prefix meaning ‘bitter’

Pidgin – a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common

Pied-a-terre – ‘foot on the ground’ (French)

Pied-Noir – means ‘black foot’, a term referring to French citizens of various origins who lived in French Algeria before independence

Piezoelectricity – derived from the Greek piezein, which means ‘to squeeze or press’

Pina colada – means ‘strained pineapple’ in Spanish

Pinot noir – from French for ‘black pine’

Pinxit – Latin for ‘painted’. Formerly put after the artist's name on a painting

Pistol – may be derived from a Czech word

Pistyll – Welsh for ‘waterfall’

Pita bread – means ‘cake’ or ‘pie’

Pius – means ‘dutiful’

Plage – French for ‘beach’

Plantagenet – named after a sprig of Planta genista (broom) that Geoffrey of Anjou adopted as a badge

Placebo – ‘I shall please’ (Latin). In the 17th century a placebo was a treatment given by a doctor purely to please a patient

Plastic – derived from the Greek plastikos meaning ‘capable of being shaped or moulded’

Poll tax – poll means ‘head’

Poltergeist – ‘noisy ghost’ (German)

Pomegranate – Latin for ‘apple’ and ‘full of seeds’

Pommel – Latin for ‘little apple’

Pontus – Greek: ‘sea’, is a historical Greek designation for a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in modern-day northeastern Turkey

Poodle – from German word meaning ‘to paddle’ or ‘splash’

Poppycock – from Dutch for ‘soft dung’

Porcelain – from Italian for ‘cowrie shell’, a slang term meaning ‘little piglet’

Porcupine – comes from Middle French porc d'épine ‘thorny pork’, hence the nickname ‘quill pig’ for the animal

Porphyria – from the Greek for ‘purple pigment’

Porpoise – from Latin for ‘pig and ‘fish’

Potlatch – a festival ceremony practiced by indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. The word comes from the Chinook Jargon, meaning ‘to give away’ or ‘a gift’

Prado – means ‘meadow’

Prairie – from Latin for ‘meadow’

Preston – means ‘priest town’

Pret-a-porter – ‘ready to wear’ (French)

Prima donna – ‘first lady’ (Italian)

Prima facie – ‘at first sight’

Prego – means ‘not at all’, ‘don’t mention it’

Premier cru – means ‘first growth’

Pro bono – ‘for good’ (Latin). Work that lawyers do without payment

Prometheus – means ‘forethought’

Propaganda – from the activity of ‘propagating’ the Catholic faith in non-Catholic countries

Pro rata – ‘in proportion’

Prostitute – derived from two Latin words meaning ‘to expose’ or ‘to place up front’

Protege – protected person, apprentice (French)

Protocol – comes from the Greek word protocollon, meaning ‘first glue’. It referred to a leaf glued to a manuscript which described its contents

Provdrish – Russian word meaning ‘comrade’

PS – post scriptum, ‘after writing’

Psephology – from Greek psephos, 'pebble', which the Greeks used as ballots

Pterodactyl – from the Greek for 'wing' and finger'

Pteron – Greek for ‘wing’

Puce – from French word for ‘flea’ (pulce)

Puerta – Spanish for ‘gate’

Puerto Rico – means ‘rich port’ in Spanish

Puissance – French for ‘power’

Pukka – cooked, ripe (Hindi, from ‘pakka’)

Pundit – or pandit, from Sanskrit for ‘learned man’

Punj means ‘five’ and aab means ‘water’, so Punjab means ‘five waters’

Purdah – curtain, veil (Hindi). Requires women to cover themselves with a veil and to be separated from male non-family members by a curtain

Putevki – state-sponsored mass holidays in Soviet Union

Pyjamas – ‘trousers’ (Persian)

Pyrite – from Greek for ‘fire’

QED – quod erat demonstrandum, ‘that which was to be demonstrated’

Quaero – Latin for ‘I search’. EU rival to Google

Quasi – ‘as if’ (Latin)

Quebec – from term in Algonquian meaning ‘straits’

Quid pro quo – ‘something for something’

Rabbi – Hebrew for ‘my master’ or ‘my teacher‘

Rabenmutters – German for ‘raven mothers’, mothers who work

Raccoon – Powhatan for ‘he scratches with his hands’

Raconteur – skilled storyteller (French)

Rafflesia – means ‘corpse flower’

Raison d’etre – ‘reason for being’ (French)

Raj – means ‘kingdom’ or ‘government’

Raja – Arabic for ‘hopefulness’

Rajput – from Sanskrit raja-putra, ‘son of a king’

Rappelling – abseiling (German: abseilen, ‘to rope down’)

Rapport – harmonious relationship (French)

Rara avis – ‘rare bird’. From Juvenal’s Satires: “a bird as rare upon the earth as a black swan”

Real – Spanish for ‘royal’

Recherche – rare, exotic, or obscure

Rechercher – French for ‘to look for’

Reductio ad absurdum – ‘reduction to the absurd’ (Latin). Proving a theorem to be correct by starting out with the opposite claim and showing that it leads to a ridiculous outcome

Reiki – ‘universal life energy’

Renaissance – French for ‘rebirth’

Repechage – (French: repêchage, lit. re-fishing), meaning ‘to rescue’ or ‘to save’

Res ipsa loquitor – ‘the thing speaks for itself’, meaning ‘It’s obvious, surely?’

Res gestae – Latin for ‘things done’

Retrousse – (used of noses) turned up at the end

Rhinoceros – means ‘nose horned’

Rhododendron – means ‘rose tree’ in Greek

Rickshaw – Japanese for ‘human-powered vehicle’

Ricotta – means ‘cooked again’

Riding – from an Old Norse word meaning ‘one-third’ (Yorkshire)

Rigor mortis – ‘stiffness of death’ (Latin)

Robot – Czech word meaning ‘forced labour’. The word robot was introduced by Czech writer Karel Capek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), published in 1920. The play begins in a factory that makes artificial people called robots

Rococo – a combination of the French rocaille, meaning ‘stone’, and coquilles, meaning ‘shell’, due to reliance on these objects as motifs of decoration

Rogation Day – from Latin for ‘to ask’

Roman a clef – French for ‘novel with a key’, is a novel about real life, overlaid with a facade of fiction

Rosemary – derives from the Latin for dew (ros) and sea (marinus), or ‘dew of the sea’

Rosh Hashanah – Jewish ‘head of the year’

Rota – Latin word meaning ‘wheel’

Rottweiler – named after a town in Germany (Rottweil)

Roue – debauched or lecherous man (French). From ‘rouer’, which means to break on a wheel or beat harshly

Rubaiyat – Persian for ‘quatrains’

Rucksack – back bag (German)

Ruth is derived from a Hebrew word meaning ‘compassion’

SA – Societe Anonyme, a corporation

Sabotage – from French word for ‘clog’

Sacred cow – means ‘above criticism’

Sacrilege – desecration, from ‘to purloin sacred objects’

Safari – Swahili word meaning ‘long journey’

Salaam – Muslim word for ‘peace’

Salami – Italian for ‘to salt’

Salsa – from Spanish for ‘sauce’

Samsung – Korean for ‘three stars’

Samurai – Japanese for ‘servant’ or ‘warrior’

Sangfroid – ‘cold blood’ (French)

Sanhedrin – a high court of justice in Roman Palestine, comes from a Greek word literally meaning 'sitting together' or 'assembly'

Sanpan – means ‘three planks’

Sans culottes – French for ‘without knee-breeches’, was a term created 1790–92 by the French to describe the poorer members of the Third Estate

Sans Souci – French for ‘without worries’

Santo Subito – chanted by crowds after the death of the pope. Means ‘sainthood now’

Sapienza – Italian for ‘wisdom’ or ‘knowledge’

Sarcophagus – from Greek for ‘flesh eating’

Sardar – a word of Indo-Iranian origin, was originally used to denote princes, noblemen, and other aristocrats

Sarong – ‘covering’ (Malay). Malay national garment

Sartorial – of or relating to a tailor, tailoring, or tailored clothing: sartorial elegance, (from Late Latin sartor, ‘tailor’)

Sasha – Russian equivalent name for Alexander

Sashimi – means ‘pierced flesh’

Sativum, Sativus, and Sativa – Latin botanical adjectives meaning ‘cultivated’, used to designate certain seed-grown domestic crops

Saudade – a Portuguese word which describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves

Saute – French for ‘jumped’

Savoir faire – ‘know how to do’ (French). First recorded by Walter Scott in his 1815 novel Guy Mannering. Shortened adjective is ‘savvy’

Scale – (musical) from Italian scala meaning ‘staircase’

Scapegoat – i.e. ‘escape-goat’, derives from the common English translation of the Hebrew term azazel

Sceptic – from Latin for ‘inquiring’

Schadenfreude – pleasure taken from another’s suffering (German)

Schizophrenia – from Greek for ‘split mind’

Schlep – Yiddish word meaning ‘drag, to carry with difficulty’

Schloss – German name for ‘castle’

Schmaltz – ‘rendered fat’ (Yiddish)

Schmooze – ‘converse casually’ (Yiddish)

Schmuck – ‘penis’ (Yiddish)

School – means ‘leisure’

Science – from the Latin scientia, meaning ‘knowledge’

Scirocco – from Arabic for ‘eastern’

Sclerosis – means ‘hardening’

Scree – from the Norse for ‘landslide’

Sculpture – from Latin for ‘to carve’

Scutum – Latin word for ‘shield’, although it has in modern times come to be associated with the rectangular, semi-cylindrical body shield carried by ancient Roman Legionnaires

Seance – from French for ‘to sit’

Seersucker – a thin, all-cotton fabric, commonly striped or checkered, used to make clothing for spring and summer wear. The word came into English from Hindustani (Urdu and Hindi), which originates from the Persian words for ‘milk and sugar’

Seig Heil – German for ‘hail victory’

Seine – from Celtic for ‘sacred river’

Semper fidelis – means ‘always faithful’

Seoul – means ‘capital city’

Sepia – Greek for ‘cuttlefish’

Seppuku – formal name for Japanese ritual suicide

Septicemia – blood poisoning. Means ‘rotton blood’

Serpent – from Latin for ‘to creep’

Shamen – priest (Russian / Evenki)

Shampoo – from Hindi word meaning ‘to squeeze or massage’

Sharia – means ‘the road to the watering hole’

Sharif – Arabic for ‘noble’ or ‘highborn’

Sheikh – Arabic for ‘old man’

Shia – ‘followers of Ali’

Shiatsu – from the Japanese for ‘finger pressure’

Shibboleth – any distinguishing practice that is indicative of one's social or regional origin. From the Hebrew word which literally means the part of a plant containing grains

Shimbun – Japanese for ‘newspaper’

Shinto – means ‘the way of the Gods’

Shih Tzu – from the Chinese word for ‘lion dog’

Shish – means ‘skewer’

Shisha – Arabic term for the water pipe, or hookah

Shoah – Hebrew word for ‘holocaust’

Shogun – Japanese for a ‘general’

Shrine – Latin for ‘case or chest for books or papers’

Siberia – means ‘sleeping land’ in Turkic

Sibyl – from the Greek for ‘prophetess’

Sic – thus, in such a way (Latin). Used in publishing to indicate a misspelling or unconventional use of a word

Sichuan – means ‘four circuits of rivers’

Sic transit gloria mundi – Latin phrase that means ‘Thus passes the glory of the world’

Sideros – Greek for ‘iron’

Sierra Leone – means ‘Lion Mountain’

Silhouette – derives from the name of Étienne de Silhouette, a French finance minister who became synonymous with anything made cheaply and so with these outline portraits

Simba – Swahili for ‘lion’

Sinecure – (from Latin sine ‘without’ and cura ‘care’) means an office that requires or involves little or no responsibility, labour, or active service

Sinead – equivalent of Janet

Sine die – Latin for ‘without day’. To adjourn an assembly sine die is to adjourn it for an indefinite period

Sine qua non – ‘without which nothing’. An essential requirement. First used by Aristotle to describe a legal condition that could not be done without

Sinn Fein – ‘ourselves alone’

Sirius – from Greek for ‘scorching’

Skol – ‘cheers’. Danish skaal ‘bowl’, from Old Norse skal

Slalom – means ‘sloping track’

Slapstick –from the Italian word batacchio or bataccio – called the "slap stick" in English – a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in commedia dell'arte

Smorgasbord – Swedish word: from smörgås ‘open sandwich’ and bord ‘table’

Snob – old word for ‘cobbler’

Soccer – derived from the word ‘association’

Solstice – means ‘sun stands still’

Sombrero – from Spanish for ‘shade’

Somme – from Celtic word for ‘tranquility’

Sophist – from Greek for ‘wise’ or ‘wisdom’

Sophomore – US student in second year. Greek for ‘wise’ and ‘foolish’

Souffle – French for ‘blow up’ or ‘puff up’

Spaghetti – ‘thin strings’

Spago – Italian word for ‘string’

Specchio – Italian for ‘mirror’

Spiel – a play or game (German)

Sphinx – Arabic name Abu al-Hol, means ‘father of terror’

Spiegel – German for ‘mirror’

Sputnik – means ‘fellow traveler’

Sotto voce – means ‘speaking quietly’

Soubriquet – from ‘tap under the chin’

Sour grapes – from the fable The Fox and the Grapes by Aesop

Spiritus mundi – soul, spirit of the world (Latin). Coined by astrologer Agrippa von Nettseheim, who used it as a label for the spirit element that he believed permeated the whole world

Spruce – from Old French Pruce, the name of Prussia

Squirrel – from Greek for ‘shade tail’

Sri Lanka – means ‘resplendent Island’

SsangYong – means ‘double dragons’

Stabat mater – means ‘the mother was standing’

Stadium – from the Greek ‘stade’, a unit of length equal to about 607 feet

Stalag Luft – Stammlager Luft, or Permanent Camp for Airmen

Stanza – Italian for ‘stopping point’

Status Quo – means ‘the current state of affairs’. Shortened from ‘status quo ante bellum’, meaning ‘the state in which things were before the war’

Stegosaurus – means ‘roof lizard’

Stephen – from Greek for ‘crown’

Stet – ‘let it stand’

Stiletto – named after a dagger

Stoichiometry – from Greek for ‘element’ and ‘measure’

Strandkorb – German, ‘beach basket’) is a special chair designed to provide comfort and protection from sun, wind, rain, and sand on beaches

Strategy – from Greek word meaning ‘generalship’

Strath – means valley, e.g. Strathclyde

Stratosphere – from the Latin stratus, meaning 'a spreading out' and sphaira meaning 'ball'

Strudel – German word for ‘whirlpool’

Sub judice – Latin for ‘under judgment’

Subpoena – means ‘under penalty’. A witness summons

Sub rosa – literally ‘under the rose’, meaning ‘in secret’, from the Roman habit of hanging a rose over a council table to indicate that all present were sworn to secrecy

Sudoku – means ‘single number’

Suede leather – from Scandinavian name for Sweden

Sultan – from Arabic for ‘strength’ and ‘authority’

Summa cum laude – Latin for ‘with highest honour’

Suo jure – means ‘in her own right’

Supercilious – from Latin for ‘eyebrow’

Sushi – Japanese for ‘it is sour’

Sussex – from Old English for ‘South Saxons’

Sybarite – synonymous with pleasure and luxury. From the Greek town Sybaris in Italy

Sycophant – from Ancient Greek for ‘fig shower’. The gesture of ‘showing the fig’ was a vulgar one

Synagogue – means ‘meeting and bring together’ or ‘assembly’

Syrinx – Greek for ‘pan pipes’

Tabby – comes from French tabis, and in Medieval Latin attabi. The initial origin of the word seems to be from the Attabiyah section of Baghdad where a type of striped silk was made that was later used to describe cats

Table d’hote – French for ‘the host’s table‘

Taboo – from the Tongan for ‘unclean’

Tabula Rasa – Latin for ‘blank slate’

Tabularium – Latin name for a public records office or registry

Tacitus – means ‘silent’

Taco – from Mexican for ‘plug’

Tactics – from Greek for ‘fit for arranging’

Taekwondo – ‘the way of the foot and fist’ or ‘the way of kicking and punching’

Taffeta – Persian for ‘twisted woven’

Taikonaut – astronaut from China. Named after taikong, the Chinese word for ‘space’

Taliban – means ‘student’

Tambour – French for ‘drum’

Tansy – Greek for ‘immortality’. Type of herb

Tapas – derived from the Spanish verb tapar, ‘to cover’

Tarantula – named after a town in Italy (Taranto)

Tashkent – means ‘stone city’

Tattoo – Polynesian word

Taupe – a dark grayish brown or brownish gray. It takes its name from the French word for ‘mole’

Tawdry – from an annual fare held in the name of St. Awdrey, in Ely

Tele – prefix meaning ‘distant’

Telematics – a portmanteau of the words ‘telecommunications’ and ‘informatics’. Used in vehicle tracking

Telephone – Greek for ‘far voice’ or ‘distant sound’

Television – ‘far seeing’

Temet nosce – ‘know thyself’ (Latin). You must first understand yourself before you can understand others. Inscribed at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Used by the character of the Oracle in The Matrix

Tempo – Italian for ‘time’

Tempus maximus frequentio – means ‘rush hour’

Tenor – from Latin tenere, ‘to hold’. Tenor was the ‘holding’ voice

Terra – Latin for ‘the Earth’

Terra firma – ‘solid ground’. Part of Italy governed by Venice

Tetragrammaton – from Greek meaning ‘[a word] having four letters’ refers to the name of the God of Israel YHWH used in the Hebrew Bible

Theosophy – a ‘body of truth’ that forms the basis of all religions

Thesaurus means ‘store house’

Thug – thief (Hindi)

Thyroid – from Greek for ‘shield’

Tia – Spanish for ‘aunt’

Tian Shan – Chinese for ‘celestial mountains’

Teide – on Tenerife, means ‘white mountain’

Tika – or tilak or tilaka, religious symbol worn on forehead by Hindu men and women, means ‘third eye’

Tiramisu – Italian for ‘pick me up’

Toccata – from Italian toccare, ‘to touch’

Tofu – Japanese for ‘rotten beans’

Tokamak – transliteration of a Russian word. Acronym of toroidal chamber with magnetic coils

Tokyo – means ‘eastern capital’

Tom Foolery – named after Tom the Fool from Muncaster Castle

Tomography – derived from the Greek tomos (slice) and graphein (to write)

Topolino – Micky Mouse, in Italy

Tora bora – means ‘black cellar’

Torc – also spelled torq or torque, is a rigid circular neck ring or necklace that is open-ended at the front. The word comes from Latin torques, from torqueo, ‘to twist’, because of the twisted shape of the collar

Torpedo – comes from a genus of electric rays in the order Torpediniformes, which in turn comes from the Latin torpere (to be ‘stiff’ or ‘numb’)

Tort – French for ‘wrong’, a civil wrong

Tortellini – Italian for ‘little cake’

Tortilla – from Spanish for ‘little cake’

Tour de force – ‘feat of strength’ (French)

Tout de suite – ‘at once’ (French)

Trampoline – from the Spanish trampolín, meaning ‘a diving board’

Trattoria – from French traiter, meaning ‘to treat’

Trek – ‘long journey’ (Arrikaans)

Trivia – from the Latin for ‘crossroads’

Trombone – French for ‘paper clip’

Troposphere – from the Greek: tropos for ‘turning’ or ‘mixing’

Tsar – ‘emperor’ (Russian)

Tsunami – means ‘harbour wave’

Tulip – from Turkish for ‘turban’

Tundra – from Russian for ‘treeless mountains’

Tungsten – Swedish for ‘heavy stone’

Tutankhamun – means ‘Living Image of Amun’

Tutankhaten – means ‘Living Image of Aten’

Tutu – from French for ‘buttocks’

Tycoon – derived from the Japanese word taikun, taikun, which means ‘great lord’, and was used as a title for the shogun. Brought to the west by Matthew Perry in 1854

Tyrannosaurus Rex – means ‘tyrant lizard king’

U and non-U – U means ‘upper’

Ubermensch – ‘superman’ (German). First used by Nietzsche in Thus Spake Zarathrustra

Uhuru – Swahili for ‘freedom’

Ukulele – from Hawaiian for ‘jumping flea’

Ulan Bator – means ‘red hero’

Uluru – means ‘great pebble’

Urbi et Orbi – ‘to the City [of Rome] and to the World’

Ushanka – Russian for ‘ear hat’

Utopia – Greek for ‘no place’

V1 / V2 bombs – V stood for Vengeance

Vade mecum – ‘go with me’ (Latin). A manual carried by physicians, astrologers or parsons filled with references and calculation aids

Vampire – ‘a nocturnal reanimated corpse’

Vanilla – Spanish for ‘little pod’

Varsovian – of or pertaining to Warsaw or its inhabitants

Velcro – a portmanteau of the two French words velours (‘velvet’), and crochet (‘hook’)

Veld – from the Afrikaans word for 'field'

Velociraptor – means ‘speedy thief’

Vendetta – blood feud. – Italian for ‘revenge’

Venezuela – means ‘little Venice’. Named by Christopher Columbus

Veni, vidi, vici – ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’ is a Latin sentence written by Julius Caesar in 47 BC as a comment on the war with Pharnaces II of Pontus in the city of Zela

Ventriloquism – from Latin for ‘belly’ and ‘speaking’

Verbatim – ‘word for word’ (Latin). The full phrase ‘verbatim et literatim’ means ‘word for word and letter for letter’

Verboten – ‘forbidden’ (German)

Verbum satis sapienti –‘ a word is enough for the wise’ (Latin). Means ‘enough said’

Vertere – means ‘to turn’, as in vertigo, advertisement (turn towards)

Veto – from Latin for ‘I forbid’

Vetus Testamentum – Latin phrase for the Old Testament

Vice versa – ‘the other way round’

Videlicet (Viz) – ‘namely’. Term used in a text to advise the reader that what follows provides more detail about the preceding statement

Vignette – from the same root as vine, originally referred to a decorative border in a book

Viking – means ‘pirate’ or ‘expedition’

Vinculum – Latin for ‘bond’, ‘fetter’, ‘chain’, or ‘tie’

Vindaloo – from Portuguese for ‘wine’ and ‘garlic’

Vinegar – French for ‘sour wine’

Vinland – has been interpreted in two ways: traditionally as Vínland (‘wine-land’) and more recently as Vinland (‘meadow- or pasture-land’)

Virus – from Latin for ‘poison’

Vis-a-vis – ‘face to face’ (French). Means ‘regarding’

Viva voce – oral exam in university. Latin for ‘live voice’

Vladivostok means ‘ruler of the east’

Vodka means ‘little water’

Voila – ‘see there’ (French)

Voile – French for ‘veil’

Vol au Vent – French for ‘flight in the wind’

Volvo – Latin for ‘I roll’

Von – German prefix meaning ‘nobleman’

Vox populi – ‘voice of the people’ (Latin). Reduced version of ‘vox poluli, vox dei’, meaning ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God’

Wagga Wagga means ‘place of many crows’

Walnut – means ‘foreign nut’

Waltz – German word for ‘revolve’

Weald – Old English for ‘forest’

Weimaraner – named after a town in Germany (Weimar)

Wich and wych are names used to denote brine springs or wells

Worsted – name derives from the village of Worstead in the county of Norfolk

Wrasse – via Cornish from the Welsh word gwrach meaning an ‘old woman’ or ‘hag’

Wunderkind – ‘wonder child’ (German)

Wyvern – from Latin for ‘viper’

Xenophobia – Greek for ‘stranger fear’

Xyl- and Xylo- – objects derived from wood

Yacht – from Dutch for ‘hunt’ or ‘chase’

Yardang – Turkish origin, meaning ‘steep bank’

Yin and Yang – balance of opposites (Chinese). Yin denotes negative, dark, calm and feminine qualities. Yang denotes positive, bright, fiery and masculine qualities

Yogurt – Turkish word

Yokozuna – means ‘horizontal rope’

Yoyo – means ‘return’ in Filipino

Yukon – means ‘great river’

Yugo (as in Yugoslavia) – means ‘south’

Zany – from Italian zanni, a traditional masked clown

Zapata – Spanish for ‘shoe’

Zeitgeist – ‘spirit of the age’

Zodiac means ‘circle of animals’

Zoe – means ‘life’ in Greek

Zoo – from Greek zoion meaning ‘animal’

Zorro – means ‘fox’ in Spanish