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I love the online etymology dictionary.
May. 2nd, 2014 11:05 pmI had looked up "drench" the other day because it really is a funny looking word, isn't it? And I found out that, historically, it's the causative of "drink". (Well, except we don't do causatives like that now, so it isn't, but it was. Except neither word was the same then.)
And then today I think "wait, is quench also a causative?" and the answer is yes, but we don't have the other I word anymore, though it looks like Frisian does.
One of the nifty things about the site is that you can type in a word, and it will show you entries with that word. So if I to look for all frequentatives, or all causatives, I just type "frequentative" or whatever and I get a list.
Which is how I found this entry:
Old English bendan "to bend a bow; confine with a string, fetter," causative of bindan "to bind," from Proto-Germanic base *band- "string, band" (cognates: Old Norse benda "to join, strain, strive, bend"), from PIE root *bhendh- "to bind" (cognates: Gothic bindan, Old High German bintan, Sanskrit badhnati "binds," Lithuanian bendras "partner;" Old Persian bandaka- "subject").
Modern sense (early 14c.) is via notion of bending a bow to string it. Cognate with band, bind, and bond. Related: Bended; bent; bending.
Do you know, I never bothered to look it up but the similarity between those words always has nagged at me?
It really is a great resource whenever you feel the urgent need to find the etymology of some word right now and don't want to log into the other OED.
And then today I think "wait, is quench also a causative?" and the answer is yes, but we don't have the other I word anymore, though it looks like Frisian does.
One of the nifty things about the site is that you can type in a word, and it will show you entries with that word. So if I to look for all frequentatives, or all causatives, I just type "frequentative" or whatever and I get a list.
Which is how I found this entry:
Old English bendan "to bend a bow; confine with a string, fetter," causative of bindan "to bind," from Proto-Germanic base *band- "string, band" (cognates: Old Norse benda "to join, strain, strive, bend"), from PIE root *bhendh- "to bind" (cognates: Gothic bindan, Old High German bintan, Sanskrit badhnati "binds," Lithuanian bendras "partner;" Old Persian bandaka- "subject").
Modern sense (early 14c.) is via notion of bending a bow to string it. Cognate with band, bind, and bond. Related: Bended; bent; bending.
Do you know, I never bothered to look it up but the similarity between those words always has nagged at me?
It really is a great resource whenever you feel the urgent need to find the etymology of some word right now and don't want to log into the other OED.
