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It's actually amazingly simple. To raise > to raise up from its place > to remove > to destroy by removing > to destroy The visual metaphor here is astounding: imagine you want to topple a temple. W …

The last line is most telling -- it's backwards! Securus doesn't mean making something else safe, but rather it is the outcome of being made safe. Likewise, if something is securus, it's not that othe …

Is there a currently accepted etymology for the name Otho? Lewis and Short suggest it comes from the Greek Ὄθων, which I suppose they mean comes from ὄθομαι, but how good is that suggestion? … For what it's worth, the OLD doesn't have an etymology for it. …

Despite the apparent naturalness for deriving pontifex from pons, pontis, we're not so sure that's the right etymology. … He concludes by presenting Sanskrit and Avestan evidence for "paths to the gods" and decides on that etymology. …

"Believe again" is actually not very well translated. re- chiefly has the meaning of "back" (cf. retro), so "take back one's pledge" does indeed seem accurate. The "again" here is sloppiness on the ed …

Ēmunctē is the adverbial form of the past passive participle ēmunctus, -a, -um, from the verb ēmungere, meaning "to wipe mucus from one's nose." The initial e- is the prefix "ex", which is where the v …

The OLD and De Vaan both list the etymology of īlex (gen. īlicis) as unknown. There is also an adjective īlignus/īligneus, which De Vaan says "reflects *īliknos < pre-syncope *īlik-ino-s." …

It's pure coincidence. The base word is fero, ferre ("I bring, to bring"), but in the past tense it's tuli ("I brought") and the past participle is latus ("brought"). If the word looks a bit weird, it …

No, these are from different roots. I take all this from Wiktionary, but I checked De Vaan, too, to ensure accuracy. oculus From Proto-Italic *okʷelos, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃ókʷ-, *h₃ekʷ- (“eye …

As far as I can tell, this iugis (iugiter is the adverbial form) has no descendents in English. The closest we get in contemporary English is hygiene, from the Greek ὑγιής, which is cognate to it. Mid …

I think the origins make more sense if you don't restrict the meaning. If you check Lewis and Short, you'll see that monstro means: to show, point out, to indicate, intimate, inform, advise, teach, i …

I want to start off by acknowledging that this is tendentious speculation, but I cannot say for sure why it might be wrong, except that I cannot create a clear trajectory for this relationship. Is the …

Urina is actually a euphemism, although how old is that euphemism is up for debate. The root of urina is a variant of the Proto-Indo-European we-r-, which Etymonline summarizes nicely: *ur- varian …

That "U" is probably a "D": rem ordine pando. This is a quote from Vergil's Aeneid 3.179 and means "I explained the whole thing [i.e. the whole story] in order."

From Etymonline: late 13c., auys "opinion," from Old French avis "opinion, view, judgment, idea" (13c.), from phrase ço m'est à vis "it seems to me," or from Vulgar Latin *mi est visum "in my view," …