Today, we’re looking at a bunch of words that mean things
for hot. Because I’m still dreaming of my vacation and don’t really want to put
much thought into anything.
Just eight days left, people.
Hot
Hot comes from the Old English hat, which is just hot and not something you put on your head.
Earlier, it’s the Proto Germanic haita and even earlier the Proto Indo European kai-, heat. And yeah, that’s where heat comes from, too. No word on why we had to get rid of the K, but it’s probably for the best. Can
you imagine if hot and cold both started with the same sound? That…actually
sounds like something that would happen.
Warm
Warm can be both a verb and an adjective, and although the
two are related, they come from slightly different places. The adjective is from the Old English wearm,
(same meaning as ours) while the verb is
from wyrman (also just warm), and over the years they just turned into the same word. But as to where they came from before, no one knows for sure. It might
be from the Proto Indo European gwher-,
which means heat or warm and is the source of those words in several other
languages, or it could be from the Old Church Slavonic (the ancestor of Slavic languages, like Russian) goriti, which also turned into several
different heat related words. Or it could be from something else entirely
because sometimes no one knows anything about anything.
Burn
Burn actually has a date on it, having showed up in the
twelfth century.
Before it was burn, it was the Old English bryne—yes,
the r came first! Bryne actually comes
from three distinct words, baernan
(to kindle) and beornan (on fire)
from Old English and the Old Norse brenna, to burn. I guess when you
have three words with similar meanings and spellings, you might as well mash
them together. All those words actually come from the Proto Germanic brennan/brannjan, which in turn comes
from the Proto Indo European ghwer-.
So burn comes from the word for heat/warm, but not warm? What the hell…
Anyway, that’s it for today. More etymology next week! I can
tell you’re excited.
Sources
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English