Etymology is the study of the origins of words and how their meanings have changed

over time. Consider the word "etymology" as an example. The term "etymology" derives
from the Greek word etumos, which means "true." Etumologia was the study of words'
"true meanings," which evolved into "etymology" via the Old French ethimologie. That's
all fairly obvious, but there is a plethora of words in the English language with
unexpected and fascinating origins. Here are just a few of our favorites.

A definition explains what a word means and how it is used today. An etymology tells us
where a word came from (often from another language, but not always) and what it
used to mean. The definition of disaster, for example, according to The American
Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, is "an occurrence causing widespread
destruction and distress; a catastrophe" or "a grave misfortune." However, the
etymology of the word disaster dates back to a time when people commonly blamed
great misfortunes on the influence of the stars.

The word disaster first appeared in English in the late 16th century, just in time for
Shakespeare to use it in his play King Lear. It came from the Old Italian word disastro,
which meant "unfavorable to one's stars." This older, astrological sense of disaster
becomes clearer when we look at its Latin root word, astrum, which appears in our
modern "star" word astronomy. The word (in Latin, Old Italian, and Middle French)
conveyed the idea that a disaster could be traced back to the "evil influence of a star or
planet" by adding the negative Latin prefix dis- ("apart") (a definition that the dictionary
tells us is now "obsolete").