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Koka's Word Origins Quiz

time limit:t < 10 min - Developed by: Koka - Developed on: 2002-03-15 - 4,996 taken - User Rating: 4,5 of 5 - 10 Votes

Koka's Word Origins Quiz

You may have a large vocabulary, but do you know where those words come from?

Question 1:

OK - 19th century

	Spanish word 'que' was misunderstood and phonetically spelled as 'O-K'
	stands for 'old kinder', or 'old child', meaning immature and gradually changed in meaning over time
	stands for 'orl korrect', phonetic spelling of 'all correct'

Question 2:

husband - Old English

	derived from the words for 'house' and 'bound' - a derogatory term for a lazy, unemployed man
	originally used to describe the binding that was used in marriage ceremonies, it applied to both the bride and groom
	originally meant 'master of a household', borrowed from Old Norse 'husbondi', a compound formed from 'hus' (house) and 'bondi' (dweller)

Question 3:

church - Old English

	derived from the word originally used for 'chair', it referred to the seats that Christians sat on in meeting houses
	originally 'sherok', it meant 'sacred house'
	'Lord's house', originally from the Greek 'kurios' (lord, master)

Question 4:

hypocrite - 13th century

	'actor', from Old French 'ypocrite' and late Latin 'hypocrita'
	from Latin, 'hypo' (under) and 'critos' (cut), meaning to 'undercut' one's beliefs
	named for the Greek playwright Hypocritia, who killed her husband after he discovered her numerous affairs

Question 5:

female - 14th century

	from Latin 'fey' (to fear) and Old English 'masle' (male), which signifies that the female is to fear the male
	originally derived from Old English derivation of Latin 'familiarus' (family)
	Latin 'femella', a diminutive form of 'femina' (woman), which was a derivative of Latin 'felare' (suck), which signified 'person from whom milk is sucked'

Question 6:

fart - Old English

	derived from 'farthing', an Old English coin name
	from the Old English 'fyrhto' (fear)
	goes back to a prehistoric Indo-European 'perd', which may originally have been an imitation of the sound of a fart

Question 7:

chocolate - 17th century

	comes from the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs; 'xocolatl' from 'xococ' (bitter) and 'atl' (water)
	from Old Northern French 'choque' (lumps of wood) and 'laete' (light tea), because they thought of it as a tea that came from wood
	from the Old English word 'ceoce' (choke)

Question 8:

soccer - 19th century

	originally spelled 'socker', because it was first played without shoes
	from 'Association football', introduced around 1870 for football played according to the rules of the Football Association
	named after John Absocci, and Italian-Englishman who became fascinated with football when he visited America

Question 9:

pretty - Old English

	originated in Old English; 'clever' in a bad sense - crafty, or cunning
	originally meant 'very'; 'pretty handsome', used to describe both sexes, became simply 'pretty' to describe feminine things
	comes from the Dutch word 'prik', which is now 'prick'; began being used as an adjective 'prikty'

Question 10:

god - Old English

	evolved directly from 'good'
	derived from German 'gold', Dutch 'goud', and Swedish and Danish 'guld', all words for 'gold'
	thought to come from Indo-European 'ghut', related to Sanskrit 'havate' and Old Church Slavonic 'zovetu', both meaning 'that which is invoked'

This Quiz has been designed by Koka.