weird

I had to doublecheck this hasn’t featured as a word of the week before, as it’s a really common adjective (describing word) with an interesting backstory. Amazingly, it hasn’t, so hang on to your (witch’s) hats…

You know what ‘weird’ means. And it turns out people have been being weird for a bloody long time – it first appeared in the 700s as the Old English noun, ‘wyrd’. The word ‘noun’ is the important thing here (a noun being a person, place or thing). Rather than using ‘wyrd’ to describe someone or something like we do today, you’d talk about ‘their wyrd’, meaning the path their life would take: what lay ahead of them and how that might unfold. That’s because at this point it meant ‘fate’ or ‘destiny’. So you could say ‘Her wyrd was to carry on coming up with words of the week’.

Fast forward a few centuries to the 1100s, and the English language was changing fast. For a start, we were all ooh-la-laaing a lot more after the Norman Conquest. And as monastic scribes who were familiar with our Old English spelling system died, the French-trained ones who replaced them didn’t know what to do with all our wyrd spellings. So they started writing them the way they sounded (gasp! Although clearly that didn’t stick). That’s when ‘wyrd’ began to shift. Because it was pronounced with a long ‘ee’ sound, people started spelling it as ‘werd’, ‘weyrd’ and, finally, ‘weird’. At the same time, the noun version was slowly disappearing from everyday speech, and being replaced with an adjective that meant something like ‘linked to fate’.

In the 1600s, our old friend Shakespeare locked in the new spelling and adjectival use when he called the witches in ‘Macbeth’ ‘the weird sisters’. That still didn’t mean odd at this point though – he was using it with its old meaning of ‘tied to destiny’. But because the witches’ scenes were eerie and unsettling, and full of toil and trouble and thumb pricking, the word picked up that mood. Over the next couple of centuries, it shifted from ‘fate-related’ to ‘supernatural’, and then to the softer, everyday sense of ‘strange’ or ‘unusual’ that we use now.

Warning: contains someone puking up a baby’s finger. Shakespeare is WILD.

urchin

When you hear the word ‘urchin’, you probably picture a scruffy Victorian street kid saying ‘Please sir, can I have some more?’. But, did you know that the OG urchin had prickles rather than pickpocketing skills? Yep, in Middle English, ‘urchin’ meant ‘hedgehog’. It appears in writing as ‘yrchoun’ or ‘irchoun’, which we borrowed from an Old French word, ‘herichon’. That came from the Latin word for hedgehog, ‘ericius’. That Latin root is also linked to the Proto-Indo-European word ‘ghers-’, which means ‘to bristle’. That’s also where we get ‘horror’ from, which literally means ‘a bristling of the hair’.

From ‘hedgehog’, ‘urchin’ did what words (and Victorian pickpockets, probably) love to do – it wandered. In the 1500s, people started using it figuratively for anyone or anything small, mischievous or misshapen, including hunchbacks, women of bad reputation (rolls eyes), and even goblins and elves. Shakespeare mentions ‘urchin-shows’ in ‘The Tempest’, which refers to the ghostly or spirit-like apparitions that Prospero sends to haunt Caliban:

‘His spirits hear me,
And yet I needs must curse. But they’ll nor pinch,
Fright me with urchin-shows, pitch me i’ th’ mire,
Nor lead me like a firebrand in the dark
Out of my way, unless he bid ’em.’

It wasn’t long before those meanings of small, ragged, impish and half-wild started to blur together, and the word ‘urchin’ began being applied to children who fit the same image. By the 18th to 19th centuries ‘street urchin’ had become a familiar phrase, especially in urban contexts. Here it is in Dickens’ ‘The Pickwick Papers’:

‘Gabriel had been looking forward to reaching the dark lane, because it was, generally speaking, a nice, gloomy, mournful place … he was not a little indignant to hear a young urchin roaring out some jolly song about a merry Christmas, in this very sanctuary …’

Another urchin also appeared in the 1500s, this time in the sea. This is when the phrase ‘sea urchin’ cropped up, when English speakers spotted those spiky little sea creatures and thought, essentially, ‘there’s an underwater hedgehog’. The link’s completely visual: same shape and same spines, just wetter. Well, kinda.

I trod on a sea urchin on holiday when I was younger, and got a few of its spines lodged in my foot. The locals told me to pee on it, and I still don’t know if that was good advice or just them taking the piss out of the tourists. I’ll leave it up to your imagination as to whether I did or not, but let’s just say I flew home without any sea urchin spines in my foot.

rankle

If something rankles, it irritates you in a way that really gets under your skin. Like neighbours who leave their bins out for a week, people who eat loudly or drivers who don’t park at the back of the box on a street with very limited parking (that last one might just be me). It’s an annoyance that lingers, festers and keeps you muttering to yourself. And maybe sneaking out in the middle of the night to leave a rude note on someone’s windscreen.

‘Rankle’s etymology is quite literal – it came into English from an Old French word, ‘draoncle’, which meant ‘boil’ or ‘festering sore’. Lovely. That comes from a Latin word, dracunculus, which is less gross – it means ‘little serpent’ or ‘little dragon’ (and would have been an ace name for one of the Game of Thrones dragons).

So how did we get from serpents to sores? Well, in the ancient world, apparently people thought some ulcers looked like wriggling little snakes under the skin. I’m not googling this to check though.

When ‘rankle’ first slithered into English in the 14th century as ‘ranclen’, it was all about wounds festering away. Then, over the next couple of centuries, writers started using it in the figurative sense for feelings that behave like sores that refuse to heal. Shakespeare was of course leading the pack, using it as a metaphor for an emotional condition in Richard II:

‘Fell sorrow’s tooth doth never rankle more

Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.’

Thanks to our Will, and others like him, when something rankles today, there’s no pus involved. And ‘no pus involved’ is always a good thing, right?

set

If you had to guess the English word with the most meanings, what would you go for? Okay, so there’s a bit of a spoiler in the heading – it is, obviously, ‘set’. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, ‘set’ has more definitions than any other word in English – over 430 (WHAT) across nouns, verbs and adjectives. That’s a lot of heavy lifting for one little three-letter word.

Here it is showing off just some of those meanings:

• as a verb: you can set the table, set your alarm, set off fireworks or set a bone

• as a noun: you can own a set of tools, perform on a film set, play a set in tennis or study a data set

• as an adjective: you can have set beliefs, a set routine or a set expression on your face.

So how did that happen? Well, laziness, it seems. It’s much easier to adapt an existing word than come up with a new one (unless you’re Dickens, Carroll or Milton). ‘Set’ didn’t start out doing all that work though. It comes from the Old English verb ‘settan’ which was usually used to mean ‘to cause to sit or place something’. But even then people were stretching it to other things. Here’s a brief timeline of what happened next…

• by the mid‑13th century, ‘set’ could mean ‘make or cause to do, act, or be; start or bring to a certain state’ (e.g. ‘set something on fire’, ‘set in order’) and also, randomly, ‘mount a gemstone’

• by around 1300, it also meant things like ‘determine upon, resolve’ (as in ‘I’m set against setting that shoddy gemstone’)

• by the late 14th century, it had also taken on the meaning of ‘make a table ready for a meal’ and ‘regulate or adjust by a standard’ (like setting a clock)

• after that, it all went nuts and loads of other uses followed in printing, music, medicine and many more, including idioms like ‘but I’ve set my heart on that shoddy gemstone’.

The adjective version has been around a while too. In late Old English (spoken from 900–1100ish), ‘set’ meant something like ‘appointed or prescribed beforehand’, eventually shifting to ‘fixed, immovable, definite’ and later ‘ready’.

As a noun, it came about a bit later – around the mid‑15th century. Then it was linked to ‘religious sect’. Later, around Shakespeare’s time (the 16th century), it came to mean ‘collection of matching things’ (like a tea set, for example).

I asked ChatGPT for a sentence that uses lots of different meanings of set, and here’s what it came up with (deep breath):

Yesterday I set my alarm too early, so I set my feet on the cold floor and set off down the hall, only to find the builders had set ladders against the wall, while the decorator had set about painting the ceiling; in the kitchen I set a pan of milk to warm, then set the table with a breakfast set, but before eating I set my phone to silent, set my watch by the radio pips, and set my mind to solving the crossword, until the dog set up a racket at the postman, who was trying to deliver a boxed chess set, which reminded me to set aside time later to meet friends for a set at the tennis club, though I feared the rain clouds already set in would set back our plans, so I set down my pen, set my heart on baking instead, and left the cake mixture on the side to set.

That squeezes in 20 meanings of ‘set’ which are (assuming there’s anyone still reading this):

1. set = adjust/alarm

2. set = place (feet on floor)

3. set off = depart

4. set = position/prop (ladders)

5. set about = begin/attack task

6. set = put to cook (pan)

7. set the table = prepare for meal

8. set (noun) = group of items (breakfast set)

9. set to silent = adjust/arrange

10. set watch = regulate/adjust

11. set one’s mind = focus

12. set up = cause to make a noise

13. set (noun) = boxed collection (chess set)

14. set aside = reserve

15. set (noun) = a tennis sequence of games

16. set in = begin (weather)

17. set back = delay

18. set down = put in writing

19. set one’s heart on = desire

20. set (of jelly/cake) = solidify

I’m off for a lie down now.

aspersion

Aspersions are critical or mean remarks about someone. They’re almost always ‘cast’, and usually a bit sneaky. But do you actually know what an aspersion is? Nope, me neither.

‘Aspersion’ actually has surprisingly saintly roots. It comes from the Latin ‘aspergere’, which means ‘to sprinkle’ or ‘to scatter’ (see also, ‘disperse’ and ‘intersperse’). In ye olde church services, priests would sprinkle holy water over the congregation – a ritual called, you’ve guessed it, an aspersion.

An AI-generated picture of people casting aspersions on each other

In print, one of the earliest known uses of ‘aspersion’ (in that blessing sense) appears in John Foxe’s 1570 translation of Actes and Monuments, a work of Protestant history and martyrology (sounds like a banger). The exact phrase is ‘the aspersion of the blood of Jesus Christ’. I’m pretty sure this isn’t literal (I hope so, at least – the dry cleaning bills would be a bitch).

You can also find this use of ‘aspersion’ in Shakespeare’s The Tempest:

‘No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall / To make this contract grow.’

So how did we get from a light dousing of holy water to someone suggesting you’re morally bankrupt? Well, by the late 16th century, the OED and other sources record the word shifting meaning. It picked up a figurative use as a ‘bespattering with slander, derogatory criticism’ in the 1590s, losing its literal connection to holy water. By 1749 it was firmly in the negative, as shown in this quote from Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones:

‘… for I defy all the world to cast a just aspersion on my character: nay, the most scandalous tongues have never dared censure my reputation.’

Are aspersions always plural? No, they can be singular – ‘an aspersion was made against me’, for example. But you’ll sound super weird if you say that (and deserve that aspersion).

‘Aspersion’ is a great example of how words evolve – from blessing people with holy water to lightly soiling their reputation. Sprinkle responsibly.

gambol

This is inspired by the gorgeous lambs I saw running about this morning while I was walking my dog, Gus. (I also saw two dead ones which kind of ruined my day. Sorry. Anyhoo, moving on…) To gambol is to skip, frolic or jump about playfully, just like those lambs (the alive ones, obviously). It’s light, carefree and unbothered.

‘Gambol’ has been bouncing around the English language since the 1500s. It comes from the Middle French word ‘gambade’, which means ‘a leaping or springing action’. That, in turn, comes from ‘gamba’ which is Italian for ‘leg’. ‘Gamba’ also gave us ‘gambit’ and ‘gamble’ – I’m not going to tell you more about that now though, as I’m going to use both of these as future words of the week. Mean, I know.

One of ‘gambol’s first appearances in print in English was in Arthur Golding’s 1567 English translation of Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’: ‘Full oft he gamboled up and downe.’ So it’s describing a character literally leaping or frolicking around – very much in line with the way we still (occasionally) use the word today. Gambolling – not just for lambs.

Golding’s ‘Metamorphoses’ translation was a big deal in Elizabethan England because it made classical mythology widely accessible in English for the first time. He translated the entire work from Latin into English verse – and in a style that was rhythmic, vivid and packed with dramatic imagery. It was one of the most popular books of the time, and lots of writers drew on it (by which I think we mean plagiarised it) for stories, imagery and language. Shakespeare ‘borrowed’ some scenes and references from ‘Metamorphoses’ for plays including ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, ‘Titus Andronicus’ and ‘The Tempest’. Luckily for Will, there weren’t any copyright laws then. (To be fair, he did transform those stories into something new, often with better pacing, deeper characters or sharper language. So that’s alright then.)

Golding translated the entire ‘Metamorphoses’ in just over a year – between 1564 and 1567. He mentions in his preface that he worked on it during his ‘leisure time’ while staying at the country estate of his nephew, Edward de Vere (the 17th Earl of Oxford – and one of the people some claim wrote Shakespeare’s plays, though that’s a whole other rabbit hole). Considering the translation runs to over 15 books of Latin poetry – around 12,000 lines – doing that in just over a year, by hand, in rhyming couplets is pretty bloody impressive. Thanks goodness he didn’t have Netflix.