6 Metaphors for etymology

In the later editions of Webster, these 'derivations' have been cleared out en masse, and the etymology placed in the hands of men abreast of the science of the time; and the last edition of Webster, the International, is perhaps the best of one-volume dictionaries.

But Etymology is simply Word-history, and Word-history, like all other history, is a record of the facts which did happen, not a fabric of conjectures as to what may have happened.

The origin of the town is unknown; and the etymology of its name has been a matter of dispute, in which figures a monkish legend ascribing the name of Ponsfractus, or Pontefract, to the breaking of a bridge, and the fall of many persons into the river Aire, who were miraculously saved by St. William, Archbishop of York.

The Vicomte de Porto Seguro identifies Zume with the Cemi of the Antilles, and this etymology is at any rate not so fanciful as most of those he gives in his imaginative work, L'Origine Touranienne des Americaines Tupis-Caribes, p. 62 (Vienna, 1876).

The etymology of the word Druid has long been a subject of dispute, many deriving it from the Greek word [Greek: drus], an oak, because it has been affirmed that their mysteries were carried on in oak groves and forests; but as the latter fact is doubtful, consequently the etymology founded upon it is shaken.

The etymology there given is a gross error; for, "the Greek [Greek: arithmos], number," would make, in English, not rhythm, but arithm, as in arithmetic.

6 Metaphors for  etymology