wEIRD wORD wEDNESDAY

Jettatura:  The casting of an evil eye 

Hasma: A charm made to ward off the evil eye

     

wEIRD wORD wEDNESDAY

Acersecomic: A person whose hair has never been cut 
     

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Monday Meme

wEIRD wORD wEDNESDAY

Words, like the rest of the world, evolve.  Here are some words whose original meanings you may not recognize.
Source: 

1. Egregious: It used to be possible for it to be a good thing to be egregious: it meant you were distinguished or eminent. But in the end, the negative meaning of the word won out, and now it means that someone or something is conspicuously bad — not conspicuously good.
2. Naughty: Long ago, if you were naughty, you had naught or nothing. Then it came to mean evil or immoral, and now you are just badly behaved.
3. Silly: Meanwhile, silly went in the opposite direction: in its earliest uses, it referred to things worthy or blessed; from there it came to refer to the weak and vulnerable, and more recently to those who are foolish.
4. Hussy: Believe it or not, hussy comes from the word housewife (with several sound changes, clearly) and used to refer to the mistress of a household, not the disreputable woman it refers to today.

     

Monday Meme

wEIRD wORD wEDNESDAY

Sometimes, what a word means in one location is completely different from what that same word means in a different place.

Jumper

 
British meaning:  a sweater

vs.

North American meaning:  A person who jumps   

Monday Meme