Kids
After last week’s look at terms referring to parents, we’ll take
a couple of weeks considering some of the words we use to refer to children.
The Old English word cild had a broader meaning than our
modern word child. It meant infant,
newly born person, unborn person, & fetus. It came from a
Proto-Germanic word whose descendants from various languages include words
meaning womb, pregnant, children of the
same marriage, & litter. It wasn’t until later Old English that cild/child
came to mean young person before the
onset of puberty. Our modern plural children (born in the 1100s) was
predated by the 975 AD plural of child, cildru.
Both baby & babe, meaning infant, showed up in the
1300s from the Old English word baban, most likely a term
imitating an infant’s babble. Baby also came to mean childish adult person about 1600 &
about 1915 babe came to mean attractive
young woman. Interestingly, the French word bébé came from the
English word baby.
The Old English word geoguð meant junior
warriors, the young of cattle, & young people, & morphed in time
into the modern word youth. Related words include geong, which became the word young, & geongling
which morphed first into youngling, &
by 1580 into youngster.
The Old Norse word kið, meaning
the young of a goat, gave English speakers the word kid as early as 1200. It took until the 1590s for kid to refer to the offspring of
humans. Kid was not always a
term of endearment, as our friends at Etymonline.com tell us it was “applied to
skillfull young thieves and pugilists since at least 1812.” The more endearing
word kiddo showed up in 1893.
The word tyke probably came from Old Norse
& made its English debut in the 1300s, meaning mongrel or cur. Tyke
didn’t start meaning child until
1902.
I’m planning on investigating more childish words next week. Any
you’d like to know about? Leave a request under comments.
I did not know that the French bebe came from English. There aren't a lot of words that go in that direction. I've always thought tyke was kind of an adorable word. I guess calling a child a puppy is kind of cute, even if it's a mutt.
ReplyDeleteHey, you could explore words for "dog". I think English has a lot of them.
Howdy Anne - we do have a heap of words for dog. A fine suggestion. Thanks. And I agree about tyke -- it's a phenomenally friendly-sounding word.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing how a word like tyke can go from meaning mongrel to an endearing word for child. How does it happen? Someone had to be the first to call a kid a mongrel endearingly. I guess. Fascinating stuff!
ReplyDeleteHa! My terms of endearment for my 7th graders included "Slime" & "Snorkelhead" -- life's funny.
ReplyDelete