Question: I'm curious about the word "lacrosse." I read once that the game was invented by the American Indians, but the word "lacrosse" doesn't sound Native American to me. It sounds French. Can you explain?Answer: The game of lacrosse was indeed invented by American Indians, but they called it "baggataway." The game as originally played was a little different from the modern sport. It involved more players (sometimes thousands), was played over a larger area (goals could be miles apart), and tended to be very rough (one of its purposes was to prepare warriors for battle). The basic idea, however, was the same: to score goals by using a long-handled implement to catch, carry and pass a ball. When French settlers in Canada saw the game, they thought the sticks resembled bishops' crosiers, and so they called the game "la crosse," literally "the crosier."
Question: In a recent column you said that "bachelor" stems from "bacca," the Latin for word for "cow." I was under the impression that "cow" in Latin is "vacca," the word that gives us "vaccine." Is "bacca" a variant? And while you're at it, are there other, non-bovine words that are etymologically related to cows?
Answer: "Vacca" is "cow" in Latin, while "bacca" is "cow" in Late Latin, a literary form of the language used by writers in the post-Classical period. As we explained previously, a "baccalarius" was a non-landowner, someone who worked on a "baccalaria," or cattle farm. "Bachelor" in English was first used for a knight with limited means.
Cows as capital have influenced other words as well. Words meaning both "money" and "cattle" or "property" and "cattle" are found in Old Norse ("fe") and Old English ("feoh"). The Old Norse word is part of Old Norse "felagi," meaning "partner" or "associate," which is the source of English "fellow." Old English "feoh" gives us our modern word "fee." "Fee" started out in feudal times referring to land held in return for certain services.
The Latin word for "private property" is "peculium," derived from "pecus," the word for "cattle." From "peculium" comes English "peculiar," whose original sense, "distinctive," refers to the individuality of private property. And closely related to "pecus" is the Latin word for "money," "pecunia." You may recognize this as the source of "pecuniary," a synonym of "monetary." (Interestingly, the reverse etymology is true for English "cattle," which stems ultimately from the Latin word for property, "capitale.")
Lest you think that the ruminative cow was only looked upon crassly as a source of profit in ancient times, we give you a word that describes a peaceful country setting, "bucolic," which comes from "bous," the Greek word for "cow." The word "cow" itself is from an Old English word, "cu," which is distantly related to Greek "bous" and to Latin "bos," also meaning "cow" or "head of cattle." Butter and beef come from cows, of course, and the words "butter" and "beef" come ultimately from "bous" and "bos" respectively. "Bos" also gives us "bugle" through its diminutive, "buculus," which means literally "little cow." In Middle English "bugle" was the word for a buffalo and then for an instrument made from buffalo horn. The Latin word for a trumpet, "bucina," also comes partly from "bos," and gives us our word for the thin broad muscle that forms the wall of the cheek, "buccinator."
Many other words show at least a possible etymological connection to cattle. "Demean," "minatory" ("threatening"), and "amenable" (which originally meant "answerable") are from Latin "minare," "to drive cattle with threatening shouts." "Aquarium" was at one time a Latin word for a watering-place for cattle (though the "aquarium" we use today is probably a shortening of "aquatic vivarium"). "Cable" is from Latin "capulum," denoting a halter for catching and fastening cattle. "Calm" is possibly related to the Provencal word "chaume," which means "resting-time of cattle" (that is, the heat of the day). And two words that can mean "hodgepodge" came to us unaltered from Latin "farrago" ("mixed fodder for cattle") and French "menagerie" ("management of a cattle farm").