Question: I'm curious about the word "yen," as in to have a yen for something. Does "yen" come from the word for the Japanese yen?
Answer: The name for the Japanese currency comes from the Japanese "en," which probably derives from an earlier Japanese word meaning "circle," referring to the shape of a coin.The English word "yen," meaning "craving," comes from Chinese. Although a yen is a strong desire, the word does not suggest urgent, intense need and so is seldom used to describe an addict's craving for drugs. But a yen was originally just such a craving. During the 18th and 19th centuries, China suffered under the encouragement, which amounted to virtual enforcement, of widespread opium addiction by foreign nations whose traders found the drug profitable. In the mid-19th century, many Chinese immigrated to the United States and introduced "yin-yahn," their word for opium craving, from "yin," meaning "opium," and "yahn," meaning "craving." In English argot the Chinese syllables became assimilated to "yen-yen" after a time. Eventually the apparently unnecessary duplicate was abandoned, and the new word "yen" was generalized from a craving for opium to any strong desire.
Question: I am told that the "grey" in "greyhound" has nothing to do with the color, but I need more convincing. If it doesn't stand for the color, what does it mean?
Answer: We may not be able to be as convincing as we'd like. Although we know that "grey" doesn't stand for the color, we can't be altogether certain just what it does stand for. The closest we can come is that it's related to the Old Norse word for "a female dog," which happened to be "grey." However, the "grey" in "greyhound" doesn't come directly from Old Norse "grey." Originally, in Old English, the word was not "greyhound," but "grighund" - so it is the word "grig" that must be traced. Unfortunately, its ultimate origins are not known. The most that can be said is that the original "grig" had some connection with a word for a kind of dog. Note that "hound" from Old English "hund" does, indeed, mean "dog."
Needless to say, over the years a number of variant etymologies have been advanced for "greyhound." Based on the assertion that early greyhounds were always grey, probably the most common misplaced theory is that the word must be for the color. But that explanation ignores the word's original form, "grig," which is not identical to any early forms of "grey" or "gray," the word for the color. Another unfounded hypothesis is that "grey" is from Latin "gradus," meaning "degree," supposedly reflecting the high esteem in which greyhounds were held.
The story has further complications. Beginning in the 14th century the dog's name was sometimes contracted to "greund" or "grewnd." This may have led to its erroneous association with "grew," an Old and Middle English word meaning "Greek" (the word was derived from Latin "Graecum" via French "griu"), and the spelling "grewhound." Only the Scots continued to spell it that way into the 19th century.
There's one last theory to refute: the "grey" in "greyhound" does not stand for "badger," even though it just so happens that "gray" is a word for "badger." The true "badger hound" is the dachshund, since "Dachs" means "badger" in German, and "Hund," of course, is German for "hound."