11 everyday words that have weird and disturbing origins

Etymology is way more exciting than it sounds.

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Thanks to the study of word origins, we now know that "mortgage" has an unsettling relationship with the afterworld, and that "muscles" once seemed to house tiny rodents.

The truth is, the only way to truly appreciate modern usage of the language is to know where words come from — for better or worse.

5 ring tailed lemur madagascar
Lissi Lyngsoe/Shutterstock

(H/T: Cracked, List25)

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Muscle

body building muscles
Flickr/Lin Mei

Back when people had no clue about human biology (read: around the year 1525), some observant folks gazed at the rippling human body and thought muscles looked kind of like little mice underneath the skin.

Thankfully, modern English eventually truncated the creepy imagery of "mūsculus," which literally means "little mice" in Latin, into something more tame.

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Punk

punks
Patrick/Flickr

Mohawked teenagers may be "punks" today, but the term used to refer to a number of different kinds of people.

In prison slang, young boys could be punks. Further back, around 1590, a punk was a prostitute or a young male partner of a homosexual.

The seedy beginning gave way to the Sex Pistols-era music disciples.

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Lemur

5 ring tailed lemur madagascar
Lissi Lyngsoe/Shutterstock

The beady-eyed animal gets its name from the paranormal.

Around the turn of the 18th century, the Latin term "lemures," or "spirits of the dead," emerged. It refers to lemurs' nocturnal sleeping pattern and haunting face.

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Mortgage

Homes are seen for sale in the northwest area of Portland, Oregon March 20, 2014. Would-be buyers risk being crowded out by the run-up in home prices and mortgage rates over the past year. Home values nationwide were up 12 percent in January from the same month last year, according to data firm CoreLogic, while mortgage rates have jumped about a full percentage point.   REUTERS/Steve Dipaola  (UNITED STATES - Tags: REAL ESTATE BUSINESS) - RTR3HYBS
Homes are seen for sale in the northwest area of Portland Thomson Reuters

Word nerds will notice an eerie root word in "mortgage" — "mort," or "death."

The term comes from Old French, and Latin before that, to literally mean "death pledge." 

As a way to describe a 30-year agreement you make with your bank, the etymology sounds about right.

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Nightmare

Nightmare Scary Shadowy Silhouette
Shutterstock

In Middle English, a "mare" was an evil female spirit that laid on top of your sleeping body and suffocated you to death.

Further back, the term "maere" referred more generally to a monster.

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Blatant

kick me sign
Pascal/Flickr

Today, you might prank someone to blatantly embarrass them, but in the 16th century "blatant" referred to a thousand-tongue monster.

Over time the word lost its venom. It morphed into "offensive to the ear" and then its more modern usage, "unashamed bad behavior."

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Addict

smoking cigarette
Pascal Le Segretain/Getty

"Addict" as a noun is a relatively new usage; before it moved to English, the verb "addicere" referred to being bound or devoted to someone.

Or slavery.

As the word evolved through the English language, "addict" grew to mean someone who was "enslaved" a particular vice or habit.

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Flaky

calendar planner
Shutterstock

Your friend who always cancels is flaky, but according to an earlier use of the word — around 100 years ago — "flake" referred to the drug cocaine, and someone who was "flaky" was seen as eccentric.

Ergo, someone flaky was probably being compared to someone high on cocaine.

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Geek

Bill Gates
Bill Gates, takes part in a panel discussion titled "Investing in African Prosperity" at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California May 1, 2013. Gus Ruelas/Reuters

Historically speaking, Ozzy Osbourne is more of a geek than Bill Gates.

In the early 1900s, "geeks" were sideshow performers who bit the heads off small animals, not just people who obsess over computer software or obscure baseball statistics.

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Ostracize

left out
Street Photography Addict/Flickr

Getting left out of a game of whiffle ball is the closest people come to ostracism today. Not so in ancient Greece.

The term "ostracize" literally refers to a method of banishing law-breaking Greeks from Athens for 10 years by putting the move to a vote.

It was a part of the democracy the ancient Greeks held sacred. All they needed was 6,000 votes and boom, the poor sap was gone for a decade.

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Tip

tip jar
AP/Ted S. Warren

Tipping is such a friendly gesture nowadays, it's hard to imagine that a "tip" used to be the insurance money 17th-century Brits paid henchmen to avoid getting assaulted.

More specifically, it was part of the thieves' cant — a secret language used in Great Britain that also gifted us with the words "tout" and "kid" (in the joking sense).

History
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