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Word for Wednesday: Hammock

In this instalment of summer-themed posts, we’ll be hanging out with the word Hammock. hammock (n.): a hanging bed of canvas or rope netting (usually suspended between two trees); swings easily. The hammock manifests across the world in many shapes and sizes, textures and titles and for many cultures, the hammock is preferable to a regular mattress for sleeping. The word 'hammock' surfaced in the 1650s and has gone down swingingly ever since. It is derived from the 1550s Spanish word 'hamaca', and apparently the Haitian 'amaca' meaning ‘fish net’. Most of us will have used them for relaxing in on a warm summer’s day. However, for ma...

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A Word for Wednesday: Thatcher

The word for this week is another that has evolved from Old Norse ‘thekja’ meaning to cover, the high German equivalent ‘decchen’ was borrowed to create the old English ‘theccan’ later culminating in the word ‘thatcher’. A ‘thatcher’ is someone whose trade is to apply thatch roofs (a roofing material consisting of straw, reed, twigs etc.). To ‘thatch’ is the act of applying such roofing. A roof can be described as ‘thatched’ It can even be used to describe anything that resembles thatching, so one could have ‘thatched’ hair. So ‘thatcher’ is yet another example of the English language taking influence from a mish-mash of cultures to create its own words - a ‘thatched’ word, if you will....

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