A Weird Nautical Etymology

[MonkeyMensch]

I remember a while back hearing an etymology mentioned on some radio show regarding payment to shippers for damages to cargo based on where it had been placed on board the ship during tranisit. Those who had paid more for protection of their goods would have received preferential placement deep in the hold while others paying less would have gotten riskier spots, perhaps even lashed on deck. The word in question was a common word, indeed so common that I immediately smelled a folk etymology lurking in the verbal shadows. So I went home and grabbed my trusty American Heritage Dictionary (First Edition, prescriptive with the good etymologies!) and looked it up. Well, sure as shootin’ they were right! I could hardly believe it.

Now yesterday I was fooling around on the webs before work looking at the source of freezing the balls off a brass monkey, since I like things verbal and nautical, and was getting a kick out of an argument over this term when the recollection of that original word popped into my head. Darn it! I can’t remember it! It’s common as insurance or liability or guarantee. It’s that pedestrian.

Please help. I think this one is really going to get me.

MM

[Iggy]

Ship High in Transit is a folk etymology.

Various brass monkey colloquialisms have nothing to do with a nautical origin either.

[MonkeyMensch]

Thanks, Iggy, but this etymology was an honest to goodness genuine one. That’s what was so surprising about it. And the whole brass monkey thing was just what jogged my memory yesterday…

[Johnny_L.A]

Average?

average (n.)
late 15c., “financial loss incurred through damage to goods in transit,” from Fr. avarie “damage to ship,” and It. avaria; a word from 12c. Mediterranean maritime trade (cf. Sp. averia; other Germanic forms, Du. avarij, Ger. haferei, etc., also are from Romanic languages), of uncertain origin. Sometimes traced to Arabic 'arwariya “damaged merchandise,” but this might as easily be a borrowing of the word from the Franks. Meaning shifted to “equal sharing of such loss by the interested parties.” Transferred sense of “statement of a medial estimate” is first recorded 1735. The mathematical extension is from 1755.

[MonkeyMensch]

Yes, yes, yes. yes!! I just back from work where I spent a fretful eight and a half hours thinking no one would ever come up with this one because the clue was some how off base.

Oh, thank you, Johnny, thank you; I’ll sleep tonight.

[aldiboronti]

OED has a more detailed etymology. Note that the derivation is uncertain.

Etymology: Appears first c1500: the corresponding term in French is avarie , Cotgrave 1611 avaris (? plural), Catalan averia , Spanish averia (also found as haberia ), Portuguese avaria , Italian avaria ; also in Dutch avarij , haverij , German hafarei , havarie , Danish havari , all from the Romance languages. The earliest instances occur in connection with the maritime trade of the Mediterranean; but the derivation is uncertain (see below). The English auerays (plural) in Arnold’s Chron. (if not a misprint) was probably meant for the French word; the form average (also in Arnold’s Chron.) is confined to English, and evidently formed on the model of lodemanage (pilotage), primage , etc.: see -age suffix.

Few words have received more etymological investigation: see Diez, Dozy, Littré, Wedgwood, E. Müller, Skeat, etc., and especially the fruitful researches of the late G. P. Marsh in the American edition of Wedgwood (New York 1861). The latter has conclusively shown that, as a maritime term, avaria , averia , was first used in the Mediterranean, and that its original meaning was duty charged upon goods. In connexion with this cf. also quotations from Muratori Chron. Parmense (in Du Cange s.v. Averia ), e.g. Conscenderint lembum Averiæ ad excipiendos prædictos galeones , ‘they went on board the revenue cutter to intercept the aforesaid galleons.’ These results quite dispose of the two derivations suggested in Diez from German hafen haven, and Arabic ʿawâr loss, damage, the latter being merely a mod. Arabic translation and adaptation of the western term in its latest sense. Mr. Marsh’s connexion of the word with the Arabic or Turkish avania , avaria , is of great weight; but as said under avania n., that word is more probably adopted from the Franks. May not averia be a derivative of Italian avere , Old French aveir , property, goods (see aver n.), in sense of ‘charge on property or goods’? Compare such terms as tonnage, poundage, pollage (charge on polls). The chief difficulty lies in the early Italian form avaria, not averia, and French avarie: the Catalan has however been averia since 13th c.: see Marsh on Spanish and Catalan use of the word, and Averia, Avaria in Du Cange. It is to be noted that Old French avarie was used of other than maritime dues or charges; in a document dated Nicosia, 18 March 1468, in De Mas Latrie, Histoire de Chypre III. 276, the owner of a mill is bound ‘de paier l’ensencive (= cens) de l’abaie de Bibi, et tout autre avarie que le dit moulin paie aujourdhui.’ Cf. also certain uses of avérage in Godefroy.

[MonkeyMensch]

Even better, aldiboronti; thanks.

MM