As hibernicus surmised (five years ago), they are in fact related. Both senses come from a Proto-Indo-European word meaning “to split,” which morphed into a Germanic word meaning “a small piece; a bite (of something).” John Ciardi, in A Second Browser’s Dictionary, contends that the “small piece” meaning came first, then was applied to the act of creating a small piece with one’s teeth; but the the Online Etymological Dictionary seems to keep open the possibility that the verb goes back earlier.
Yeah, most of the various meanings of **bolt **are related. The original sense was a crossbow bolt. From there it evolved to mean rods of various types, including a door bolt, nut and bolt, and breech bolt. A lightning bolt is like an arrow from the sky, and when a horse bolts it starts suddenly and moves quickly like an arrow. Even a rolled up bit of cloth looks like a rod.
I don’t know if passing through a sieve is related.
I also enjoy clicking on the online etymological dictionary. For example, from OP:
All three of these meanings, along with such English words as bandage, bend, bind and bond, derive from Proto-Germanic *bindan, from PIE *bendh- “to bind”. (Some entered English via Old Norse, some via Old English, some via Old French or Middle French, but they all derive ultimately from bindan.)
Only one of these is an English non-proper noun, but still, it’s six letters long!
Batman:
– Servant, chiefly to a British military officer, from “bat” from the French for “packsaddle”
– Fictional character resembling a bat, from the Norse for “nightflapper”
– A Turkish unit of weight.
dog:
[ol]
[li]canine[/li][li]latch or lock on a ship’s hatch[/li][li]to persistently follow someone[/li]li to put in a weak effort at something[/li][li]sausage[/li][/ol]
And twenty or so others, as James Thurber once pointed out.
Lather
- The fine, soapy foam used for shaving your face.
- The operator of a lathe.
- One who installs laths.
https://swanbarnfarm.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/the-laths.jpg
(You probably knew that, but didn’t want to add another proper name).
There’s also a district of Melbourne, Australia, called Batman – after John Batman, generally regarded as Melbourne’s founder.
www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2016/guide/batm
One which I like, is “shag”: has fewer meanings than a fair number of words in this thread – but I find the sheer variety, impressive.
-
a bird, of the cormorant family
-
a carpet or rug with deep pile
-
a dance
-
a kind of coarse tobacco
-
– noun and verb – vulgar synonym for copulation
-
verb: hang down in a shaggy manner
-
verb (colloquial) to depart, or wander around
Plus, at my school (in England), “shag” also meant – noun / verb – idleness / shirking, or being in a state thereof: a document excusing one from sport / physical training because of being unwell, was called a “shag slip”; but I’ve never come across this use of the word elsewhere – maybe peculiar to that school.
I remember reading a book by Gerald Durrell (How to Shoot an Amateur Naturalist), where he mentioned that the word “shoot” has many meanings, including:
- To use a gun or crossbow, or other projectile weapon
- To move forward rapidly and suddenly (obviously related to the above, though)
- To score a point in various games
- A plant stem
- To make a movie
- Direct a glance or question at someone
- A rapid in a stream
My sixth-grade teacher used to assign a punishment that was akin to writing a specific sentence a great number of times.
Her version was to copy the dictionary’s several definitions of the word “RUN”.
1 and 3 are fine, but nobody has ever, anywhere, referred to a lathe operator as a lather.
Or rather, if anybody has, they were using their own made-up word, and were unaware that a lathe operator is universally referred to as a turner.
:eek::mad:
Racket
A tennis implement
Something noisy
An extortion scheme
Google gives the latter two as part of the same definition, but has no real etymology for either of them, so I’m going to declare that they are unrelated.
I know this is years later, but you missed one: “not ordained”. I also think lie and lay come from the same root if you go back enough, making all of those but the last really from the same root.
Fire:
- A physical phenomenon which generates heat through the combustion of matter.
- To remove somebody from their job.
- To set off a gun.
No 1 and 3 are certainly connected meanings. No 2 probably is connected.
For example, http://www.placematters.net/sites/default/files/places/PM_node_1323_1.jpg. I lived across the street from this building, and for years mentally pronounced it as shaving cream as I passed it going to work.
See above photo. Self-identified for collective identification to the whole world. Although established in 1897, so perhaps it remains a la Colored People, who also have a national association.
It really bothered me. That and “sundried tomatoes,” which obnoxiously has no hyphen, and again, for years mentally pronounced the way it looks. To me.
Peer
to look at
someone of equal rank
someone who pees
Ok, that last one is a bit of a stretch, but I think it’s a valid formation.
Rack has two more meanings, although I do not know the etymologies.
7. A cabinet for computer network hardware.
8. To accumulate. As in, racking up bills.