IIUC, in German, kiefer can refer to either the jaw or to a pine tree. Is there a semantic connection in there somewhere, or are these terms just coincidental homonyms?
Also, are both the same grammatical gender?
According to my German dictionary “Kiefer” for pine tree is feminine, while “Kiefer” for jawbone is masculine. That would strongly suggest that they derived from different words.
Yes, die Kiefer (f) = the pine tree; der Kiefer (m) = the jaw bone. The difference in gender also makes the homonym (and homophone) all but unusable for puns.
Haven’t researched the etymology but to a normal German speaker it looks like just a coincidence.
German Wikipedia says that the name of the tree is presumably derived from “Kienföhre”, where Kien means resin (or maybe resin-rich wood), and Föhre (related to english fir) means conifer (but is also used specifically for pine tree).
Didn’t see any etymology for Kiefer = jaw bone, but I would assume that it has a completely different origin.
Kiefer as in jawbone is cognate with the English word jowl, from an Indo_European root *geph meaning mouth.
A slight hijack: the Russian word for an archery bow and an onion is the same: luk. What’s up with that, huh?