# What Other Words Have Lost Their Original Meanings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 11, 2002, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414 "2002-06-11T08:14:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/81 "2026-03-02T22:17:00Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > **Nimrod:** > Originally a biblical figure who was known as a mighty hunter. > Now, it’s often used to mean a dimwitted or stupid person, supposedly because of a cartoon Bugs Bunny used it sarcastically to refer to Elmer Fudd. It doesn’t help matters that “nimrod” _sounds_ like it should mean a dimwitted or stupid person, à la “nitwit” or “numbskull.” ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/82 "2026-03-02T23:43:02Z")
_Spy_ magazine once published a list of funny-sounding college sports team names, which included some Minnesota college’s “Terrible Swedes”. ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/83 "2026-03-02T23:53:53Z")
I’ve said “Jiminy Jillikers” so many times the words have lost all meaning. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2026, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/84 "2026-03-03T00:03:05Z")
A _mascot_ was originally something more akin to a magical talisman rather than a dude in a funny suit. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2026, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/85 "2026-03-09T00:41:47Z")
**Patina:** Originally meant the green oxidation that forms on copper or bronze items. Now it means any signs of age or wear. People will refer to an old car with faded paint as having “patina”. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2026, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/86 "2026-03-12T15:12:31Z")
_fast_: original meant fixed or secure, like _fasten_ your seatbelt, or stay _steadfast_. But now often means quick or rapid. > **[Etymology 1 - fast - Wiktionary, the free dictionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fast#Etymology_1)** > > From Middle English fast, fest, from Old English fæst (“firm, secure”), from Proto-West Germanic \*fast, from Proto-Germanic \*fastuz; see it for cognates and further etymology. ---
**Author:** ![mtnmatt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a3d4f5/32.png) [@mtnmatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mtnmatt)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2026, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/87 "2026-03-12T21:21:33Z")
Which is why being “fast friends” with someone doesn’t (necessarily) mean you’ve only known them a short time ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2026, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/88 "2026-03-12T22:29:30Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > A _mascot_ was originally something more akin to a magical talisman rather than a dude in a funny suit. Come to think of it, the word _fetish_ used to mean roughly the same thing. So “I have a mascot fetish” used to mean “I have a magical talisman magical talisman” instead of…something else. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2026, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/89 "2026-03-13T17:18:15Z")
‘…it took hours and hours to get me out. I was as fast as—as lightning, you know.’ ‘But that’s a different kind of fastness,’ Alice objected. The Knight shook his head. ‘It was all kinds of fastness with me, I can assure you!’ he said. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2026, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/90 "2026-03-13T18:04:32Z")
And stay away from Zuni fetishes. Nothing but trouble. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2026, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/91 "2026-03-13T18:35:36Z")
> [@Noelq](#): > > To refer back to the great Robert Heinlein: The word **Kinky**. Originally meant to be tightly curled, or having twists and bends in it. Nowadays, it usually refers to non-usual sexual practices. The characters in a story is yelled at because he calls a woman’s very tightly curled hair “kinky”. I think the scene plays out slightly differently. The character used the word “kink” not “kinky” - so he was probably referring to someone like a sharp bend in a wire, but was taken to be referring to an unusual sexual practice. Here’s the quote > Take one word I used all in innocence. A lady present was offended and only the fact that I was a Sleeper—which I hastily explained—kept her husband from giving me a mouthful of knuckles. I won’t use the word here—oh yes, I will; why shouldn’t I? I’m using it to explain something. Don’t take my word for it that the word was in good usage when I was a kid; look it up in an old dictionary. Nobody scrawled it in chalk on sidewalks when I was a kid. > > The word was “kink.” I don’t even think he was talking to or about the woman - she was just near enough to hear his conversation ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2026, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/92 "2026-03-13T18:55:02Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > _fast_: original meant fixed or secure, like _fasten_ your seatbelt, or stay _steadfast_. But now often means quick or rapid. A fast runner is quick, but quicksilver definitely is not fast, basically the opposite! ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2026, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/93 "2026-03-13T18:55:11Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > \*\*dunce[/d] originally meant a sophisticated and overly clever thinker. Speaking of the word ‘sophisticated’, it originally was a negative term meaning adulterated, impure, or unnatural; deceptive. Related to the word ‘sophistry’ which still means using a fallacious argument with the intent to deceive. ‘Sophisticated’ didn’t take on the positive meaning of “worldly-wise” or “cultured” until around the late 19th or early 20th century. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2026, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/94 "2026-03-13T19:22:23Z")
Which reminds me that “lumber” (as a noun) originally meant household junk (a lumber room had old (possibly damaged) furniture, and other clutter). It was only later than the word acquired the current meaning of wood for construction. Holmes is using the older sense: > I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. **A fool takes in all the _lumber_ of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it**. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful one ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2026, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/95 "2026-03-13T19:25:56Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > > [@Pleonast](#): > > > > _fast_: original meant fixed or secure, like _fasten_ your seatbelt, or stay _steadfast_. But now often means quick or rapid. > > A fast runner is quick, but quicksilver definitely is not fast, basically the opposite! _quick_: originally meant alive, as in “the quick and the dead”, then shifted to lively, and now usually means rapid or high speed. Note that _rapid_ comes from the Latin _rapid_, meaning to seize or capture. It’s cognate to _rape_. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2026, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/96 "2026-03-13T19:49:56Z")
“Virus” originally meant. . . well, pretty much any ‘agent of inoculation,’ as the term long predates any the isolating of what we call a ‘virus’ today. It could mean snake venom, vaccines, rabies (“hydrophobia virus”), etc. Viruses as we know them today only started getting recognized as something special in the late 1800s. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2026, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/97 "2026-03-14T00:43:10Z")
From _[The Door Into Summer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Door_into_Summer)_ which he wrote in 1957. I read it in 1981 and it still felt futuristic, even though it was set in 1970 (and 2000). > **Aside:** > > Being just 13 years old at the time, I didn’t notice some of the more problematic aspects of the story. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2026, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/98 "2026-03-14T00:53:55Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Note that _rapid_ comes from the Latin _rapid_, meaning to seize or capture. It’s cognate to _rape_. Note that _rapid_ comes from the Latin _rapio_, meaning to seize or capture. It’s cognate to _rape_. /fixed for spelling ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2026, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/99 "2026-03-14T01:03:57Z")
I read it about then, too ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2026, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/100 "2026-03-14T01:07:15Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > A fast runner is quick, but quicksilver definitely is not fast, basically the opposite! Quicksilver is nearly infinity faster than plain silver, at least at human tolerable temperatures. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414.md?page=6)