# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2026, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/141 "2026-03-20T21:59:39Z")
“Egregious” used to mean “really good.” Now it means really bad. ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/142 "2026-03-22T08:14:14Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > “Masterpiece” these days means something that is at the pinnacle of an art or craft. > > However, it _used_ to mean the project somebody in a medieval guild worked on to qualify for a Master rank in the guild. Which is close to the opposite in meaning, it didn’t mean “one of the best works ever”, it meant “meets the bare qualifications for being an expert job”. I’ll have to disagree here. I have occasionally viewed displays of joiners’ journeyman and master pieces (one of the few German guilds whose journeyman and master projects produce artifacts that are suitable for a showroom - I don’t know exactly what electrician or chimney sweep or plumber master projects look like) and they are really labours of love, the like the respective craftsman typically would not get commissioned for in their further careers. Journeyman pieces and master pieces are not your typical exams that you aim at just passing. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/143 "2026-03-22T11:29:01Z")
Agreed. ---
**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 22, 2026, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/144 "2026-03-22T18:35:02Z")
“Daily” used to mean every day except Sunday. This meaning has survived a little in the newspaper world, but mostly now means every day, seven days per week. When a business says “Open Daily,” I old-fashionedly feel like that specifically means “But not Sunday” and have to double-check. The business phrase used to be “open daily and Sundays.” ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/145 "2026-03-22T19:55:42Z")
interesting “fact”–in 1776, Jews, Catholics, and Quakers were not allowed to vote (don’t know why PA went along with that?) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/146 "2026-03-22T22:00:11Z")
Were not allowed to vote where? I see no reason to assume that Pennsylvania did go along with that. Even today, different states have different qualifications for voting. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/147 "2026-03-22T22:18:28Z")
> [@Briny\_Deep](#): > > “Daily” used to mean every day except Sunday. This meaning has survived a little in the newspaper world, but mostly now means every day, seven days per week. > > When a business says “Open Daily,” I old-fashionedly feel like that specifically means “But not Sunday” and have to double-check. It must have changed some time ago because I don’t recall seeing it be used like that at least in the eastern US. If I saw it advertised without a Sunday qualification I would feel let down. I would feel specifically let down by the business unless I was in some weird area where businesses were forced by the government to be closed on Sundays, and then I’d still feel let down by that government. But in _that_ specific case, I would understand the business not specifying that they’re closed Sundays. I’m not sure if even _that’s_ true anywhere anymore, but it would make sense since there are quite a few archaic retail laws still floating around here and there. ---
**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 22, 2026, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/148 "2026-03-22T23:58:28Z")
Modern examples are hard to find (which was my point) but here’s someone who thinks like an old-timey non-Easterner, apparently, FWIW: [gardendale\_sno\_shack’s profile picture gardendale\_sno\_shack 42w 🍧Open Daily​🍧 1-7 - Closed Sundays](https://www.instagram.com/p/DKKipH3zQ5_/) But they do qualify their use of “daily” here. I think there’d be more citations of this specific, non-Sunday use of “daily” in the OED but I can’t find my login. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2026, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/149 "2026-03-23T01:14:59Z")
Even after the 1787 constitution and the Bill of Rights, the latter was incumbent only on the federal government. Some of the states still had state-sponsored religions. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2026, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/150 "2026-03-25T04:27:10Z")
While “semiannually” meaning twice a year and “biannually” meaning every two years still seem to be used quite consistently, the same terminology for shorter periods—-biweekly, semiweekly, bimonthly, semimonthly—-has become really ambiguous in a lot of interpretations, and even in dictionaries. The original meaning isn’t exactly “lost” but it’s certainly lost transparency. The crucial semantic flaw, as with terms like “inflammable”, is that the application of the prefix “bi-” or “semi-” is ambiguous: does it modify the noun or the adjective? E.g., does a “biweekly” event happen once every “bi-week” i.e. fortnight, or is “bi-“ doubling the frequency adjective “weekly”? Either interpretation feels semantically plausible, which is why we now have both interpretations in widespread use. ---
**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 25, 2026, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/151 "2026-03-25T16:28:52Z")
**Coed:** Originally meant “co-educational”, as in a school that admitted both male and female students, as opposed to how most colleges were single gender in the old days. Now the “educational” part has pretty much been forgotten and it’s some to mean _any_ mixed gender activity. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2026, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/152 "2026-03-25T16:35:46Z")
Windmill. Originally meant a mill, that is a mechanism for grinding grains, driven by wind power. Now, the mill part is ignored. Used for any wind-driven machine, such as operating a pump, or generating electricity. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2026, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/153 "2026-03-25T17:00:06Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > **Coed:** Originally meant “co-educational”, as in a school that admitted both male and female students, as opposed to how most colleges were single gender in the old days. Now the “educational” part has pretty much been forgotten and it’s some to mean _any_ mixed gender activity. When I was in school, _coed_ meant “a female student”. I guess that’s an intermediate definition that’s also gone by the wayside. ---
**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 25, 2026, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/154 "2026-03-25T17:09:38Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > > 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 don’t even think he was talking to or about the woman - she was just near enough to hear his conversation… I remember thinking that the whole idea of possibly getting a “mouthful of knuckles” was archaic back when I first read the book, and even more so now—especially if the woman wasn’t being directly referred to but was merely within earshot. ---
**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 25, 2026, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/155 "2026-03-25T20:18:04Z")
“Spinster” originally just referred to the occupation spinning, then later to women of marrying age who weren’t yet married. Hard to tell when the age of ‘spinsterdom’ started creeping upward, but looks by the 1700s it referred to older/elderly unmarried women. Nowadays it would be pretty jarring to hear of an unmarried woman in her 20s or even 30s to be called a spinster. Which is not to be confused with ‘spintry,’ an unrelated archaic word that applied exclusively to male $3x workers. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2026, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/156 "2026-03-25T20:37:40Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > Nowadays it would be pretty jarring to hear of an unmarried woman in her 20s or even 30s to be called a spinster. According to Granny from “Beverly Hillbillies”: 😀 > Thirteen and fourteen, a girl’s in her prime/ > Fifteen and sixteen, she’s still got time/ > Seventeen and eighteen, she’s just about done/ > Nineteen and twenty, her pa needs a gun ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2026, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/157 "2026-03-25T23:05:20Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > male $3x workers. What the heck is a “$3x” worker? ---
**Author:** ![Varl\_Hobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/91b2a8/32.png) [@Varl\_Hobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Varl_Hobe)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2026, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/158 "2026-03-25T23:16:22Z")
S E X worker I guess there’s some filters or something here? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2026, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/159 "2026-03-25T23:18:21Z")
> [@Varl\_Hobe](#): > > I guess there’s some filters or something here? Not that I know of. And I’d think I’d know of them if there were, being a mod and all. Go ahead and say “sex”. ---
**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 25, 2026, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414/160 "2026-03-25T23:41:12Z")
There are probably some words that someone could use in 1970 that would get you a sharp look and maybe even a raised fist if overheard in 2000, but I don’t want to use them (the reverse is also true, of course) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-words-have-lost-their-original-meanings/113414.md?page=9)