Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Word Origins

 

*GAZEBO

If the eighteenth-century inventor of this term had known, he might have had a chuckle over the struggles of later scholars. From what source did he obtain it? Some think it is from some unknown Oriental source, but the general consensus is that he just made it up. As he wanted a term for a structural lookout, he may have taken the ordinary word gaze and, under the pretense that it was from a hypothetical Latin verb, gazeo, produced the future form, gazebo, “I shall see.” Which worked out fine for the 1959 film, The Gazebo, the dark comedy starring Glenn Ford and Debbie Reynolds.

*Inspired by Charles Funk (1881–1957)

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