Word Origins

*SUBTLE

Light as a feather—or better, thin as gossamer. Either of these expressions describes fairly accurately the gentleness which is characteristic of true subtlety, but "gossamer" is a close translation of the Latin word from which subtle originates. Subtle was brought into English from the Old French soutil with the meaning of "thin (rarefied), fine, delicate" (the dragonfly above). But the French word came from the Latin subtilis, a contraction of subtexilis, "finely woven" (literally, "underwoven"), from sub, "under," and texare, "to weave." For many years, an alternate spelling of the English word, subtile, existed in parallel with the presently accepted spelling, this being based directly on the Latin ancestor.

*Inspired by Charles Funk (1881–1957)

Word Origins

 

*STALEMATE

Originally, the term was just stale—the mate part was added, possibly originally in jest, because a stalemate, like a checkmate, serves to end the game. Unlike checkmate, (from Arabic) and chess itself, stale seems to have originated in the French estaler (étaler), one of the meanings of which is “to fix,” in the sense of “to set in place.” The latter is related to the German stellen, “to place.” 

*Inspired by Charles Funk (1881–1957)