The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories

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Merriam-Webster, 1991 - 526 pages
A gold mine of fascinating word histories! This engaging and informative book reveals the origins of 1,500 words from "abigail" to "zombie", tracing in terms from the mythology of ancient Greece to the comic strips of the 20th century. This delightful volume will help you discover how a skimpy bathing suit came to be called a "bikini" and what "serendipity" has to do with Horace Walpole.

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Contents

A
1
B
33
C
78
D
130
E
154
F
166
G
184
H
208
O
321
P
337
Q
379
R
386
S
401
T
452
U
477
V
485

I
231
J
242
K
256
L
264
M
280
N
310
W
497
X
509
Y
511
Z
519
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Page 6 - So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of " agnostic." It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the " gnostic " of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant...

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