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Nothing says “scary” like tricky etymologies, and Halloween is no exception ?? We recently read a ghoul-tastic article from Babbel, about some spooky word origins; more than anything they can can help you understand the cultures behind the scares. We share some of their examples below: Ghost ?? The word?“ghost”?goes all the way back to the Old English?gast, but the meaning has changed a bit over the years. One of the earliest meanings of?gast?is “breath,” and another meaning equated it to the Latin?spiritus, which is where the modern word “spirit” comes from. While it certainly had otherworldly connotations,?gast?refers more to the unknown forces that create life, rather than being a spooky scary spectre. Boo ?? It’s kind of weird when you think about it, but ghosts have a catchphrase: “boo.” But it doesn’t really mean anything, and that’s because it originated as a simple result of human anatomy. It’s one of the easiest sudden sounds for the human body to make, because the “b” is formed by simply forcing air through closed lips, and the “oo” is loudly vibrating vocal cords passing through rounded lips. It’s a noise designed to scare people, and so it makes sense that it became attached to one of the scariest things we can think of. We?didn’t always yell “boo,”?though.?In the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, the sound was written down as “bo” or “boh.” Monster ?? The word?monstre?appeared in English by the early 14th century, being borrowed from the French?monstre. The French word evolved from the Latin?monstrum, which also could refer to some sort of malformed creature. But before that, the earliest meaning of?monstrum?was “evil omen.” The shift from abstract?monstrum?to modern monsters occurred because the sight of an abnormal animal — whether that be a deer with a missing leg or some other aberration from “normal” — was a bad sign. By the late 14th century,?monstre?could refer to mythical animals like centaurs. And it was in the 1550s that a human could be a “monster,” meaning they were particularly cruel or inhumane. Spider ?? Spiders are a year-round phenomenon if you know where to look, but their webs are central enough to Halloween decorations that we thought we’d include them in this list of spooky word origins. And while animal names?tend to be consistent over time, it wasn’t until the 14th century that?“spider”?— or more accurately?spiter?or (later)?spydyr?— became the most common way to refer to these arachnids. The famed Middle English writer Geoffrey Chaucer called them?loppe, and in Old English they might have been called an?atarcoppe?(meaning “poison-head”) or a?renge?(which derives from the Latin word for arachnid,?aranea). The word “spider” was certainly around, and it derives from a Proto-Germanic word for “spinner,” but it took awhile to become the default word. What's your favourite Halloween scare word?

  • Image says "Linguistic Halloween: The Origin's of the Season's Spookiest Words". It's on a bright orange, Halloween background,

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