Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: ConservativeStatement

So I guess “broad” is off limits too?


32 posted on 11/10/2018 9:02:40 AM PST by subterfuge (RIP T.P.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: subterfuge

Good question:

broad (adj.)
Old English brad “wide, not narrow,” also “flat, open, extended,” from Proto-Germanic *braidi- (source also of Old Frisian bred, Old Norse breiðr, Dutch breed, German breit, Gothic brouþs), which is of unknown origin. Not found outside Germanic languages. There is no clear distinction in sense from wide. Of day or daylight, late 14c.; of speech or accents, 1530s. Related: Broadly; broadness.
broad (n.)
c. 1300, “breadth” (obsolete), from broad (adj.). Sense of “shallow, reedy lake formed by the expansion of a river over a flat surface” is a Norfolk dialect word from 1650s. Meaning “the broad part” of anything is by 1741.

Slang sense of “woman” is by 1911, perhaps suggestive of broad hips, but it also might trace to American English abroadwife, word for a woman (often a slave) away from her husband. Earliest use of the slang word suggests immorality or coarse, low-class women. Because of this negative association, and the rise of women’s athletics, the track and field broad jump (1863) was changed to the long jump c. 1967.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/broad


34 posted on 11/10/2018 9:05:43 AM PST by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson