WORDS: Once upon a time, a spinster was a woman who spun thread for a living, a villain was a farmhand or peasant and “nice” meant foolish or gullible.

Words change over time, as does everything else. We found a list of “Fascinating Etymology Adventures: Words with Surprising Origins” online from a site called English with Teacher Aubrey.

Salary, for example, came from the Latin salarium, originally meaning money paid to Roman soldiers for salt. The word “girl” was originally gender-neutral, meaning a young child of either sex.

This one is a bit scary to think about. The word “nightmare” is from the Old English mare, a mythological demon that sat, walked or rode on people’s chests during sleep. Yikes. 

The word “goodbye” is said to be a contraction of “God be with ye.” Lately, we’ve heard younger folks saying “Toodles” as a form of goodbye. The origin of that is thought to be a shortened and Anglicized version of the French phrase “à tout à l’heure,” which translates to “see you later” or “until the hour.”

This one is strange, but kind of cute. The word “muscle” comes from the Latin musculus, or little mouse, because flexed muscles were thought to look like mice under the skin.

Awful used to be a good thing, something worthy of awe. Nowadays, that’s awesome — but that had a different meaning in the past, too. Originally, “awesome” meant “filled with awe,” but awe itself had a different meaning then, often implying fear or dread.

It’s really no wonder that English is difficult to learn as a second language. It’s and its are thoroughly tough, and other examples — like which witch is which — can be found throughout the lexicon.