You must log in or register to comment.
Etymology of the word gargoyle, for anyone else who read the linked list in its entirety and found that gargoyle is not on it:
https://www.etymonline.com/word/gargoyle
Rather than the sound of water, it seems to refer to the throat of the statue through which water passes, which sounds like gargle in several languages. Several sites say it’s an onomatopoeia for the statue gargling water but I can’t find that reference specifically, except that the root words for gargle from Latin might be an onomatopoeia for the sound of gargling.
If the statue is purely ornamental without the function for water to pass through it, it’s called a grotesque, chimera, or boss, so obviously I’m going to call them all bosses now.
Garganta means throat in Spanish, so I’ve learnt something about the origins of that word now :)
The weird thing about the origin of the word sandwich is that everyone had been eating them for centuries, but one day the Earl of Sandwich orders one and they say, “it takes too long to say bread-and-meat, let’s just call it a sandwich.”
By the way, no one knows for sure the etymology of ‘squid.’
not true, squid come from squyrde
Totally interesting until you look it up to find there’s no truth to it.
It’s kinda true, but less exciting than the person made it sound.
gargoyle (n.)
“grotesque carved waterspout,” connected to the gutter of a building to throw down water clear of the wall … from Old French gargole
gargle (v.)
1520s, from French gargouiller “to gurgle, bubble” (14c.), from Old French gargole “throat, waterspout”
Those are two different words though. If the OP had said they were related I wouldn’t protest because they likely are. But they stated it as a fact, which we do not know to be true.
In french, gargoyle is “gargouille”. The verb to gargle is “gargouiller”. Used in a sentence, the word is the exact same. “Il se gargouille”/“He gargles”.
I don’t know, to me it seems pretty clear they’re related.
Related yes, “comes from” (the claim made here) we don’t know that for sure
